CPC112592 226.DOC The Complete Communicator for DOS Explanation of How It Works This document is provided as "For your information" and as is. Neither The Complete PC nor any of it's employees assume any responsibility for consequences resulting from the use of the following information nor can the Complete PC technical support provide help with this document. The user of said information does so at his or her own risk. The Complete Communicator incorporates into a single board the functions of a deluxe voice answering machine, a Group III fax and a 2400 baud data modem on a single phone line. The Communicator software consists of two portions, a background that functions to answer when a call comes in, and a foreground that consists of the menus that allow you control over the unit's configuration and retrieval of incoming faxes and voice messages. Without employing a call detection device of any sort, the Communicator allows the caller to determine the type of call to be handled within the constraints that you as the "System Administrator" set. The Complete Communicator starts with loading its background module. This module, once loaded into RAM, will actively answer the telephone for you and direct your call as needed. Since it is background, you are free to use the computer for other functions such as word-processing, spreadsheet, database management... basically anything that does not use the data modem. (Applications that use the data modem require special considerations to be discussed later.) The Complete Communicator can easily answer a telephone call while you are working on a word processing document for example. The foreground program allows you access to configuration as well as incoming voice message and fax retrieval. When you execute CCOM at the DOS prompt, you will be presented with a main menu that gives you a choice of Answering Machine, fax, and System Configuration. Choosing the Answering Machine will then give another list of functions. You will be given options to configure how your answering machine will take a voice call. You can record your own greeting, set the maximum length for incoming messages, and set outgoing messages for delivery. Unlike conventional answering machines, the Complete Communicator allows you to create a list of different greetings and a choice of which to activate as the one presented to the caller. In addition, further down on the menu, you'll see a listing for Mailbox Control. This function provides you with the ability to create more than one mailbox. You can actually create an entire list of voice mailboxes to allow you to provide several people with personal voice mailboxes to use as they please. When a caller dials into the Complete Communicator's default voice mailbox, he has the ability to choose to access other mailboxes. For example, let's say that you want to provide your entire family of six with individual personal mailboxes. The default voice greeting may say: Thank you for call the Smith residence. If you wish to leave a message for Jon, press 2; for Maria press 3; for Sonia press 4; for Hans press 5; for Pierre press 6; for Simon press 7. You can create a mailbox for each person, and it would be done under Mailbox Control in the Answering Machine Main Menu. You would be able to set a personal greeting for each mailbox as well as answering parameters. Each person could password protect their mailbox so that only they would be able to retrieve messages. Of course you, as system administrator, would have overall control of any feature. With the ability to create up to 999 mailboxes, the possibilities are practically endless. You may also find that there will be a listing for fax and Modem mailboxes in the Mailbox Control screen. What these represent are in a way the access channels between voice, fax, and data modem. This may become clearer after a discussion of how the Complete Communicator answers the phone. There are four settings for the Complete Communicator's answering mode. You can set it to answer as Voice, Fax, Modem, or Never. When you set it to answer the phone as Voice, the Communicator answers the incoming call with the default mailbox's active greeting. During the play of that greeting, the caller may choose other mailboxes simply by punching in the mailbox number providing the mailbox in question exists. Unless you have provided the caller with a list of mailboxes either through listing them verbally in your default greeting or having previously informed the caller, the caller will not know which mailboxes are available. Once another mailbox is chosen, the greeting for that next mailbox will begin to play. After the greeting has play out in full, the caller will hear a beep prompting him to leave his message. At the completion of his message, he will be given the opportunity to review, re-record, cancel, or accept and exit. If the Complete Communicator is set up to answer the phone as fax, the caller will still hear a greeting. The default is as follows: "This line is normally used for facsimiles. Press any button on your touch tone phone if you wish to leave a voice message." A fax machine sending a fax won't care about the greeting. They will wait for the fax acknowledgment tone to be issued by the Complete Communicator to connect, or time out in the process of waiting for the tone. The Complete Communicator will issue the fax tone if no button on the touch tone phone is pressed by the caller. If the caller presses a button on the touch tone phone, he will cause the Complete Communicator to switch over to voice mode. If the Complete Communicator is set to answer the phone as modem, the caller will get a message similar to the one for fax. At the completion of the play of the modem greeting, control of the call be passed to the modem in the Complete Communicator. The greetings for the fax and Modem are configurable by you. This is why there are mailboxes to the Mailbox Control screen for the fax and the Modem. The Mailbox Control screen in the Answering Machine is where you would go to personalize the greetings for the fax and Modem. The fax portion of the Complete Communicator offers a few features that you will not find in a conventional Group III fax. faxes can be processed, i.e. create, view, send, and receive completely on the computer itself, thus saving paper. If you choose to print the fax, it's printed on a dot matrix or laser printer, and thus saves on the cost of fax paper. faxes, whether a single fax or multiple faxes to an individual are treated as single "jobs". As such, you may set up several "jobs" to be sent out, and then go off to work on another application, e.g. word processing, while the faxes go out on their way. For example, let's say that there is a person to whom you will be sending to that needs information from three different sources: a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and a database application (procedures to be discussed later). From each application will come a fax. The three resulting faxes will be listed together to go out to the single recipient and will be sent in one phone call. This constitutes a single fax "job". On the flip side. let's say the same information needed to go out to three people. The fax "job" would still be seen as one, but would consist of three separate phone calls, rather than just one. For your convenience, the fax provides you with a phone book and grouping within it that will allow you to store up to 999 frequently called names and numbers. Recipients may be selected from this retained list. Scheduling large batches of faxes to go out during non peak time will probably also save you money on phone calls. And if a particular fax out fails to complete itself, the Complete Communicator will ferry the send up to 16 times, at whatever interval you choose within its range. In the case of a batch of faxes, the Communicator will proceed through the entire list of fax jobs for a single pass. After the pass, it goes through another pass to retry the ones that failed for whatever reason (line was busy, ring no answer, etc.), and will continue the cycle until the fax is sent or the designated number of retries has been reached. Sending faxes from an application that is running on your computer is fine, but then you'll run into paper documents containing written information. These documents can be brought into the Complete Communicator through a page scanner. The fax programming provides the user with the ability to scan documents with our Complete Page Scanner, HP ScanJet, or one that does true emulation of the HP ScanJet into the fax itself. Once scanned, the image of the document automatically gets processed by the Complete Communicator as a fax. Fax creation can come from one of four sources: from within the cover sheet and memo creation provisions from within the Complete Communicator software, scanned documents. conversions from either ASCII or one of the common paint formats such as PC Paintbrush's PCX. or print to file based on the Epson FX80 printer personality or the IBM Proprinter personality. The Complete Communicator provides you with the ability to Create cover sheets to send as individual fax jobs or as the top attachment to other fax material. When invoked, you are presented with a template to complete with the information to show on the cover sheet. There is a space provided to include a short text message at the bottom. Documents brought in through scanning are automatically stored as fax image information. so it most closely simulates conventional faxing... scan and send in relatively one step. The conversion process of the Complete Communicator is automatically able to convert ASCII information into fax by default. The Send fax screen of the software provides you with a place to directly name ASCII files as faxes to go out. Once the recipient's phone number is included for immediate send and you initiate it a fax "job" to process, the conversion from ASCII to fax image starts. Once the conversion has been completed. the fax will dial out to the recipient. For paint formats such as PCX. a Special Features menu provides the conversion options that will allow you to convert said PCX file into fax image. The Special Features menu also offers you the ability to convert from fax format out to paint formats. This comes in handy for those received fax pictures that you may want to touch up. The final and probably most used function of the conversion process is to transform printer format data (the data that normally streams out to the printer to make it generate the output) into fax image. The printer personality our conversion process understands is the Epson FX80. Where this becomes important is how the Complete Communicator prepares documents in other applications for faxing. With the quantity of different applications on the market today, trying to create a conversion routine that will comply with all the different data file formats would be impossible. However, regardless of what application you are using, almost all share one thing in common. They all print. Since Epson FX80 is a printer option that should be common to all application that print, it seems to be an ideal choice of personalities to use. To generate the output file that will contain this printer data format, you can usually choose to print to file in your application. This file is carried into the fax by you in the same way an ASCII file would since the conversion is also automatic. For applications that do not allow you to print to file. you can usually use the "hotkey" functions to accomplish the same. Once invoked, you will be given a cover sheet to complete. You will provide recipient information at this screen. After completing the cover sheet you would issue the command to print as you would to a printer. The hotkey process performs the capture of the printer format dam for you, as well as automatically passing this data to fax for conversion once you exit your application. Modem calls are the least complex out of the three functions of the Complete Communicator. Modem functions are handled by a separate piece of software. We include Bitcom with the product, but you are free to use whatever Modem software you choose. The principle behind operating the Modem for the Complete Communicator is quite simple. Think of it as a separate but connected part of the Complete Communicator. When a call comes in and is answered by the Complete Communicator, the caller will always be met by a voice. However the configuration for answer is set up, i.e. Fax, Voice, or Modem, once the voice has passed and the call is actually passed to the Modem, either by default or by caller selection, the Complete Communicator lets the Modem have the call and drops itself out of the controlling position. At that point it's up to the active Modem software to handle the call. The modem then acts as a conventional modem. If there is no modem program actively running in the foreground ready to answer, the caller would be dropped, and the Communicator recycles to handle the next call. If the Complete Communicator background program is not executed, then the Complete Communicator board will behave as just a Modem.