Might there be hope for all those documents faxed to SSA District Offices (DOs) and Field Offices (FOs) that currently appear to be forever lost in black holes? The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced the roll out of the Desktop Faxing Proof of Concept (POC).  According to SSA, this is an IT Modernization initiative that resulted from an Engage SSA suggestion submitted by a teleservice center employee.  The Desktop Faxing POC is a collaboration between the Office of Operations and the Office of Systems that will test the ability to send and receive faxes electronically via Microsoft Outlook.  SSA employees will be able to send electronic documents to fax machines via Microsoft Outlook.  Inbound faxes from the public will be converted to a digital image and sent to a special mailbox that will be administered by office management.

SSA notes this e-faxing solution is still a “proof of concept,” which apparently means it is a pilot program. But if it works, SSA claims it will:

• Improve efficiency and convenience by allowing employees to send and receive faxes directly from their desks.
• Reduce the amount of printing by allowing employees to view received faxes from a shared mailbox.
• Automatically convert received faxed documents into digital files, which technicians can easily upload into numerous repositories.
• Allow the ability to fax multiple documents at the same time.
• Send a notification to the sender’s inbox alerting the employee to the status of the sent fax.
• Automatically create a fax coversheet based on the information the employee enters in the Outlook text box.

The rollout schedule for this new initiative is listed below.

Please let us know if desktop faxing sheds light into the black holes currently at SSA FOs.