FAQs

How can I get API credentials?

After your user has been created and activated (via Settings>Manage Users), you can then set the api credentials.  Here is a link to a support article that will guide you through that:  Generating API Credentials

How do I set up api users to manage faxing most efficiently?
The easiest way to Send/Receive is to set up one api user and assign that api user to all fax lines for both inbound and outbound. 

  • Outbound If you include the optional parameter called "SenderFaxNumber" in your call, the fax will go out from the fax number specified.  If you leave off this parameter the fax will go out from the user's Default fax number. (This is set from Settings>Manage Users) in the web portal.
  • Inbound When you retrieve your faxes you will receive information for all faxes for that particular organization. You can then parse out the faxes by fax number and/or use the Faxid's to download the faxes.
  • Note: If you intend to have users log into the Sfax web portal to view and manage their faxes this method will not work.  You will need to set up your customers/users as completely separate sub-organizations.  Please contact support to assist with this as you you will need to have the Org admin role.

Can I log into a portal to view faxes?
Yes.  If you are assigned to the same fax number(s) as the api user, you will be able to see the activity.  You just log in from the link on the homepage.

How do I manage Cover Pages?  (Note.  If you do NOT want to include a cover page, use CoverPageName=none or leave off the parameter)
You have 2 options with cover pages:

  1. Your application. You can generate the cover pages from your application and then pass to us as part of the fax document. If you are going this route and not using our system cover pages at all, you can leave out the cover page Optionalparams in the Sendfax service method.
  2. Our service. To do this you can either pass the actual cover page name or you can pass the name “Default” which will automatically include the api user's default cover page. If you wish to set or change the default cover page simply log into the web portal, select Settings, Manage Users, and update the Default cover page field for the api user. NOTE: If you would like us to upload a custom cover page for you (including your logo, your own confidentiality statement, etc.) you can send that over via a support request and we’ll get that added to your account. You can then set a custom cover page as the default cover page for the api users, or you can pass the actual name of the cover page.  If you wish to leave off the cover page you can pass "None" as the cover page name. 

Do you have retries?
Yes, our default retry setting is 6 attempts with a 3 minute interval in between attempts.  You have the ability to override these using the MaxAttempts and AttemptInterval OptionalParams which you can find in the Service Methods under SendFax.

Errors
Prior to authentication, our error codes are purposefully vague in order to prevent "assisting" potential hackers but here are some common causes for errors: Your IP address is outside of the US/Canada, you are not passing the proper credentials, you have left off a required parameter, or your URL is not encoded.  

Fax Render Errors
You may receive this error for several reasons. It may be that your file is too large or too complex to be processed, or the system is currently unavailable and should be tried again later.

Support
For outbound faxing, please store both the SendFaxQueueId (provided when the request is accepted) and OutboundFaxId (provided when the transmission has completed).   If you have a question about a fax in progress, we will need the SendFaxQueueId.  If you have a question about a fax that has completed (successful and failed) we will need the OutboundFaxId.
For inbound faxing we'll just need the InboundFaxId for the particular fax that you are inquiring about.