Fax using ExtendAPI

[lhoffman]

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to use a call creation API call to send a fax using a feature code? If so, how would it be done? Appreciate any feedback that I can get as we're trying to integrate a customers ERP system to Switchvox for sending faxes over their T1. Switchvox support suggested I post here for a solution.

[lorsungcu]

Can you explain what you're trying to do a bit more clearly?

[lhoffman]

I want to be able to take a PDF and send it via Switchvox fax. Is this at all possible using a fax feature code followed by an upload of the PDF?

I want to find a way to automate the current 2 step process of printing to the fax printer and then manually logging into the extension mail box to provide the phone number to fax to.

[lorsungcu]

Would being able to email a PDF to an email address with the phone number as the subject work? Most online fax services offer something like this, and building your own is not terribly difficult. I dont know of any way to do it with switchvox, although you can do it with Asterisk. I did create something a while ago that CURL'ed some logs and such from switchvox, and that worked well; I suppose you could do something like that. It would be easier and better in general to use a real fax gateway, though.

[ricmarques]

Les -

I went down this road for a customer about 9 months ago... I ended up using Hylafax with IAXmodem on a separate Asterisk server and peered it to the Switchvox to send faxes over the PRI. One big advantage to this approach is the large number of Hylafax clients, and it's ease of integration. (I'll let you research that part on your own). We just used a standard Hylafax printer client that prompts for the phone number when you print, and you're done.

Now, to answer your question more directly: The main difficulty with using the Switchvox API to send faxes is the fact that it is undocumented, and unsupported (and I was told by someone very high up in the food chain at Digium that this particular API was going to stay that way - undocumented and unsupported). That said, the next problem is how the API call functions:

switchvox.users.fax.send is the API call that is used. The parameters (all are required) for use are:

"account_id": <the account user id number that you wish to send a fax from>
"fax_id": <the id number of the fax you wish to send>
"folder": <the folder that fax exists in>
"phone_number": <the phone number you want to send to>

(I guess I just documented this API for Digium... )

account_id and folder are easy to obtain, but identifying exactly which fax_id and matching it all together, and then providing the phone_number to send it to aren't so easy... it could require just about as much interaction with the user as using the built-in functionality...

[lhoffman]

I found another solution a software called T38FaxVoip. Not only does it have virtual printers you can use but his has a command line sendfax. It can register to the Switchvox and send the fax through using a fax feature code prepended to the fax number. It's a relatively inexpensive program depending on how many virtual modems you license.

Is anyone familiar with this?