Connect Your Email and Applications to Fax

The sequence is short from the sender's point of view, and it asks nothing of the recipient. They receive a fax on a fax number, exactly as before, which is usually the reason the channel is still in use.

Sending a fax

Email, then the LABUSA fax service, then the fax network, then the recipient.

1. An authorized user prepares an email and attaches the document.
2. The destination fax number is written in the addressing format defined for the service.
3. LABUSA eFaaS accepts and processes the submission.
4. The document is converted to a fax compatible transmission.
5. The service delivers it to the destination fax endpoint.
6. Delivery status can be returned to the user, or to the workflow that started it.

Receiving a fax

Incoming fax, then the LABUSA fax service, then the email inbox.

1. LABUSA receives the fax on your assigned fax number.
2. The transmission is converted into a digital document.
3. The document is routed to the designated email recipient or recipients.

Read a fuller explanation of how electronic fax works over email

You do not have to move your email service to LABUSA in order to use LABUSA fax services. Email-to-Fax and Fax-to-Email can be integrated with supported customer email environments, and LABUSA can also provide hosted email where an organization wants email and fax from one provider.

Supported environments commonly include Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and other hosted or on premises email platforms. Integration is evaluated against your email platform and your requirements rather than assumed, so tell us what you run.

What organizations typically use it for:

• Individual fax numbers for named staff.
• Department fax numbers.
• Shared fax destinations.
• Incoming faxes delivered to designated mailboxes.
• Sending documents directly from email.
• Replacing traditional fax machines.
• Supporting remote employees on the same terms as office staff.
• Supporting several offices.
• Centralizing fax services across the organization.

Email is the interface. It is not a security control, and it confers no regulatory status on the documents it carries. Email-to-fax security considerations sets out what actually decides the outcome.

LABUSA API-to-Fax services allow software applications and automated workflows to communicate directly with the LABUSA fax network. The originating application starts the fax as part of its own process, rather than asking a person to move a document between systems.

LABUSA provides an API that can be integrated with compatible applications and workflows. The application types that commonly need it include:

• CRM, meaning customer relationship management systems.
• EHR, meaning electronic health record systems.
• ERP, meaning enterprise resource planning systems.
• Document management systems.
• Case management systems.
• Workflow systems.
• Web applications and customer portals.
• Custom business applications.

Which of those applies to you, and what the integration looks like, is settled after we look at your environment. Electronic fax APIs explained covers the general shape.

Business application, then the LABUSA fax API, then the fax network, then the recipient fax.

1. Your application creates or selects the document. It originates in the CRM, EHR, ERP, document management platform, scanner workflow, or custom application you already use.
2. The application sends the fax request to LABUSA. It submits the document and the transmission information through the LABUSA fax API.
3. LABUSA processes the fax. The service accepts the request and submits the document through the LABUSA fax network.
4. The application receives status information. Transmission status can be returned to the originating system, so the business application can record it or act on it.

The last step is the one that repays attention. A status returned to a system that does nothing with it is a status nobody sees. Routed back into the workflow that caused the fax, it becomes part of a record somebody will look at. Read how LABUSA builds these integrations

API integration earns its keep when fax is one step inside a larger business process.

Create the document, submit the fax, receive the status, update the record.

Instead of asking employees to carry a document between systems by hand, fax transmission becomes part of the application's own workflow. That can remove manual steps while leaving the originating CRM, EHR, ERP, or business application as the system of record.

You can use one approach or combine several. Staff may send and receive routine faxes through email while a CRM, EHR, copier workflow, or custom application submits automated fax transactions through the API.

• Your staff mainly send and receive faxes by hand. Email-to-Fax and Fax-to-Email.
• You already have an email platform. Connect your supported existing email environment to LABUSA Fax.
• You want LABUSA to provide email as well. LABUSA hosted email together with fax.
• Your CRM, EHR, ERP, portal, or custom application needs to send faxes. The LABUSA fax API.
• You use multifunction copiers and scanners as part of document workflows. API or workflow based scanner integration.
• You have both user driven and automated fax requirements. Combine Email-to-Fax, Fax-to-Email, and API integration.

Many organizations still exchange documents with agencies, healthcare providers, schools, businesses, and legacy systems that depend on fax. Modernizing fax does not have to mean eliminating it.

LABUSA lets you keep fax connectivity while reducing your dependence on fax machines, locally managed fax servers, and dedicated analog lines. For an organization with machines in several buildings, that is usually what carries the argument: a device per location means a line per location, a maintenance obligation per location, and somebody on each site who knows how it works. Cloud fax compared with on premise fax sets out the trade.