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Fax Automation

The Opero Fax app can be configured to automatically send faxes. The options for fax automation are listed below.

  1. Automate Faxing by Creating a Sent Fax Record
  2. Integrate Faxing with Document Generation Apps
  3. Automate Faxing Based on Attachments (Legacy Method)

In order to ensure your users have the permissions they need for faxing, review the Opero Fax Basic Configuration article. Similarly, if you have integrated with Opero Documents, we advise that you review the Opero Documents Basic Configuration article

Automate Faxing by Creating a Sent Fax Record

The recommended method to automate sending a fax is by creating a Sent Fax record using Flow or Apex. See article Sent Fax Object and Fields for detailed information about each field on the Sent Fax object. Listed below are the basic fields required in order to create a Sent Fax record based on your cover sheet needs (no cover sheet, standard cover sheet, custom cover sheet, external coversheet).

No Cover Sheet

Configuration details for Sent Fax record when sending a fax without a cover sheet. The Coversheet Feature Should be disabled. To disable, go to the Fax Configuration Tab>Cover page>Cover Page Settings. Then, select “Disable Coversheet Feature” checkbox.

  • Attachment ID: Set this field to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of the first Attachment/File you are faxing.
  • Fax Number: Set to recipient’s fax number.
  • Organization Fax Number: set to your org’s fax number.
  • Send Date: Set this to dynamically populate with the current date/time.
  • Status: “Sending”
  • Subject: Add a value here to give your fax a subject.

Standard Cover Sheet

  • Attachment ID: Leave this field blank.
  • Attachment ID2: Set this to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of the first Attachment/File you are faxing.
  • Cover Sheet : “Standard”
  • Parent ID: Set this to the record Id of the object that you are faxing to (typically the record that triggered the automation or a related record Id). On the Standard coversheet, the “Fax To:” field will equal the Parent ID Object.Name. For example, If you are faxing an Account record, Parent ID = $Record>Account ID.
  • Fax Number: Set to recipient’s fax number.
  • Organization Fax Number: Set to your org’s fax number.
  • Send Date: Set this to dynamically populate with the current date/time.
  • Status = “Generating Cover Sheet”
  • Subject: Add a value here to give your fax a subject.

Custom Cover Sheet

  • Attachment ID: Leave this field blank.
  • Attachment ID2: Set this to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of the first Attachment/File you are faxing.
  • Cover Sheet : “Custom”.
  • Cover Sheet Template: Set this to the Document Action you will use to generate the coversheet in this format: “GDT-000000”
  • Fax Number: Set to recipient’s fax number.
  • Organization Fax Number: set to your org’s fax number.
  • Send Date: Set this to dynamically populate with the current date/time.
  • Status: “Generating Cover Sheet”
  • Subject: Add a value here to give your fax a subject.

External Cover Sheet

The External cover sheet option allows the user to configure their own cover sheet generating process which they can execute based on the sent fax record being created and the status of “generating cover sheet”.

  • Attachment ID: Set this to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of your own cover sheet.
  • Attachment ID2: Set this to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of the first Attachment/File you are faxing.
  • Cover Sheet : “External”
  • Cover Sheet Template: If using the custom cover sheet feature, set this to the Document Action you will use to generate the coversheet.
  • Fax Number: Set to recipient’s fax number.
  • Organization Fax Number: set to your org’s fax number.
  • Send Date: Set this to dynamically populate with the current date/time.
  • Status: “Generating Cover Sheet”
  • Subject: Add a value here to give your fax a subject.

Next Steps

Once the Sent Fax record is created, you can add additional actions to support your business processes. For example, once the Sent Fax record is created and the fax is sent, update a custom status field on the related record’s base object to equal “Sent”.

Integrate Faxing with Document Generation Apps

If you’d like to integrate Opero Documents with Opero Fax, follow these steps:

  1. Create a Flow or Apex trigger that creates a Sent Fax record when a Document Request record is created where Document Request.Status equals “Complete” and Document Request.Attachment Id is not null. You may also want to add a third criteria based Document Request.Document Action field.
  2. Configure the Flow to query the Content Document record (using the value in Document Request.Attachment Id). This is the Attachment or File you will be faxing.
  3. Next, assign the latest Content Document ID or Content Version ID as the value of the Attachment ID or Attachment ID2 field on the Sent Fax record. This depends on whether you are using the coversheet feature and, if yes, which type of cover sheet (standard or custom).
    1. If not using the cover sheet feature, assign the latest Content Document ID or Content Version ID as the value of the Attachment ID field on the Sent Fax record.
    1. If using the standard cover sheet feature, leave the Attachment ID field blank. Assign the latest Content Document ID or Content Version ID as the value of the Attachment ID2 field on the Sent Fax record.
    1. If using the custom cover sheet feature, which allows you to generate a coversheet using Opero Documents, leave the Attachment ID field blank. Set Attachment ID2 to the Content Document ID or Content Version ID of the first Attachment or File you are faxing. Set Cover Sheet to “Custom”. Set the Cover Sheet Template to the Document Action you will use to generate the cover sheet.

In order to integrate faxing with a different document generation app, check which options you have to capture the file Id or create a Flow to find it when created.

Automate Faxing Based on Attachments (Legacy Method)

The fax automation tool provided by Opero Fax is based on the Attachment insert and filename. You can configure the app to automatically fax a PDF that gets attached to any record. When generating PDFs with Opero Documents, the default format of generated documents is Files. So if you’d like to use this feature, you will need to follow the steps in this article to change the format to Attachments.

If combining with a document generation tool, it would allow you to customize the fax with Salesforce merge data and then Opero Fax would then pick up the attachment and create a Sent Fax record. See steps below for configuring auto faxing:

  1. Check User Permissions
    1. Make sure that all Opero Fax users have the “Send Outbound Messages” permission (under “System Permissions”) enabled for their individual profile or with a permission set.
    2. If this is not enabled, they will not be able to send outbound faxes with the Opero Fax automation feature; however, they will still be able to send faxes manually.
  2. Open the App and go to the Fax Configuration tab
    1. In Lightning go to the app launcher and search for the tab. In Classic go to “All Tabs”.
  3. Create a New Field Setting
    1. In the Field Setting section, click New.
  4. Complete Section: Edit Field Setting 
    1. Setting Name: Give this setting a name that provides some description to you like “Auto Send Fax to Contact”.  It could be much more specific if configuring for a certain type of process or document.  Overall, the Setting Name is just for informational purposes.
    2. Select Organization Fax Number: Select the Object the Fax is related to.
    3. Object: Select the lookup field on the Sent Fax object that provides the relationship to that object.
    4. Sent Fax Relationship: Select the lookup field on the Received Fax object that provides the relationship to that object.
    5. Received Fax Relationship: Indicate the location of the “send to” Fax Number.  You can reference a field in the object or the fax attachment filename.
    6. Fax Number: Indicate how the app will locate the fax number, either a field reference or attachment filename.
      • Field Reference: If the fax number is in a field, select “In Object Field” then select this field.
      • Attachment Filename: If the fax number is in the attachment filename, then select this field and indicate where to find the fax number in the filename using “before” or “after” and the specific text.
        • For example, you could have a process that creates an attachment with the filename “FAX-837-738-3827.pdf” where “FAX-” is always consistent and the number after is always the fax number.  Then you can select “after” and put in “FAX-” in the text field.
    7. Autosend When Fax Attachment Filename: Indicate what the filename of the attachment related to this object should contain in order to auto send the fax. Use the matching criteria of “starts with”, “contains”, or “ends with” and input the specific text.
      • For example, the file could always start with the word “Fax”.  Once you attach a PDF file to the object record with this same pattern (in this example, filename starting with the word “Fax”) the attachment will be auto faxed to the specified recipient.
  5. Complete Section: Barcode Configurator 
    1. Barcodes are optional. They allow the recipient of the fax to send a response, which will be associated with the original record.
    2. Indicate the placement of the barcode on your fax document that will remain in the same place each time a fax is sent with this field setting. If you would like to preview how the barcodes would look on an example PDF image, you can select a PDF file from your documents or upload one using the lookup glass next to Fax PDF File.
    3. The first barcode is in the default position.
    4. To move and resize, you can click on the barcode and drag, or use the controls on the left.
    5. Add another barcode to the document by clicking the Add Barcode button.  This is optional but recommended.  Sometimes when faxes come back an area of the fax gets distorted or has a hair in it.  Having two barcodes on the page increases the chance of successfully reading one.

You are now ready to automate faxing based on attachments. Upon inserting a new Attachment, the Opero Fax trigger will automatically read the filename and, if it matches the rule, will automatically create a Sent Fax record and fax the attachment.