Technical information

INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION GUIDE
144
Creating the fax envelope
There are two basic underlying methods for creating a fax envelope:
vfx tags
XML-F
It is important to understand that all VSI-FAX integration techniques build on one of these two basic methods.
vfx tags
vfx tags are the most common way to define a fax envelope. These tags are nothing more than name/value pairs that
are passed to the fax server.
Let's consider a simple fax envelope; a local fax number (555-1212) and a simple text file (hello.txt) containing
the message "Hello, World."
The tfn tag specifies the fax number. The actual tag for this fax envelope is:
tfn=555-1212
The fll tag specifies a file attachment. The actual tag for this fax envelope is:
fll=hello.txt
There are many different tags you can use to define the elements of a fax envelope.
XML-F
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a language specifically designed to share data among applications. Within the
entire XML universe are industry-specific specializations. One of these specializations is XML-F. The XML-F
specification comprises eight public document types that can be used to define a fax envelope and communicate with
a fax server.
Delivering the fax envelope
Once you have defined your fax envelope, you must deliver it to the fax server so that it can be imaged into a fax and
sent via one of your fax devices.
Three things are needed to deliver a fax envelope to the fax server:
Fax envelope
Access to the fax server (host name, IP address, Internet domain, email account)
VSI-FAX user account
VSI-FAX provides many different delivery mechanisms. In fact, virtually any integration situation will have access to at
least one of these delivery mechanisms.