Easy Fax Marketing using Hoiio API

Want to fax an important document to a customer but do not have a dedicated fax machine? Don’t worry yet – this tutorial will show you how to send such a fax online with the help of a simple web fax app that I recently created using the Hoiio Fax API. With the help of the app, faxing can be as simple as uploading the document, entering the recipient numbers, and wait for the notification email when the fax has been sent out!

Before we start, you will need to create an app under your Hoiio Developer account and take note of the app ID and access token. If you have not done so, you can create a new Hoiio Developer account here and add a new app under the My Apps menu:

Once created, the app credentials and access tokens can be viewed by clicking on View Keys:

We are now ready to send faxes! Click here to open the online fax app and click on Start Faxing to get started. You will be asked to enter the fax transaction details:

Enter an email address to receive a notification when the fax transaction is completed. Key in your Hoiio app credentials in the App ID and App Secret fields and click Next to proceed:

Now upload the document to fax out – only PDF files up to 2MB are supported. Enter the list of recipients to receive the fax, select the Caller ID to be shown to the recipient and click Next to review the fax transaction details:

If everything is correct, click on Finish to start the fax transaction. You will receive an email with the transaction details and a link to check the transaction status. Depending on the number of pages in the PDF document and the number of recipients, the fax process will take a couple of minutes to complete. When the document has finished faxing , you will receive another email informing you of the fax results. Alternatively, you can also refresh the transaction status page to view the updated status:

From the same page you can view the overall statistics of the fax transaction as well as the status (sent/failed) and the Hoiio transaction reference for every recipient. The online fax application will process up to 8 concurrent faxes per Hoiio application ID so you can be assured that your document will be faxed out as quickly as possible. Also, you do not have to wait until the transaction is completed in order to view the status. The progress will be updated frequently for an ongoing fax transaction and you can simply refresh the status page at any time to see the transaction progress!

That’s it – you have faxed your document online in just a few clicks! If you want to create a similar app, read through the Hoiio Fax API and try the Send Fax API for a start. The above demo fax app is using the Send Fax API to send the documents and the Query Fax Status API with the help of a PHP cron job in order to update the status of ongoing faxes. Feel free to try it out and leave a comment here if you have any suggestions on the web fax app or questions on using the fax API.