Configure Scan to Fax

In this article, it is assumed that the organization using PaperCut Hive already uses a fax provider to convert scans received via email into faxes.

This article provides instructions for how to set up a Scan to Fax Quick Scan by first creating a scan to email Quick Scan. In summary: 

1. Create a data source by importing the address book/phonebook data into PaperCut Hive.
2. Create a Scan to Email Quick Scan with a lookup capture field that points to the imported data source.
3. Configure a Scan to Email Quick Scan action that points to a fax provider’s email destination.

This enables you to scan a document at the MFD and send it as an email to the recipient’s fax email address, which is then converted to a fax.

The way you set up the fax email address differs depending on the fax provider your organization uses.

Scenario 1: An organization always faxes to the same few fax destinations

Scan to fax is not a feature in itself, it’s rather a scenario that can be created by using the rendering of variables from custom capture fields in a Scan to Email Quick Scan action.

Printer brands that support rendering of variables from custom capture fields

Variables rendering is currently supported by these brands:

All brands that support Integrated Scanning .

Hardcode the fax number in the Quick Scan to an email address

In this case, it’s easier to create one Quick Scan action per fax number.

1. In the admin console, go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.
2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Scan to Email.
3. (Optional) Under the Quick Scan Name, type a name for the Quick Scan, for example, Fax to Clinic Name.
4. (Optional) To the left of the Quick Scan name, choose a different icon.
5. Go to the Scan tab > Scan to email > To field. Here you can hardcode the fax number, for example: 99999999999@faxprovider.com where:
   • 99999999999 is the fax number
   • @faxprovider.com is the email domain of the fax provider that your organization uses.
6. Under Input Settings > Original > Visible Options choose the paper sizes relevant to your organization’s region.
7. Click the Default dropdown and choose the default paper size.
8. Review the rest of the settings, such as Resolution, Color, and Format, since these attributes might have an impact on the fax output.
9. Click Save Changes.
10. Test this Quick Scan and check the fax output is what you expect.

Scenario 2: The organization faxes to unpredictable fax numbers - a user can type any fax number at the MFD

To achieve this, create a Quick Scan to email with a text capture field with numeric validation

This suits scenarios where the organization has to send faxes to unpredictable fax numbers. A set of predictable fax numbers is covered in Scenario 3 below.

1. In the admin console, go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.
2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Email.
3. (Optional) Under the Quick Scan Name, type a name for the Quick Scan, for example, Fax to Clinic Name.
4. (Optional) To the left of the Quick Scan name, choose a different icon.
5. In the Scan tab, scroll down to Capture additional data from users and click Add Custom Field.
6. Check User must complete.
7. Complete the following fields:
   • Field Name: type a name like Fax number. This creates the custom variable ${Fax number}, which you’ll use in the scan-to-email To field.
   • Display label: type an instructive label like Input fax number.
   • Field Type: leave it as Text.
   • Default Value: leave it blank.
   • Validation, choose Numeric.
8. Scroll back up to the Scan to email > To field. This is where you’ll combine the fax number input by the user at the MFD, with the hardcoded email domain of the fax provider your organization uses.
9. In the To field text box, replace the default contents with: ${Fax number}@faxprovider.com where @faxprovider.com is the email domain of the fax provider that your organization uses.
10. Under Input Settings > Original > Visible Options choose the paper sizes for your organization’s region.
11. Click the Default dropdown and choose the default paper size.
12. Review the rest of the settings, such as Resolution, Color, and Format, since these attributes might have an impact on the fax output.
13. Click Save Changes.
14. Test this Quick Scan and check the fax output is what you expect.

A less user-friendly alternative

This scenario is less desirable from the user experience point of view, as they’d have to type the full fax destination email address like 99999999999@faxprovider.com every time they scan to that fax destination. This is especially difficult for users because the touch sensitivity on MFD touchscreens can be poor, and some MFDs also make the user alternate between a numeric keyboard and a letters-only keyboard.

This scenario will make the To field editable by the user at the MFD where they can freely type the fax destination email address.

1. On the Scan tab > Scan to email > To field, click on the 🖊️pencil icon and delete the default contents in the To field.
2. Toggle the Allow end-users to send emails only to the following domain(s) to on.
3. Type the fax provider’s email domain, like faxprovider.com .

Note: If you pretype the fax provider email domain in the To field like @faxprovider.com, unlike smartphones, most MFDs don’t let the user insert the typing cursor before a text that’s already typed. They’d have to delete the @faxprovider.com in the To field and type the full email address like 99999999999@faxprovider.com .

Scenario 3: The organization faxes to the same large set of fax numbers, which can be saved in an address book

To achieve this, import an address book to PaperCut Hive, then create a Quick Scan to email with a lookup field that points to the imported data

This scenario is suitable for organizations that fax to a large set of repeatable fax numbers. The numbers can be saved in an address book.

Prepare a data source file

Prepare a CSV or TSV file with the columns that are relevant to your address book.

There’s no template to follow, you just have to follow the “Data source file requirements” shown below.

The file can have a mixture of frontend columns that you want to display to the user at the MFD, as well as columns that will be used by backend processes.

Example 1:

In the example below, you have the Destination name column with values like Hospital Name, another column Fax number, and another column Postal address. When creating the Quick Scan, you can choose to display only the Destination name and Postal Address columns on the MFD lookup search table, and use the Fax number column in the backend, for example, to populate the scan-to-email To field.

Data example 1:

When using this data source in a Quick Scan, a custom variable will be created for each column, for example:

• Destination name will have the variable ${fieldname_Destination name}
• Fax number will have the variable ${fieldname_Fax number}
• Postal address will have the variable ${fieldname_Postal address}

Where fieldname will be the name you’ll give to the scan capture field.

Example 2:

In the example below you have a Fax number column to display on the MFD the formatted fax phone number like 999-9999-9999, and another column Email address with the hardcoded fax email addresses like 99999999999@faxprovider.com , to be used in the backend, like in the scan-to-email’s To field. You can choose to display the Fax number column on the MFD and not display the Email address column, and actually use the variable from the Email address column in the scan-to-email To field.

Data example 2:

When using this data source in a Quick Scan, a custom variable will be created for each column, for example:

• Destination name will have the variable ${fieldname_Destination name}
• Fax number will have the variable ${fieldname_Fax number}
• Email address will have the variable ${fieldname_Email address}

Where fieldname will be the name you’ll give to the scan capture field.

Data source file requirements

Upload a Comma Separated (.CSV) or Tab Separated (.TSV) file.

Supported data format

• The first row specifies the column names.
• Maximum of 10 columns and 10,000 rows.
• All rows have the same number of columns.
• File must be saved with UTF-8 encoding.

Import the data source file into PaperCut Hive

1. In the admin console, go to Data Sources and click Add Data Source.
2. In the Data source name box**,** type a name for your data source, for example, Phonebook. You’ll use this data source name later when you create a Quick Scan with a lookup field.
3. (Optional) Complete the Description box.
4. Either click the Browse link or drag and drop your CSV/TSV file inside the dotted line box.
5. Wait for the upload to finish.
6. Click Process.

The data source will appear as a tile in the Data Sources list. You can click on the tile to see a preview of the imported data.

To update a data source in PaperCut Hive, go to Data Sources > open the data source tile and click Replace and Update File.

Update a data source

If you need to change the data at any time, you can’t edit the data via the PaperCut Hive admin console.

1. Make data updates in the CSV/TSV file.
2. Import the new version into PaperCut Hive to replace the previously imported version.
3. Go to Data Sources, open the data source tile and click Replace and Update File. The data source in PaperCut Hive is updated.

Create a Quick Scan that points to the Data Source just created

1. In the admin console, go to Easy Print & Scan > Integrated Scanning.
2. Click Add Quick Scan and select Scan to Email.
3. (Optional) Under the Quick Scan Name, type a name for the Quick Scan, for example, Scan to fax.
4. (Optional) To the left of the Quick Scan name, choose a different icon.
5. In the Scan tab, scroll down to Capture additional data from users and click Add Custom Field.
6. Check User must complete.
7. Complete the following fields:
   • Field Name: type a name like Recipient.
   • Display label: type an instructive label like Choose a recipient
   • Field Type: choose Data Source Lookup. This will make new fields appear in the layout.
   • Data source: choose the name you gave to your data source when you imported it into PaperCut Hive. In the example above, we named it Phonebook, so Phonebook would appear in the list of data sources.
8. On the table that appears after selecting the data source, you can:
   • Use the drag handles ⠿ to drag and order the columns in the way you want them displayed on the MFD lookup search table.
   • Display Label: Click on the pencil 🖊️ icon to edit the column header to choose how they’ll appear on the MFD lookup search table.
   • Show: Choose up to 4 columns to be displayed on the MFD lookup search table.
   • Metadata: All items are selected by default. If the Quick Scan will be delivering metadata files (you chose file types under the Deliver tab), choose which columns of your data source you want to include in the output metadata files. Otherwise, you can just ignore this Metadata column. Having the checkboxes ☑ ticked or not won’t make any difference. (Exception for Ricoh: If you want to use the auto generated variables from the fields, you must select the checkboxes in this column.)
9. Scroll back up to the Scan to email section > To field. Populate the To field in one of the following ways:
   • Use the column that contains the full email addresses. Use a column variable in the To fieldIf your data source has a column with the full fax destination email addresses, like 99999999999@faxprovider.com , like above in the Data example 2 table, then you can just use the variable of that column, like ${Recipient_Email address} in the To field
   • Assemble the email address by combining the fax number with the email domain. If your data has a column that only contains the fax phone number, like further above in the Data example 1 table, this is where you’ll combine the recipient fax number chosen by the user at the MFD, with the email domain of the fax provider the organization uses. In the To field text box, replace the contents with: ${Recipient_Fax number}@faxprovider.com, where @faxprovider.com is the email domain of the fax provider that the organization uses.
10. Under Input Settings > Original > Visible Options choose the paper sizes for your organization’s region.
11. Click the Default dropdown and choose the default paper size.
12. Review the rest of the settings, such as Resolution, Color, and Format, since these attributes might have an impact on the fax output.
13. Click Save Changes.
14. Test this Quick Scan and check the fax output is what you expect.

Related topics

Configure Integrated Scanning

Integrated Scanning - overview and benefits

Other useful links

• Getting started with Scan to Fax - different types of Scan to Fax connectors and associated experiences.
• Scan to Fax explained - How the PaperCut MF Scan to Fax service works.