How to set up OSFAX to send an email to more than one address

If you are using OSFAX to send out PDF documents such as customer statements, sometimes the customer will ask you to send them to more than one person. This posting explains how you can tell OSFAX to do this.

The best method is that the customer sets up a generic address that you send to (such as 'accounts @company.com.au') and then sets up their own email server so that any mail received at this address is sent to the required people. If they set it up internally, the customer does not need to advise you when staff change jobs, leave or go on holiday.

Assuming the customer cannot or does not want to make changes at their end, you can do it within OSFAX using the OSFAX browser. If you have administration privileges in FAX/Assist, you can go to the OSFAX browser from the FAX/Assist administration menu. If not, you can open the OSFAX browser using the following command as superuser at the shell prompt:
    $FAXDIR/bin/osfax

In this example, we will use the email address 'multi@company.com.au' within Pronto, and tell OSFAX to send emails instead to both 'fred.smith@company.com.au' and 'mary.jones@company.com.au'.

In the OSFAX browser, use the arrow keys to move the cursor down to the line beginning with the word 'redirect:', then move to the right to put the cursor on the word 'ADD' and press the enter key. This will bring up a new screen like this:

Enter the email address that Pronto will print on the document to be sent in the 'from:' field, and the email addresses you really want to send to in the 'to:' field, separated by semi-colons. Our example would look like this:

Note that it is essential that you do not include the address that you entered in the 'from:' field in the list of addresses in the 'to:' field as OSFAX will not be able to handle the circular reference.

You may want to add a comment (such as the PRONTO customer code) in the 'comment:' field. Then use the arrow keys to move the cursor down to the word 'Add' at the bottom left of the screen, and press the enter key. (Note that the 'insert' key can be used as a shortcut to jump down to the bottom of the screen.)

To exit the OSFAX browser, press the 'home' key a couple of times. If you have more entries to add, arrow up to the top line of the screen, put the cursor on the word 'redirect' and press the enter key, then move the cursor to the word 'Add' on the second line and press the enter key again.

This procedure, using the 'redirect' option in OSFAX, may also be used to handle the situation where an email address is longer than the 40 characters that FAX/Assist allows to be manually entered or the 60 characters that Pronto allows.

Note that this procedure should not be used to send a single document to a large list of destinations, such as a letter to all customers or suppliers. The OSFAX 'numberLst' option can be used for this instead, and it allows a list of destinations to be loaded from a file.