This article explains how to send fax using a district copy machine and how fax is received by a delegated email account.

Sending a fax message:

Each respective building is equipped with at least one copier that offers fax capability.  When sending fax messages using a copier, the sender must dial the number of the receiving fax machine.

After dialing, the copier is configured to try and reach the recipient fax machine five times.  In other words, if the recipient fax machine does not answer on the first try, a copier will continue to dial the recipient fax number until it reaches five unsuccessful attempts.  Note that during dialing, you will hear the tones as the copier dials a recipient's fax number; you will also hear the fax message tones as the copier sends a message to a recipient.

Receiving a fax message:

Fax messages are received by the school district's phone system.  Fax messages are not received by building copiers and therefore, do not print out as hard copy.  In other words, you will not see fax messages in copier finishing trays ready for pickup.

When any of the school districts' fax numbers are dialed, our phone system receives the message and transcribes this message into an email message.  The email message is then delivered to an email account associated with the fax number dialed.  For instance, when 412-833-5535 is dialed, the senders fax machine sends the fax message to our phone system.  Our phone system transcribes the fax message into an email message, then delivers the message to the [email protected] Gmail account.  Note that this message includes an attached file, which is the fax message received by a respective sender.

School district staff members gain access to fax messages by being delegated access to each respective Gmail account, such as the [email protected] account in the above example.  The technology department delegates access to staff members, which grants access to a particular Gmail account.

When a staff member is delegated access to a fax-related Gmail account, that person receives an invitation to accept delegation.  The invitation comes to this person's email inbox and includes a link for acceptance and a link for not accepting the invitation.  Once the link for accepting delegation is clicked, the staff member now has the ability to view fax messages pertaining to a particular fax-related Gmail account.

To view fax messages, one must open their district-issued Gmail account.  Within Gmail, clicking on the account icon will show all delegated accounts a user can access.  The image below shows where the accounts icon is located in your Gmail window and the accounts that have been delegated to [email protected].