Using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET), you need only add a "Web Reference" to a NET SatisFAXtion server to begin sending and receiving faxes, accessing server queues, and monitoring server activity with NSSOAP.  The NSSOAP API is installed with NET SatisFAXtion and is available once the fax server is loaded.  A NET SatisFAXtion API license must be purchased to use the NSSOAP API.

Accessing the NSSOAP Interface

The default URL to the NSSOAP interface is:

   http://<fax_server>/WebServices/nssoap.asmx

For example:

   http://faxserver:60/WebServices/nssoap.asmx

You can open that URL in a web browser to see the entire NSSOAP interface available on your fax server, complete with XML examples for each method.  This can be very useful if you are developing your SOAP client without using Visual Studio or any high-level development tool.

Through this URL, VS.NET will import the classes and enums necessary to access the NSSOAP API. The main interface is accessed through a class named NSSOAP. The following C# sample (simplified for brevity) demonstrates retrieving port information from a fax server:

using MyNamespace.NSSoapTest;

namespace MyNamespace {
public class MyForm : System.Windows.Forms.Form
  {
  public void ShowPortCount()
    {
    NSSOAP ns = new NSSOAP();
    ns.Url = "http://faxserver/webservices/nssoap.asmx";

    GET_PORTS_RESULT gpr = ns.get_ports("supervisor","");

    if (gpr.status_num == STATUS_NUM.NoError)
      MessageBox.Show("There are " + gpr.ports.Length + " fax ports");
    else    
      MessageBox.Show(gpr.status);
    }
  }
}

With the NSSOAP API you can:

• Send fax and e-mail messages (send_message) 
• Reschedule messages in the fax server send queue (reschedule_message)
• Examine the contents of fax server queues (get_message_q and get_message)
• Retrieve fax message content from the fax server (get_message_content)
• Forward received messages to other fax server users (copy_message)
• Abort active inbound or outbound messages (abort_message)
• Delete messages from any fax server queue (delete_message)
• Get fax port status and configuration settings (get_ports)
• Get the fax server user list (get_users)

All NSSOAP methods require at least two input parameters, a user name and password, that should be set to the fax server user account associated with the method being called.  Fax server users can access, modify and delete their messages on the fax server, whereas fax server supervisors can access, modify and delete messages belonging to any user.

The response from an NSSOAP method is a unique class that contains a result code and string, and any additional information specific to that method.