RightFax, Fax Services

This page contains information about the RightFax service.

NOTE: RightFax is not supported for the transmission or receipt of sensitive data such as credit card numbers, SSNs, medical records, etc. Additionally, if RightFax is being used to send outgoing transmissions that include personal information (defined as any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person), the person to whom the personal information relates must be in the US at the time the personal information is provided.  For more information regarding sensitive data, see https://security.illinois.edu/sensitive-data.

About Technology Services RightFax

Technology Services RightFax is a server-based fax solution for creating, sending, receiving, and managing faxes directly from a customer’s desktop computer. To access, customers log into the RightFax Web Client. When logging into RightFax, the RightFax User ID must be prepended with "uofi\".

RightFax offers many benefits for customers and management:

  • Allows customers to fax directly from their workstation
  • Incoming faxes can be delivered even while the customer’s workstation is turned off, without the worry of lost faxes due to paper outages or paper jams that might occur with a standalone fax machine
  • Incoming faxes are sent to the recipient’s RightFax account or designated email account, which may be more private than a fax machine used by several people
  • Incoming faxes can be handled electronically, potentially reducing paper use
  • Outgoing faxes can be sent to distribution lists created by the RightFax customer
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) can be used for incoming faxes
  • The monthly recurring charges for a RightFax account are less expensive than the monthly recurring charges for a campus land line (Centrex)

RightFax Account Types

RightFax is available to faculty and staff via their department's request. While there are no one-time charges to create a new account or modify an existing account, there is a recurring charge of $8.00 per month per account which will be billed to the CFOP provided.

There are two types of RightFax accounts available: individually assigned accounts and group-based accounts.

  • An individually assigned RightFax account is associated with a faculty or staff NetID. If the individual moves from one campus department to another, their individually-assigned RightFax account will move with them. To log into an individually assigned RightFax account, the individual would use uofi\NetID as the User Name and their Active Directory password as the password.
  • A group-based account is associated with a campus department's Active Directory entry and is dependent upon the department IT pro's creation of an Active Directory user account, commonly referred to as a resource account. To log into a group-based account, the individual would use uofi\Active Directory account name and password of that Active Directory account as configured by their departmental IT Pro.

Fax Receiving Options

RightFax accounts can be configured such that an incoming fax is received via one of three different options, each of which requires an email address for notifications. Notifications include the receipt of a new fax as well as notifications of status when sending faxes.

  • Fax Mailbox – Incoming faxes will be placed in the fax mailbox only.
  • SMTP – Incoming faxes will be sent as an attachment to a specified email address
    • A mail-enabled email address for faxes to be sent to is required.  The email address used for incoming fax distributions can be different from the email address used for notifications. 
  • Network Drive - Incoming faxes are directed a specific network drive.  Network locations must be formatted in the following UNC format: \\[fully qualified server name]\path\to\folder.  UNC for Distributed File System (DFS) is not permitted.
    • If a new folder is required for each new day, add \~1 to the end of the network path. The path can contain a maximum of 70 characters.
    • Note: Your department's IT pro must give the user "rfaxadmin" read/write access to the network drive destination folder.

RightFax accounts can also be configured for SMTP forwarding in which the incoming fax is forwarded to a predefined University email address, eliminating the need for the user to log into the Fax Mailbox to retrieve.

Storing Faxes

RightFax is to be used for the distribution of faxes and not document storage. Although customers can create folders within the RightFax application for better organization, all incoming and outgoing faxes stored in any RightFax folder will be automatically purged after thirty (30) calendar days.

To prevent loss of data, all RightFax customers should take steps to save fax information that may be needed longer than thirty days elsewhere.

RightFax Help and Guides

RightFax Service and Configuration Change Requests

Please contact your Pinnacle Department Manager to order new services or to modify existing services.

RightFax User Guide

The RightFax User Guide provides information about the Technology Services RightFax web interface as well as creating, sending, and viewing faxes.



KeywordsRightFax, fax, Windows, Pinnacle,   Doc ID47890
OwnerJanet J.GroupUniversity of Illinois Technology Services
Created2015-03-02 17:07:47Updated2023-02-28 10:36:12
SitesUniversity of Illinois System, University of Illinois Technology Services
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