The primary Suomi.fi Messages APIs are the REST and POST APIs, but in addition to these, Suomi.fi Messages supports three other APIs through which service functionalities were offered as a rule previously. These old APIs for Suomi.fi Messages include WS, SFTP and SMTP.
When using the older APIs, your connection to Suomi.fi must be implemented through Government ICT Centre Valtori’s Shared Integration Platform (VIA). This differs from the REST API, where direct connections are used to connect to Suomi.fi Messages.
The Web Service (WS) is the most versatile of the old Suomi.fi Messages APIs. The API supports both two-way messaging and directing messages to paper mail.
In the WS API, the connection is formed as a SOAP service over the HTTPS transfer protocol. The API is divided into the mandatory Viranomaispalvelut API and the voluntary Paluukanava API and the operations contained in them.
The SFTP API specialises in sending multiple messages in one batch. The iPost format is used for sending, and it supports the transmission of both electronic and paper messages. If you want to allow the possibility to respond to electronic messages or monitor their status your organisation must introduce another API that supports these functionalities in addition to the SFTP API.
When you use the API, the message material is transferred using the SFTP data transfer protocol as a large file from your organisation’s server to Suomi.fi Messages, where it is stripped down to electronic messages and paper mail.
The SMTP API is the lightest and most affordable of the old Suomi.fi Messages APIs. SMTP supports two-way messaging, but only electronic messages can be sent through SMTP.
When sending messages using the API, they are sent directly from your organisation’s email service. The email address from which messages are sent can be the mailbox of an individual representative of your organisation, an anonymous service address or the domain address for the entire client organisation’s email. Furthermore, the responses from end users can be configured to be delivered to another address than the one from which the messages were sent.
