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Send HIPAA compliant transactional email with Ruby on Rails

Picture of Hoala Greevy Hoala Greevy September 29, 2018

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Send HIPAA compliant transactional email with Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails Gem for Paubox Email API

The Paubox Ruby on Rails Gem can be used ActionMailer in Ruby on Rails. This Gem is the official Ruby on Rails wrapper for the Paubox Email API. The Paubox Email API allows your application to send secure, HIPAA compliant email via Paubox and track deliveries and opens.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'paubox_rails'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install paubox_rails

Getting Paubox Email API Credentials

You will need to have a Paubox account. You can sign up here. Once you have an account, follow the instructions on the Rest API dashboard to verify domain ownership and generate API credentials.

Configuring API Credentials

Create a new file at config/initializers/paubox.rb and add the following.

Paubox.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = ENV['PAUBOX_API_KEY']
  config.api_user = ENV['PAUBOX_API_USER']
end

Keep your API credentials out of version control. Set these environmental variables in a file that's not checked into version control, such as config/application.yml or config/secrets.yml.

Setting ActionMailer Delivery Method

Add the following to the configuration block in config/application.rb or the desired environment config in config/environments (e.g. config/environments/production.rb for production.)

config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :paubox

Usage

Sending Messages with the Ruby Mail Library

Sending via Paubox is easy. Just build a message as normal and set Mail::Paubox as the delivery method.

message = Mail.new do
  from            'you@yourdomain.com'
  to              'someone@somewhere.com'
  subject         'HIPAA compliant email made easy'

  text_part do
    body          'This message will be sent securely by Paubox.'
  end

  html_part do
    content_type  'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
    body          '

This message will be sent securely by Paubox.

' end delivery_method Mail::Paubox end message.deliver! => {"message"=>"Service OK", "sourceTrackingId"=>"2a3c048485aa4cf6"} message.source_tracking_id => "2a3c048485aa4cf6"

Allowing non-TLS message delivery

If you want to send non-PHI mail that does not need to be HIPAA compliant, you can allow the message delivery to take place even if a TLS connection is unavailable. This means a message will not be converted into a secure portal message when a non-TLS connection is encountered.

message = Mail.new do
  from            'you@yourdomain.com'
  to              'someone@somewhere.com'
  subject         'Sending non-PHI'
  body            'This message delivery will not enforce TLS transmission.'

  delivery_method Mail::Paubox
end

message.allow_non_tls = true
message.deliver!

Sending Messages using just the Paubox Email API

You don't need to use Ruby Mail to build and send messages with Paubox.

args = { from: 'you@yourdomain.com',
         to: 'someone@domain.com, someone-else@domain.com',
         cc: ['another@domain.com', 'yet-another@domain.com'],
         bcc: 'bcc-recipient@domain.com',
         reply_to: 'reply-to@yourdomain.com',
         subject: 'Testing!',
         text_content: 'Hello World!',
         html_content: '

Hello World!

' } message = Paubox::Message.new(args) client = Paubox::Client.new client.deliver_mail(message) => {"message"=>"Service OK", "sourceTrackingId"=>"2a3c048485aa4cf6"}

Checking Email Dispositions

client = Paubox::Client.new
email_disposition = client.email_disposition('2a3c048485aa4cf6')

# Get array of email_dispositions. One email_disposition is generated for each recipient.
message_deliveries = email_disposition.message_deliveries
=> [>]

# Inspect a message delivery
delivery = message_deliveries.first

delivery.recipient
=> "test@domain.com"

# Inspect the message delivery status
status = delivery.status

status.delivery_status
=> "delivered"

status.delivery_time
=> Mon, 30 Apr 2018 12:54:19 -0700

# opened_status is only available for single-recipient messages
status.opened_status
=> "opened"

# opened_time is only available for single-recipient messages
status.opened_time
=> Mon, 30 Apr 2018 12:55:19 -0700