Word Online (Business) Connector : Populate a Microsoft Word Template

[PhilipGoodfello]

I am trying, without success, to find clear instructions for using the "Word Online (Business) Connector : Populate a Microsoft Word Template" connector.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Philip

[elephant_33]

I believe I solved it; It seems that there is a bug or issue or something if your template is stored in a different libaray than where I was saving the final document. So as long as you get the template and save the file to the same document library in sharepoint, it seemed to open without an error in SharePoint.

[elephant_33]

Okay so I tried again, it seems as if It worked once but then I wasn't able to get it to open again later so I'm not sure what is going on? Seems like created files saved in SharePoint won't open up in word. I tested with a signel non-rich text field on a plain empty template form and no dice. I will keep working on it. 

[Cuong1977]

hi there 

this function is very useful for me. However I have some challenges in using the value again. Meaning how can I either REF, Bookmark or repeat the same value in the wordtemplate? 

Anyone knows this? I have now tried to find a solution, but not found one yet. 

[danmitchell36]

@PhilipGoodfello ,

I wrote a blog post outlining the functionality of the new connectors. Check it out below: 

https://www.dmcinfo.com/latest-thinking/blog/id/9838/overview-of-microsoft-flows-new-word-online-con...

[Cuong1977]

Hi Phillip

Thank you for the quick reply. The adding of the plain text content control I already figured out. What I am asking for is: let’s use your example. I want to use CustomerName more than one place in the word document. How do I do that? If I add another “plain text content” then I also have to populate it in flows, meaning I have to use the “choose dynamic content control” to do so. However I don’t want to do it more than once. What if I need the customer name to be in 20 different places in the document? Then I would need to set it up 20 times in FLOW? I have tired to bookmark or ref the value from CustomerName, but not been able to do so.

[Anonymous]

I am unable to locate the "add as plain text control" 

button, I have added the devloper ribbon and I am on mac? 

Is there something that I am missing? 

[Cuong1977]

in the developer ribbon you see some icons, it is the Aa icon (there are two of these icons). When you hover over the icon, then it will say PLAIN TEXT CONTENT CONTROL. 

that is the one you use

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[Cuong1977]

Ok figured out a solution that works for me. Takes some time to setup, however, when it is done, I can resue for what I need it for and hence can use the content control to auto insert values from a FROM via FLOWs to POPULATE A WORD TEMPLATE and reuse the value several times in the word document. 

TIP: STYLEREF, you just need to make a unique STYLE for each input from FLOW

[Anonymous]

It seems that, this functionatly of making a template is not Avaliable in the Mac version of Word! very frustrating! 

Is it possibel using this method to insert images? 

[GD20]

Having some trouble with output on this--anytime there is a quote inputted in Microsoft forms or when there a multi-option question, I get this: ["Productivity","People"] Is there any way to fix this?

[danmitchell36]

You can try the HTML to Text to convert it. That may work

[GD20]

Thanks for the suggestion--unfortunately that doesn't work. 

[filcole]

I've also hit the nasty little glitch with these connectors. Any html special character, e.g. < > ' " & gets escaped into the html entity. So < becomes &lt; and & becomes &amp;

I would be very interested in anyone who has found a workaround.  Thanks!!

[GD20]

Someone helped me out! Here's the solution

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Using-Flows/Populating-Submissions-from-Microsoft-Forms-with-Wor...

[5bi]

I have been trying to use this function of updating a word template to then output a finished document as it would be a huge time saver for repetitive templates which need filling in.

I have followed all the instructions I've been finding online including on here but I seem to be hitting the same problem over and over when it comes to creating the file after updating the template.

I hit this error:

InvalidTemplate. Unable to process template language expressions in action 'Create_file' inputs at line '1' and column '2564': 'The template language expression 'json(decodeBase64(triggerOutputs().headers['X-MS-APIM-Tokens']))['$connections']['shared_onedriveforbusiness']['connectionId']' cannot be evaluated because property 'shared_onedriveforbusiness' doesn't exist, available properties are 'shared_wordonlinebusiness'. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions for usage details.'.

Anyone else come across this at the point of creating the file?

The word template part seems to complete ok and I can see an output for the file content.

[Anonymous]

@5bi  If you export your flow, and then inport it as NEW, it solves that problem. I don't know why, but it worked for me. Found the solution on another thread somewhere.

[Laskewitz]

@Anonymous save as works as well. That's probably faster! 🙂 

[Mira_Ghaly]

Hello,

Have anyone faced an issue passing an array to the online connector, the Word Template is generating with correct number of repeating rows but not population values inside the repeating control.

[marvalar]

@Laskewitz , thanks mate was having the same issue