How to export or send Powerapps record to Word template?

[ChrisChong]

Goodday All,

I am looking for ideas of how to send (export) data from a PowerApps record to a Word document. Any suggestions?

I have an App in which data are recorded. I would then like to OnSelect of a button, send or export certain data to a Word document. I would apprreciate any recommendations. Is this even possible without employing Flow?  I am sure this would be useful to many others as well.

Thanking all of you for considering.

Chris

[RandyHayes]

@ChrisChong 

There is no way currently to do this without the use of Flow (that I've encountered).  

There are a couple of options within Flow and PowerApps.

1) The Easy - Use the Plumsail Connector Works great. Is easy to implement. VERY flexible (in terms of template fill-in) Comes at a cost (subscription service)

2) The Challenging - Incorporate the use of Templates within a Content Type in SharePoint (or directly in the library) and create a document based on the Content Type and fill in the column values to populate the template.  No additional cost. Difficult to implement. Limited ability to fill-in the template. 

And a 3rd option that is relatively new on the scene is the Word Online (Business) connector.  Also claims to be able to complete a document from a Template.  I've seen no other information on it to provide details on the claim.  However, it is a Premium connector - so, all users would need a P1 license or above.

Hope this helps shed some light on the choices.

[PaulD1]

Hi @RandyHayes 

Do you have experience with the Plumsail connector?

I want to output a report, similar in concept to an Order Header / Order Detail. There will be a flixible number of Order Detail lines. I'd like to populate a Word template, to take advantage of 'Keep with Next', 'Keep Together' paragraph and table formatting to ensure presentable pagination.

Just wanted to check if you know whether the Plumail connector is capable of handling a variable number of repeating records in the body of th template? I've looked at the Word connector and it doesn't seem to do repeating sections.

[RandyHayes]

@PaulD1 

Yes, the Plumsail connector is very flexible and can accept records and tables worth of items.

We use the connector for Word and Excel creation and it works well.  The Template is defined differently than a standard Word template, but it's much more flexible.

In reference to my posting - we started with solution #2 and it was painful.  Templates needed to be maintained at the Document Library level and if more than one was needed, then at the Content Type level.  In order to get the template to fill-in, it took a lot of work in Flow to assign the proper column values.  

With Plumsail, we simply had a Template library, PowerApps "picked" the proper Template name and that, along with a payload of JSON to Flow and we had our document created.  Tweaks to the template were easy to do since it was just a regular document in a document library.  Overall...Highly recommend it!

Plumsail Documents will work with DOCX, XLSX and HTML Templates.

It will generate any of the above plus PDF and can also be used to manipulate PDF files (merge, split, convert, etc.).

I also found their documentation and demos to be very well done and spot-on.

Some specifics to check out:

Defining templates with Plumsail.

Specifically - tables with Plumsail.

Also in the subscription are several Actions that can be taken besides just creating docs from templates.

They have pretty decent licensing prices and, when we put it side-by-side to the amount of work needed for the other options, it was well worth it.

I haven't looked at the Word (Business) Connector yet, but it seems pretty pale in comparison.  And, it requires all users of it to be P1 or above.  Plumsail charges by the document created and it is not a per user license.

They also have other subscriptions for things like super-pumped Flow actions and a slew of other products that are not necessarily Flow or PowerApps specific.

[PaulD1]

Thanks @RandyHayes - looks like this could be the solution I'm look for - checking it out now...

[mbrocchi1]

Hi Chris,

I know this is a relatively old post but as people may still be looking at responses to your question I thought I would jump in with my own thoughts. In my example (link provided below) I demonstrate step by step precisely how to export from Power Apps to a Word document. To answer your other question, yes it does require the use of Power Automate but I take you through the entire process and don't worry it pretty easy to follow!

https://youtu.be/tyDU9bxA0L0 

[PaulD1]

In the end we didn't go the Plumsail route as the client did not want want the ongoing cost (I think about $0.10 per Document created in our scenario). Instead I built a function hosted in Azure which monitors an Azure blob storage container. When a JSON file is saved to the container the function fires.

The function uses free Open XML libraries - it opens Word 'Templates' (also stored in the Azure Storage) and merges them with the JSON data and then outputs a Word docx file (which we then convert to a PDF by saving to OneDrive and using the OneDrive convert step in Flow).

It handles repeating data / hierarchical structures by using a separate Word template for each level of the hierarchy and copying each merged template back to the top level document - e.g.

Sales Report

- Customer 1

-- Sale 1A

--- Product X

--- Product Y

-- Sale 1B

--- Product X

--- Product Y

- Customer 2

-- Sale 2A

--- Product X

--- Product Y

-- Sale 2B

--- Product X

--- Product Y

Pros: Cost - very cheap (the storage and compute comes to a few cents a month). No need for premium connectors. Supports repeating/hierarchical structures. Relatively easy to amend the templates.

Cons: Initial effort to set up and host / maintain (not citizen developer level).

Can't share code as it is IP of the companies involved, but if anyone is interested I could do a demo vid with enough detail to get others started.

[dellywitter]

Hi PaulD1, seems like an interesting solution, would be great if you can share more about the merge process?