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Anonymous
Not applicable

Download link for CDS attachments

Hi,

 

I have an entity with attachments (stored in notes).

For now I've been using the attachments control in a gallery to download each file but this has limitations on styling and layout.

Instead I've created a new gallery which shows the name and thumbnail for each attachment and now I want to see if there is a way to recreate the download feature. I know there is a download function but I need a URL for each file.

 

Does anyone know how I can get/build a URL which will download a specific file stored in CDS attachments?

 

Thanks

Sam

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
EricRegnier
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

The Download function requires a url to a remote file. The API call returns the body as base 64 string and a filename. It's not the actual URL to a file that the Download function expects. I'm not sure you can stream the file on a canvas app directly. Not ideal, but you'll have to call some kind of web service (like Azure Function) to get the file or another option is with Power Automate that saves the file to a temp location and returns in the response the location of the file.

If those two options are not feasible, you might have to rethink about saving the files directly in CDS (which is quite costly btw) and store those in blob storage or SharePoint for example.

Hope this clarifies a little....

View solution in original post

7 REPLIES 7
EricRegnier
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hi @Anonymous,

You can download the note's attachment via the CDS Rest API directly from the annotation (note) entity. Here's the documentation:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/developer/common-data-service/reference/entities/annotation

For example: https://<org>.api.crm.dynamics.com/api/data/v9.1/annotations(b06b2a59-9e23-4e6b-9dd7-98510563b6fa)?$select=documentbody,filename

 

Hope this helps!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi @EricRegnier 

 

Thanks for this! I've managed to use the link to successfully pull the info of the file but when I click the URL it's only showing me the JSON response of the API call in the browser. The question is how do I make this link actually download the file to my PC?

 

2020-05-20_0949.png

 

This is what I have now from the app. Again the info it returns is correct but it just opens up a browser window with the response and doesn't actually save the file.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

Sam

EricRegnier
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

The Download function requires a url to a remote file. The API call returns the body as base 64 string and a filename. It's not the actual URL to a file that the Download function expects. I'm not sure you can stream the file on a canvas app directly. Not ideal, but you'll have to call some kind of web service (like Azure Function) to get the file or another option is with Power Automate that saves the file to a temp location and returns in the response the location of the file.

If those two options are not feasible, you might have to rethink about saving the files directly in CDS (which is quite costly btw) and store those in blob storage or SharePoint for example.

Hope this clarifies a little....

Anonymous
Not applicable

Got it.

 

Thanks for the advise, I think I might reconsider where I save these files. Just wanted everything to be neatly stored in CDS but seems like it might not be the best option.

 

Thanks

Sam

Anonymous
Not applicable

@Anonymous - I'm at the exact same situation right now, found any way around this to download the file?

Appreciate any help.

sudipm
Employee
Employee

Here is a solution to get download links to notes attachment in dynamics 365

 

Create a new web resource called Download.html with the following code

 

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title></title>
    <script src="/WebResources/jquery3.6.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="/WebResources/ClientGlobalContext.js.aspx" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <script type="module">
        async function DownloadFile() {
            console.log("Downloading file..")
            let urlParams = new URLSearchParams(window.top.location.search);
            if (urlParams.has("data")) {

                let annotId = urlParams.get("data");
                console.log("Note ID : ", annotId);

                let openOptions = { openMode: 2 };
                let fileOptions = {};

                try {
                    let r = await (await fetch(`/api/data/v9.2/annotations(${annotId})?$select=documentbody,filename,mimetype,filesize`)).json();
                    fileOptions = {
                        fileContent: r.documentbody,
                        fileName: r.filename,
                        mimeType: r.mimetype,
                        fileSize: r.filesize
                    };

                    console.log(r);
                }
                catch (ex1) {
                    await window.top.Xrm.Navigation.openErrorDialog({ message: "File Not Found!" });
                    window.top.close();
                }
                try {
                    await window.top.Xrm.Navigation.openFile(fileOptions, openOptions);
                    console.log("File downloaded successfully");
                    
                }
                catch (ex2) {
                    window.top.Xrm.Navigation.openErrorDialog({ message: "Error downloading file, please contact the Attachment owner" });
                }
            }
            else {
                window.top.close();
            }
        }

        $(document).ready(async function () {
            await DownloadFile();
        });
    </script>
</body>
</html>

 

 

Now to generate direct download links to a note attachment from say another web resource or external application simply call the above resource with the annotation/note id as follows

 

<a href="https://{orgname}.crm.dynamics.com/WebResources/{publishername}_Download.html?data={ANNOTATIONID}">Download File</>

 

Replace values in the above anchor link as needed.

@Anonymous , if I understand your situation,  you are storing files in dataverse and are trying to create a download link for them, you are trying to get the content and not the metadata. 
if that is the case please have a look here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/developer/data-platform/file-attributes?tabs=webapi 

additionally,  you can use the api call GetFileSasUrl to get a Link to the file directly.  Note that link is only good for 30min. 

hope that helps

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