Help: Group Forms Attachments saved to SharePoint List--Flow issues

[susanmc]

I have a long Microsoft Form connected to a SharePoint List. The form has an attachments question but it is not required. I'm trying to get the attachments to be added to the list. Also have send email of the form responses and I want the attachments to be added to the email. I have followed several videos on the topic but still having issues. I think creating a variable for the attachments is needed to add the attachments to the email or list but I don't understand how to do this.  Below is the working flow.

Now I'm working on the section if there are attachments to write to list. I have tried these steps:

• Compose to generate JSON from Attachments question
• Parse JSON
• Apply to each Attachment
  • Get file content using path
  • Append to array variable
  • Add Attachment

I get file not found error.

 

[SueB]

Hi @susanmc ,

I doubt that a variable is needed based on an excellent guide from Norm Young, MVP. 

This helps out with the portion to get the Forms attachments to the SharePoint list item as attachments, but not the portion to include the attachments in your email. 

Add attachments from Forms to Microsoft Lists using Power Automate

Let me know if you found it useful.

Thank you for using Microsoft Power Platform Communities!

Sue
Support Engineer
Microsoft Power Platform

If this post helps, then please consider accepting it as the solution to help other members find it more quickly! Have a great day!

[susanmc]

Yes I watched Norm's video. I got the idea from @Reza Dorrani to use the variable so I could add the attachments to the email summary of the responses to a group mailbox. How to save Microsoft Forms Responses & Attachments to SharePoint Lists or Libraries & Send Email - ... I really like Rezi's option to add link in the list that takes you to a document library for the attachments. I also referred to @Jeff Rhodes video - Copying Microsoft Forms Attachments to a SharePoint List Item using Power Automate - YouTube which explains the SharePoint - Get File from Path. However, all of these are not working for me. Since the attachments are not required on the form, I had the Compose and Parse right after Create Item but if there were no attachments it would fail at Compose/Parse. So I added a test if there was an attachments and moved into this loop but the Apply to Each-Attachment is failing. 

[susanmc]

Still waiting on suggestions.

[casinozgirl]

Hello @susanmc 
I actually had the same issue and I have successfully been able to get this working by using the blog provided by Norm: https://normyoung.ca/2020/09/12/add-attachments-from-forms-to-microsoft-lists-using-power-automate/ but with a few tweaks as I wanted to link to files created via a Group Form, and because file upload is not mandatory I added a conditional check before processing the Compose / Parse actions and used SharePoint: Get file content using path (instead of OneDrive) then mapped the path
Please see screenshot examples below:
This is the full flow from start to finishI mapped the path and chose Name from the Parse JSON stepOnce creating my array variable I added this to the email attachmentsYou can see the attachments have been added to the list item aswell

[razor7132]

Hi casinozgirl, et al.,

This worked amazingly except for the Append To Array Variable.

Here are my issues:

1. Creating Append To Array Variable doesn't allow me to name it because the drop-down option is greyed-out
2. Reading another article led me to try Initializing a variable, which seemed to work but power automate put this into an Apply to each control, which throws an error at top of page (see screenshot)
3. Attempting to create the Append To Array variable in conjunction with Initializing a variable throws another error at top of page.

Thoughts on solving this so I can send out emails with attachments?

Thanks.

--Ramon

[casinozgirl]

Hello Ramon,
So first problem is you are initializing the variable at the bottom of your flow. This should be right at the top of your flow under your intial trigger

Then within your condition or Apply to each, which contains your actions like vget file content, add attachments to list item, append to array variable etc. you will have your append to array variable with the values from the actions.

Hope this helps!

[razor7132]

@casinozgirl, thank you for the feedback. It was exactly what I needed. Thank you!

[leaferd]

I was able to successfully follow this thread to add attachments to SharePoint list and add group form attachments to SharePoint library.  However, upon further review, the attachments added to the SharePoint list and library cannot be opened.  It appears each file is corrupted.  Any help to address this would be greatly appreciated!

[leaferd]

Does the form have to be owned by a public group in order for Get File Content Using Path command to add the attachment to SharePoint list and/or library successfully.  Right now my files are corrupt after being added to both SharePoint destinations

[Anonymous]

Hello,

So I literally found out yesterday that this seems to be an issue with how the document is encoded. I have, as yet not worked out a solution to this but as a workaround I simplified the flow, and just copied the file from the group-connected site across to the other site where I wanted it, updated the metadata and then deleted the file from the source location. This works successfully and the files are not corrupted. The only down side being you cannot rename the file (which is why I chose the above approach before as create file allows you to give the file whatever name you want) which means it appends the submitters name on the end of the file name which isn't a huge problem, just annoying. 
If / when I get a chance to look at this in greater detail, if I can find a fix, I will post here.