Copying Attachments from an existing Sharepoint List Item to new item

[MatthiasG]

Hi,

I created a custom Sharepoint Form, which should have the feature, to fill all fields with the values from an existing item. After that the user should be able to make some changes to the values and submit the form. At the moment everything works fine except the copying of attachments.

This is the fomula for "items" of the Attachments card:

If(gblLoadItem, LookUp(SPOList, ID=locLoadExistingItem.ID).Attachments, Parent.Default)

 This works to display the attachments in the Form if "gblLoadItem" is set to true.

I'm also able to add more attachments manually. After submitting only the manually added attachments are saved for the new item. I already tried to change the "Value" of the attachments control to Id, Value and AbsoluteUri which obviously didn't help.
My guess for the problem is, how powerapps and the attachments control handle the files.
Is there any approach which could solve my problem?

Thanks in advance,

Matthias 

[Reimi]

You can't copy attachments via attachment control.

You can use flow instead.

[MatthiasG]

OK thanks for the fast reply. I guess I have to come up with something complicated to fulfill my requirements then.

[MatthiasG]

I tried to come up with a solution for this today and I want to share it in case that someone finds this thread and has a similar problem:
The goal was as i described above, to copy an existing item  with its attachmants into a Form, make some changes (including the attachments) and then save as new list item.
First of all I created a flow, which takes following JSON as Input and is triggered by PowerApps:

{
  "oldId": 1,
  "newId": 2,
  "attachments": [
    {
      "id": "FILE_IDENTIFIER1",
      "name": "example.png"
    },
    {
      "id": "FILE_IDENTIFIER2",
      "name": "example2.png"
    }
}

The flow has to parse the JSON Input and then iterate over eacht attachment. In the loop first the content of the current attachment has to be retrieved and then save to the new item.

For the PowerApp I kept everything the same as explained in the initial post.

---

---

I only had to add some stuff to the saving process. In "onSave" of the SharepointIntegration I changed it to the following (atsAttachments is the Attachments controle):

If(gblLoadItem, 
ClearCollect(colAdditionalAts, 
  RenameColumns(
    Filter(atsAttachments.Attachments, ThisRecord.Value in LookUp(SPOList, 
    ID=gblLoadExistingItem.ID).Attachments.Id), 
  "Value", "id", "Name", "name")));
SubmitForm(frmEdit)

 In "onSuccess" you can get the ID of the last submitted item, which we need for the flow. This changes the "onSuccess" formula to the following:

If(gblLoadItem,
ExampleFlow.Run(JSON({oldId: gblLoadExistingItem.ID, newId: Self.LastSubmit.ID, attachments: colAdditionalAts})));
ResetForm(frmEdit); Set(gblLoadAufgabe, false); RequestHide();

That's all I had to do.

[MatthiasG · Accepted solution]

I tried to come up with a solution for this today and I want to share it in case that someone finds this thread and has a similar problem:
The goal was as i described above, to copy an existing item  with its attachmants into a Form, make some changes (including the attachments) and then save as new list item.
First of all I created a flow, which takes following JSON as Input and is triggered by PowerApps:

{
  "oldId": 1,
  "newId": 2,
  "attachments": [
    {
      "id": "FILE_IDENTIFIER1",
      "name": "example.png"
    },
    {
      "id": "FILE_IDENTIFIER2",
      "name": "example2.png"
    }
}

The flow has to parse the JSON Input and then iterate over eacht attachment. In the loop first the content of the current attachment has to be retrieved and then save to the new item.

For the PowerApp I kept everything the same as explained in the initial post.

---

---

I only had to add some stuff to the saving process. In "onSave" of the SharepointIntegration I changed it to the following (atsAttachments is the Attachments controle):

If(gblLoadItem, 
ClearCollect(colAdditionalAts, 
  RenameColumns(
    Filter(atsAttachments.Attachments, ThisRecord.Value in LookUp(SPOList, 
    ID=gblLoadExistingItem.ID).Attachments.Id), 
  "Value", "id", "Name", "name")));
SubmitForm(frmEdit)

 In "onSuccess" you can get the ID of the last submitted item, which we need for the flow. This changes the "onSuccess" formula to the following:

If(gblLoadItem,
ExampleFlow.Run(JSON({oldId: gblLoadExistingItem.ID, newId: Self.LastSubmit.ID, attachments: colAdditionalAts})));
ResetForm(frmEdit); Set(gblLoadAufgabe, false); RequestHide();

That's all I had to do.

[burrisca]

This code wasn't quite working, assuming some things have changed. Here is the updated code:

If(gblLoadItem, 
ClearCollect(colAdditionalAts, 
  RenameColumns(
    Filter(LookUp(SPOList, 
    ID=gblLoadExistingItem.ID).Attachments, Value in atsAttachments.Attachments.Value), 
  "Id", "id", "DisplayName", "name")));
SubmitForm(frmEdit)

[MatthiasG]

Hi burrisca,

thank you for the hint. For me it still works as described above. I think it didn't work for you because there is something different in the attachments control.

[HEATFreight]

How can I do this directly in a canvas app without using Power Automate? Is that possible?

I want to copy the attachments from an item in list A to an existing item in a totally different list, call it list B. It does not seem like PowerApps allows for programmatically copying attachments between items in different SharePoint lists. Can someone confirm if this is true?

See my response in this other thread.

[burrisca]

As far as I knew Power Automate was required, saw your other thread where you got it working. Will be trying that out. Kudos for pushing through!

[HEATFreight]

Figured out how to patch attachments from an item in one list to an item in a DIFFERENT list without using flow. If you need to patch attachments from an item in one SharePoint list to an item in a totally different SharePoint list, you must first remove the Attachments.Id parameter from the attachments collection!

I used the following code:

ClearCollect(colAttachments,AddColumns(DropColumns(colAttachments,"Id"),"Id",""));
ResetForm(AttachmentsForm);
//Alternatives to SubmitForm() commented out
//Patch(SharePointList,LookUp(SharePointList,ID=ThisItem.ID),AttachmentsForm.Updates);
//Patch(SharePointList,{ID:ThisItem.ID},AttachmentsForm.Updates);
SubmitForm(AttachmentsForm);