Add attachment to approval email from sharepoint item

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am having some trouble setting up an attachment from a new SharePoint list item to be sent with an approval email. I see attachment content under advanced options but cannot find the output for an attachment.

I would like to do it from the attach file action in the SharePoint ribbon rather than upload it to the site documents and add a lookup field.

Does anyone know if this is possible? If so, how is it done?

Thanks,
Jesse

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi Jesse,

I tried for this and I found that, when I send an approval email from SharePoint list item, though I attached a file to the item, in the Flow ”when a new item was created, send approval email”, there was no output for the attachment file, I can only select list columns except Attachments column in the Attachments name and Attachment Content.

 

While if I uploaded a  file to the Document library, in the flow “when a file was created, send approval email”, I can select the “file name” and “file content” of the file I uploaded in the Attachment name and Attachment content. Below is a screenshot of Attachment property in my flow:

Currently, as a workaround, I suggest you use a library to store the data instead of a list.

For this issue, you could also submit an idea at “Flow Ideas”:
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Flow-Ideas/idb-p/FlowIdeas.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[JussiPalo]

SharePoint list item supports multiple attachments per list item while document library supports individual documents with additional fields, so suggested workaround doesn't work in all cases 😞

[v-yamao-msft]

Hi JussiPalo,

Could you tell me how do you want to use flow? Let me see if I could help you.

Best regards,
Mabel Mao

[JussiPalo]

Hi,

Our use case was that user could fill out some order or support ticket type of form. As there is requirement to be able to attach multiple attachments, we cannot use SharePoint document library, but use custom list that allows attaching multiple attachments per one SPListItem.

Upon saving the SPListItem with multiple attachments, Flow would trigger AND in simplest scenario send out email with subset of the SPListItem fields as well as the attachments as normal email attachments. 

I know that "correct" answer nowadays would be to not send out the attachments in the email, but to include link in the email pointing to the SPListItem and saying "Please click here to see the attachments", but we cannot assume email recipients have access (at all) to the source SharePoint system.

Now we will need to implement Azure WebJob to which Flow sends in the newly created SPListItem's ID (would love to send absolute URL of the item, but you only have access to SPListItem ID in flow, which is another thing), and that WebJob fetches the SPListItem + attachments, and does all the work.

[abm]

Hi @JussiPalo,

Using the current flow SharePoint templates there is no way to iterate the attachments from a SharePoint List. You need a custom API for retrieving attachment from ListItem.

Thanks

[stillNikki]

I was 'finally' able to add a link to the document to my email generated from Flow.  In Sharepoint,  I used the "Insert" > "Upload file" as I entered my comments in my multi-line comment field in my list.  You have to click in the comments field when adding an item to your list to get this menu.  You can do this instead of using Attach File

I'd rather have it attach the file directly to the email...

[Sai]

I am also working with this sharepoint and microsoft flow. Can you please elaborate your answer.
Please post the flow screenshot here so that I can work on my assignment.
Thank you

[Anonymous]

Mabel,

My name is Gagan Kaith. I have been trying to do the same thing as well but in vain. Could you please help me with this process? Did you find a more direct way of uploading the files on list itself?