Generating & Saving Files

In addition to initiating notifications and PDF delivery from Workflows & Reports, app creators can now automatically schedule, generate & save new PDF , CSV , XML, JSON and ICS files from app data. These newly created files can be saved to your primary data source.

Using filtered triggers (like new or updated data) or scheduled delivery at specific days/times, custom formatted files can be created and saved in the app data source. This makes storing and accessing historical analytics, reports, or data backups much easier than searching email inboxes.

To schedule or trigger new file creation, create a new Workflow or Report, and set your Action as ‘Save File’.

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nimble777
Participant V

This is amazing, thank you Peter!!!

Francios
Participant III

Awesome

Mordan74
Participant III

This is great and we are starting to use it in our apps however there are still a couple of issues for us.

  1. It would be great for the file to be able to be saved to the users local machine since we don’t want to provide access to the app data source. We are using Onedrive and our preference is to not have to set up sharing of folders for particular people.

  2. Would it be possible to create an action that just triggers the workflow without having to rely on data changes? Essentially just a button to start the workflow. I am working around it at the moment. I have created a filter table that users can enter values from the main table and the data change triggers the workflow to create the attachment. It does work however it would be a lot nicer to have a button that I can call, generate report rather than the save function in a form. Maybe there are other ways I havent thought of yet.

hi, for the first point there are currently no ways to save the file locally. You should use external API but that I know are all paid. As for the second point, I recommend you create a yes / no column (called for example Pdf) and an action that changes the state from no to yes. Then associate a workflow that generates the PDF when the column is set to “yes” by saving the file with the name and data that interest you. In my case, at the end of the creation of the pdf file, the workflow returns all the values ​​of the “Pdf” column to “no”. Let me know if I haven’t been clear enough

Mordan74
Participant III

Thanks Indaco85. I actually implemented the yes/no field yesterday and it all works great.
I am trying to get our company to approve the app for use and buy licenses. When that happens the email will be sent to the person that ran the report and there will be a link in the email since these reports are easily more than 15MB.
I have tested it all and it works great.

Kindly help. Email attachment is not sending to my email. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Hi Juwon, if you can share more details here that would be helpful. The most common reason a workflow email/attachment isn’t working is if the template fields aren’t matching your data fields precisely. For example, make sure that your template fields <<[Example Data Column]>> are all matching the column names you have in the connected table(s).

Since I have apps that do not use my login data source (my login is Dropbox but I only use Google drive for App data), it would be useful to be able to specify a data area or even better use the default location set for all the Google sheets in the app

Really important. Thanks @Peter

@Guy_Merlin_Dyangnou and @PocketSurvey are you referring specifically about where to save Workflow generated files, or all app data?

From the Workflow, you should be able to specify a custom storage location (which can be added/customized here: https://www.appsheet.com/Account/Account/Sources).

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hi @peter , i actually understood the principle of your explanation of where the report files are stored. and especially the importance of the fact when searching the attachments from the mail seems more tedious.
Thanks

adehartcal
Participant I

About the field on which the report is triggered (yes/no field), does this need to be an actual column on the table or can it be a virtual column? I’m storing the data to a database and I’d rather not add a new column, if I can avoid it.

Thanks!

It needs to be an actual column; it cannot be a virtual column.

Thanks Steve!

Hi,
I can’t get a bot to create a file (pdf), even though the task is configured properly in the bot and all the other tasks running in the bot perform fine. Any ideas?

Please contact support@appsheet.com for help with this.