Include downloaded PDF from URL as attachment

[Griff]

If I create a materials table where each material has a URL that points to a publicly available PDF file (information about the product), is it going to be possible for me to create an Action/Behaviour that will download the PDF and attach it to an email? Or will it only work if I save the PDF to my own data source?

I note that the explanation for other attachments (https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/3337387-email-other-attachments) only mentions files residing in certain places and there doesn’t appear to be any indication that a publicly available URL is a possible location. Is that right, or have I missed something?

[TyAlevizos · Accepted solution]

That’s correct: it’s only for your latter case where you have “saved the PDF” to your own data source. I just tested a workflow whereby I tried to attach a (public) Canon Camera PDF any time I edited a record in AppSheet, and the workflow fails with this error:

"Errors": "Error: Workflow attachment file 'http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/7/0300025957/19/dpp-4-12-20-w-im-en.pdf' not found in Table Folder due to: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.. Error: Workflow attachment file 'http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/7/0300025957/19/dpp-4-12-20-w-im-en.pdf' not found in Application Definition Folder '/appsheet/data/ProductManuals-1125877' due to: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found..",

I would imagine this is quite intended behavior, otherwise AppSheet could be used as a web crawler or content retrieval engine, which I think is not its intended purpose. Hope this helps to clarify!

[Griff]

Thanks for the confirmation. your suggested reason makes sense. I can easily download the documents I need and save in my Google cloud space but it would have been safer to get from the public domain because I would have been more likely to get the most up to date document.

Thanks again.

Rob