How to print an attachment from a SharePoint list via PowerAutomate

Brass Contributor

I have a PowerApp that has a SharePoint list as a data source. One of the options in the PowerApp is to create a notification letter for a person with a parking violation. With the click of a button, it updates a SharePoint list item with today's date as the notification. When the notification date changes, a PowerAutomate workflow kicks off to create a PDF document with merged fields from the SharePoint list. I then save this PDF file as a file attachment to the SharePoint list. In the end, each time we notify the violator of their parking ticket, it will add another attachment to the SharePoint list so we can account for each time we send them a letter. What I would also like the flow do is print the newly attached PDF document within the workflow. Sure, we can wait until the item is attached to the list, but I don't want the extra step to click the attachment. Any ideas?

5 Replies

Hi @Annette1101 , if by 'print' you mean to physically print the PDF to a local printer then I would recommend you consider introducing Power Automate Desktop to your workflow. That would allow the automated printing to a local device.

 

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@Annette1101 Once you generate a PDF file in power automate flow, you can notify violator using an email notification.

 

You can attach PDF file to email notification as an attachment: 

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Violator can view/save/print attachments sent via email notification.


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Yes, I mean physically print the PDF document that is attached to the SharePoint list from the actions of the flow. I am not familiar with Power Automate Desktop but did check it out. It appears if I want to run a flow built with PAD in my current workflow, a premium connector license is needed. Is that true?

Hi @Annette1101, if you're using the Flow to create the PDF and you don't have a third party PDF creator installed you can use 'Microsoft Print to PDF' from inside PAD. If you want to create a PDF using a cloud based Flow then a third party connector will likely be needed. Printing to a local device doesn't need any special connectors, but you would need a PDF reader installed, like Adobe Reader or similar.

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@jonlake This seems to be the way to go. With PAD, do I need to pass through a variable of the URL to the document attached to the SharePoint list from the flow? I am still confused how PAD and PowerAutomate integrate.