Automated Email workflow that picks up PDF files in a specified folder as attachment

Question

Hi,

Looking to create a workflow that points to a single folder and sends out separate emails to a specified contact for every pdf file that's dropped into the folder.

Essentially I want to drop pdfs in a shared folder and then run my workflow to send multiple email with each attached pdf.

Mattsantos541 · Answer

Is it possible to do this, attaching the pdf from Google Drive?

danilang · Answer

Hi @jsilavong

Alteryx is designed a data prep and analysis tool.  The functionality of the input and output tools is built around getting data into the workflow and sending out the results.  As such, there's no built in way to set up a listener that will trigger an action when a file is added to a directory.  Indeed, the functionality of the input and output tools is so focused on getting data and sending results, that there isn't even a way to move a file without invoking a DOS command or a python/R script

While you can't set a file listener, you can work around this by scheduling the workflow to run every so often.  The run frequency will be determined by the needs of your users.

* Start the workflow. 
* Read the timestamp that the last workflow run finished
* Get all the pdf's from the folder that have be added or changed since the last time the workflow was finished and email them.  * Use a Directory tool to get a list of all the pdfs and their last modified timestamps. 
* Filter for the ones that have changed 
* pass those to the email tool to use as attachments

* Save the timestamp that this workflow finished

The tricky part here is storing the timestamp in a location that will be accessible to the next run.  Workflows are not stored directly on disk on an Alteryx server.  They're stored in a database, extracted to a staging directory when run and then contents of the staging directory is erased.  So the timestamp needs to be stored somewhere external.  This can be on a shared drive, an external db, etc.

Dan

TheOC · Answer

Sorry, forgot to show functionality of the email tool. You can take the files from a field, rather than looking for a specific file on the machine.

Hope this helps,
TheOC