Has anyone attempted to download PDF files from Salesforce?

[uriah]

We have many PDF files sitting in Salesforce that we want to use Alteryx to download. I have the Salesforce API which I used to pull a url from the SF object and then use the download tool to execute the download - but it pulls a weird version of the PDF instead of its binary code. 

What I attached is the result from the download tool and the result from manually downloading the same file. 

I understand that demanding that alteryx attempt to grab something from a protected URL might not be the way. Would login credentials 

make a difference in this some how?
Has anyone done this before? If the download tool or any method of downloading doesn't work, how else could we do this?

[apathetichell]

As mentioned the last time you posted this - you need to hit the API endpoint. you must provide credentials. Salesforce will not let you hit this URL because that would be a huge safety risk. What object are they in? Is it a custom object?

[uriah]

i apologize -  i wanted to ask in a more articulate way thanks to your info. Yes this is a custom object with a path.so we would need to grab the record ids and the pdf document when the records are at a certain stage.

[uriah]

i apologize -  i wanted to ask in a more articulate way thanks to your info. Yes this is a custom object with a path.so we would need to grab the record ids and the pdf document when the records are at a certain stage.

[apathetichell]

I think this is really a trailblazer community question - here's some older discussion on that topic - https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54V00007T4EzsSAF if you have an api endpoint - you can authenticate it and Alteryx will allow you to donwload a binary file (whether pdf or other) - but the endpoint/backend are all reliant upon SFDC and not really something this forum can help you with.

[uriah]

great idea. thanks for the link and your help.

[BrandonB]

@uriah have you tried using the Salesforce Input tool rather than hitting a URL with the download tool? I haven't pulled an attachment from SalesForce myself, but I believe there is an attachments table that you can browse to with the SalesForce Input tool and then I would think it either downloads the attachment as a PDF or as a base64 encoded version. 

Like @apathetichell mentioned above, there is a bit more to it than just hitting the endpoint with a download tool. The reason I am suggesting the SalesForce input tool is because it already handles the authentication element and allows you to query tables that your user account has access to. 

[uriah]

@BrandonB Thank you for reading and replying.

Yes I am using the Salesforce Input tool provided by the Alteryx Marketplace. I was attempting to use it to grab the attachment ID and create urls with them. I was unaware of the attachments object.. ill explore it and attempt to grab the data more directly from that authentication.