Question

Email a report with Workflow

Workflow

Updated January 24, 2024

asked on February 23, 2017

I have read several different articles, but have yet to find a solid answer to my question.

I know how to do a search and export list contents and I love this functionality. What I want to do is basically that, except on a regular basis, automatically, to certain people. I don't want to ask users to go into Laserfiche and perform a search and get the data that way. I want to be able to schedule a workflow to run the query and email out the report.

I know how to do most of that. Where I'm stuck is after I run the query, how do I go from there to emailing a report? I would ideally like the report in Excel/CSV. How do I write those results to CSV? Do I write the results to a database? Then I would have to query the database and write to CSV somehow, and then get workflow to find my CSV to attach to the email. It seems easier to just write to CSV, but then how do I program Workflow to find the CSV? Any assistance would be appreciated.

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Answer

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replied on February 23, 2017 • Show version history

After you search your repository iterate over each entry and put each one into a mutli-value token. You can then email this token. Then set your workflow up on a schedule.

Be sure to use multi-value

and when you email use the Apply Index and separate function as desired.
This dialog box will come up when you use the email editor button and select a token.

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Replies

replied on April 4, 2017 • Show version history

Hi.

This article had all-in-one of what I was trying to accomplish. Thanks.

https://www.laserfiche.com/solutionexchange/amplify-your-workflows-with-html

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replied on February 23, 2017

If your search query is returning multiple rows add those into your token with commas for CSV.
Then in the email editor separate each line by a Line Break. Then you will have a nice CSV list.

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replied on February 23, 2017

Thank you, Andrew!

It's not an Excel attachment, but this is an excellent start.

What I'm looking to do returns hundreds of rows, so just putting it in the body of the email doesn't allow sorting and filtering and fun things like that, but this is definitely a step in the right direction, and I think I can work with this.

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replied on April 4, 2017 • Show version history

Good afternoon all,

I'm trying to accomplish the same thing as Danielle Reich; and would even settle for just a report by email. Right now I have pretty much exactly the same activities; except that I can't seem to make the results compile into just one email.

I'm following the steps provided and I only get one result in the body. If I add the Email activity into the loop I get 4 emails, one with each result.

How can keep the Email Activity out, so that I only get one email with the 4 results?

I'm trying to continue with this task from another one where Travis Dammann assisted me tremendously.

Thanks in advance.

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View 2 previous replies

replied on April 5, 2017

Hi Raul,

There are a few things to check to make sure you get all of the results.

Below is my workflow that I got to at least deliver all of the results in the body of the email.

First I search for the results I want. Then I create a token placeholder - make sure you allow it to be a multi-value token!

Then I do a for each of my results, retrieve field values and then I assign each of those field values to the token I created by selecting Modify my existing token. Make sure that you Append to Existing Values - otherwise each For Each activity is just going to overwrite what you had before.

Then I put my email outside of the For Each loop, and pull in the token, with all values separated by a line break.

Currently, it's not that pretty, but it's a start for eventually creating reports. Hope that helps get you on the right track.

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replied on April 5, 2017

Thanks Danielle, that's exactly what we wanted. I followed the tutorial on the URL below; which also helped in generating HTML tables on the email. Thanks for the great illustrations; it helps tremendously.

Sample URL: https://www.laserfiche.com/solutionexchange/amplify-your-workflows-with-html

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replied on April 5, 2017

Wow, that's awesome! Thank you for the tip. I will read up on that.

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replied on December 18, 2023

I know this is an old post, but was anyone ever able to figure out how to get that report token to email as an Excel attachment? Thanks!

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replied on January 24, 2024

The link below is broken but I found the article mentioned here: https://www.laserfiche.com/resources/blog/amplify-your-workflows-with-html/

I hope this helps!

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