Add the same email attachment to every automated response
I have a Form that is submitted and an automation to respond with the same attachments to every form requestor. I realize I cannot add just a add a PDF straight to that field in the automation for emails. SO My question is how do I somehow get it to pull up and attach the same document to every form request? I am wondering also what it means to add an attachment via Table and Field Id’s , can i reference an attachment in a certain record? : These are the options on what I can add as an email attachment.
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Hi, You can create a table for file(s). Then, add a record with your file. Suppose, primary field in ‘Name’, second field is ‘File’ In your automation, add step with ‘Update record’ and point to that record with some dummy update (like write “ “ in a field ‘Name’) For this, you need record ID, you can see it in a link when expanding the record, it’s ‘recXXXxxxXXX’ like reclolwLFghjPHg9j?blocks=hide. Or you can add formula field with RECORD_ID() Use this ID to ‘hardcode’ record ID in Update step. Doesn’t matter where you put this step, it can be anywhere before the ‘Send mail’ After that, you can use file from this record in your mail. Just select the proper ‘Update record’ in the left side on your step option.
First, you would need to store your attachment in one particular record. Ideally, this record would be in a separate table that is dedicated to storing attachments.
Then, you have a few different options:
In your automation, you could perform a “find records” action to search for that one particular record, then refer to the attachment field from that found record to insert into the attachment section of your email.
or
You can create a fake “global field” in your base, which will automatically attach the same attachment from the attachment table to every record in your original table using a lookup field. I give step-by-step instructions on this technique in this Airtable podcast episode.
or
If your attachment is an image file (not a PDF file nor other type of document), you can publicly host the image on the web and use HTML code to embed the image into the message body. I discuss how to do this in this thread.
One of my favorite ways of doing this is to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable. Fillout si 100% free, and it lets you automatically generate a PDF file as soon as a form is submitted. It will even customize that PDF file for you with information that was typed up on the form, so the PDF will be a fully-customized PDF for the person who filled out the form. I show how to accomplish this in this video: Using Fillout to create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.
@ScottWorld answer is spot on. Just as an additional comment, please note that as shown under Base Schema on your screenshot, that will only show you table and field IDs (but not any value for any record for such tables or fields).
That means that you would not be able to get the attachment directly from Base Schema. You could however have a script that will fetch the table, fetch the field, fetch a specific record, and get the attachment. But that does not seem needed as you can build smth similar without writing code.
Ah yes, scripting is another option that you can use here, too! I don’t know scripting myself, so I often forget about scripting. Thanks, @Mike_AutomaticN!
I’d recommend creating a new table to store the attachments / images and then sending out the attachment via a lookup field. For your context, you’d trigger the automation when the form gets submitted, and the automation would find the appropriate attachment record, link them together, and then send the email out in the same automation
However in that case, the “signature” would be attached rather than rendered on the email itself. Right @ScottWorld @TheTimeSavingCo?
Using Airtable’s attachment url is also not an option, as it is temporal.
@Mike_AutomaticN That’s a great point… that option would only work if you attach the signature field to the attachment field, not if you embed it via HTML in the message.
@ScottWorld Thanks so much for that, Opt 1 was the ticket and @Mike_AutomaticN thanks for the details. It should have been obvious but I focus on Dynamic variables in my automation and so Static Lookup was not on my mind. @TheTimeSavingCo thanks for the mock up! Luckily I already have a “Digital Assets Library” table and added these PDF’s too it, and it works perfect! . I found Airtable in 2020 and have built it out to run/manage my whole mortgage business, a know enough to be dangerous so thanks again all! (this application was for an Open House flyer with a QR Code to my Airtable form so they can get a free report and loan options and me gather a lead.)
Glad you got it resolved with option #1!
By the way, I totally forgot to mention what is quite possibly the most fun way of doing this, so I added it into my original answer above. I’ll post it here as well:
One of my favorite ways of doing this is to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable. Fillout si 100% free, and it lets you automatically generate a PDF file as soon as a form is submitted. It will even customize that PDF file for you with information that was typed up on the form, so the PDF will be a fully-customized PDF for the person who filled out the form.
. I found Airtable in 2020 and have built it out to run/manage my whole mortgage business, a know enough to be dangerous so thanks again all! (this application was for an Open House flyer with a QR Code to my Airtable form so they can get a free report and loan options and me gather a lead.)