I am trying to automate the process of downloading files from a SharePoint site. These files are SharePoint list items where the columns are the metadata that we configure when uploading. When downloading, I’ll have to filter them by column first. My problem is that, after filtering the list items using For Each List Item activity, I’m not getting any webURL which I can use for Get File/Folder activity.
Any way I can extract URLs and download SharePoint List Items attachments?
To automate the process of downloading SharePoint List Item attachments in UiPath, here’s a step-by-step approach to extract the URLs and download the files:
Prerequisites:
Make sure you have the UiPath.MicrosoftOffice365.Activities package installed in your project.
Ensure that you have the necessary permissions to access and download the attachments from the SharePoint site.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Authenticate with SharePoint
Use the “Office 365 Scope” activity to authenticate to your SharePoint site.
Provide the necessary credentials like Client ID and Tenant ID.
Step 2: Filter SharePoint List Items
Use the “Get List Items” activity to retrieve the SharePoint list items.
You can specify a filter in the “Filter” property to narrow down the items you want (e.g., filtering by a specific column).
Step 3: Loop Through the List Items
Use a “For Each” loop to iterate through the list of items retrieved in Step 2.
Step 4: Extract the Attachment URLs
To get the URLs of the attachments, each SharePoint list item will have an attachments field (if attachments exist). Use the “Get List Item Attachments” activity inside the loop to extract the attachments for each item.
The “Get List Item Attachments” activity returns a list of attachment URLs. Use the “For Each” loop to iterate over the returned attachments and get their URLs.
Example:
For Each item In listItems
' Get Attachments for each SharePoint list item
attachmentUrls = GetListItemAttachments(item) ' Assuming this is a method to get the URLs for attachments
For Each url In attachmentUrls
' Download each attachment
DownloadFile(url)
End For
End For
Step 5: Download Attachments Using URL
Once you have the attachment URLs, you can use the “Download File” activity to download each file. You can specify the URL (from the previous step) and the download destination path.
Example:
DownloadFile(url, destinationPath)
Example Workflow:
Office 365 Scope: Authenticate to SharePoint.
Get List Items: Retrieve SharePoint list items based on your filter.
For Each (list items): Loop through each SharePoint list item.
Get List Item Attachments: Get the attachment URLs for each list item.
For Each (attachment URLs): Loop through the URLs and download each attachment using “Download File”.
Handling the Metadata (Columns):
If you need to extract specific metadata (columns) before downloading the attachments, you can do so inside the loop:
metadata = item("ColumnName").ToString
If metadata.Equals("Condition") Then
' Proceed to get attachments
End If
Final Thoughts:
Make sure to handle cases where some items might not have attachments.
Ensure that the URLs you retrieve are direct links to the attachments (not just SharePoint URLs).
If necessary, you can use REST APIs to directly access more advanced SharePoint operations like downloading attachments using the GetFile API if the default activities don’t meet your needs.
That was greate explaination, I am also trying to achieve the same but I do not see Get List Item Attachments activity in the mentioned package by you, can you please confirm if this is removed or provide an alternate solution like API step by step guide please?