Zoho CRM & Creator: Download attachment and upload to Creator file field

: Joel Lipman; Zoho; 11 March 2022; Hits: 5080

What?
A super quick article on how to download an attachment from CRM and upload to a "file upload" field in Creator.

Why?
My use case here is that we are creating a Creator app that will show the attachments on a CRM contact record (and be clickable). The complication here is that the user can use the Creator form to add a new attachment that will eventually be uploaded back to CRM.

How?
At time of print, things have moved on and based on the Zoho official forums, this used to be a daunting task. Not anymore at least from what I've seen.

You could try adding a subform to Creator but have it as a blank form rather than a bidirectional form as in this example, the parent record doesn't yet exist... The cheat here is that we actually want the user to be able to click and download/open the attachments on the CRM record from within the Creator app. As for the add a new attachment, well that's just functionality.

Here's my Creator form (well the part for the attachments):

An attachments section to hold a notes field.
A notes field called "Note_Attachments" (this will display a HTML table with click-to-download files)
A blank subform callled "Attachments" (links to a form called "Documents")

Zoho CRM & Creator: Download attachment and upload to Creator file field: Parent Creator Form

Here's the Creator form to hold the Attachments:

Parent Record (a single line that will be a unique ref to prevent downloading the same record again and again)
Document Name (a single line that will be the name of the file including its extension)
Document (the file upload field)
Downloaded (a picklist with the options "Downloaded" and "Pending Upload")

Zoho CRM & Creator: Download attachment and upload to Creator file field: Document Creator Form

Here's the code for the parent form to download the attachments and upload them to the Creator "Document" form:

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//
// get attachments
v_NoteAttachments = "<table class='jl-table-info jl-table-attachments'>";
m_SortCriteria = Map();
m_SortCriteria.put("sort_by","Created_Time");
m_SortCriteria.put("sort_order","desc");
l_Attachments = zoho.crm.getRelatedRecords("Attachments","Contacts",v_CrmContactID,1,200,m_SortCriteria);
for each  r_Attachment in l_Attachments
{
	if(r_Attachment.get("id") != null)
	{
		v_AttachmentEndpoint = "https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v2/Contacts/" + v_CrmContactID + "/Attachments/" + r_Attachment.get("id");
		r_Download = invokeurl
		[
			url :v_AttachmentEndpoint
			type :GET
			connection:"ab_crm"
		];
		r_Download.setParamName("file");
		r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists = Document[Parent_Record == v_CrmContactID.toString() && Document_Name == r_Attachment.get("File_Name")];
		if(r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists.count() > 0)
		{
			r_NewDocumentRecord = Document[ID == r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists.ID];
			v_DateAdded = r_NewDocumentRecord.Added_Time.toString("E, d MMM yyyy HH:mm");
		}
		else
		{
			r_Document = insert into Document
			[
				Added_User=zoho.loginuser
				Document_Name=r_Attachment.get("File_Name")
				Document_File=r_Download
				Downloaded="Downloaded"
				Parent_Record=v_CrmContactID.toString()
			];
			r_NewDocumentRecord = Document[ID == r_Document];
			v_DateAdded = r_NewDocumentRecord.Added_Time.toString("E, d MMM yyyy HH:mm");
		}
		v_LinkToDownload = "<a href='https://creator.zoho.com/file" + zoho.appuri + "All_Documents/" + r_NewDocumentRecord.ID + "/Document_File/download?filepath=/" + r_NewDocumentRecord.Document_File + "'>" + r_NewDocumentRecord.Document_Name + "</a>";
		v_NoteAttachments = v_NoteAttachments + "<tr><td>" + v_DateAdded + "</td><td style='font-weight:700;'>" + v_LinkToDownload + "</td></tr>";
	}
}
v_NoteAttachments = v_NoteAttachments + "</table>";
input.Note_Attachments = v_NoteAttachments;

//
// get attachments
v_NoteAttachments = "<table class='jl-table-info jl-table-attachments'>";
m_SortCriteria = Map();
m_SortCriteria.put("sort_by","Created_Time");
m_SortCriteria.put("sort_order","desc");
l_Attachments = zoho.crm.getRelatedRecords("Attachments","Contacts",v_CrmContactID,1,200,m_SortCriteria);
for each r_Attachment in l_Attachments
{
if(r_Attachment.get("id") != null)
{
v_AttachmentEndpoint = "https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v2/Contacts/" + v_CrmContactID + "/Attachments/" + r_Attachment.get("id");
r_Download = invokeUrl
[
url :v_AttachmentEndpoint
type :GET
connection:"ab_crm"
];
r_Download.setParamName("file");
r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists = Document[Parent_Record == v_CrmContactID.toString() && Document_Name == r_Attachment.get("File_Name")];
if(r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists.count() > 0)
{
r_NewDocumentRecord = Document[ID == r_CheckIfDocumentAlreadyExists.ID];
v_DateAdded = r_NewDocumentRecord.Added_Time.toString("E, d MMM yyyy HH:mm");
}
else
{
r_Document = insert into Document
[
Added_User=zoho.loginuser
Document_Name=r_Attachment.get("File_Name")
Document_File=r_Download
Downloaded="Downloaded"
Parent_Record=v_CrmContactID.toString()
];
r_NewDocumentRecord = Document[ID == r_Document];
v_DateAdded = r_NewDocumentRecord.Added_Time.toString("E, d MMM yyyy HH:mm");
}
v_LinkToDownload = "<a href='https://creator.zoho.com/file" + zoho.appuri + "All_Documents/" + r_NewDocumentRecord.ID + "/Document_File/download?filepath=/" + r_NewDocumentRecord.Document_File + "'>" + r_NewDocumentRecord.Document_Name + "</a>";
v_NoteAttachments = v_NoteAttachments + "<tr><td>" + v_DateAdded + "</td><td style='font-weight:700;'>" + v_LinkToDownload + "</td></tr>";
}
}
v_NoteAttachments = v_NoteAttachments + "</table>";
input.Note_Attachments = v_NoteAttachments;

Here's the code at the end of the parent form to hide the columns I don't need the user to see (I'll populate these by code):

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hide Attachments.Parent_Record;
hide Attachments.Document_Name;
hide Attachments.Downloaded;

hide Attachments.Parent_Record;
hide Attachments.Document_Name;
hide Attachments.Downloaded;

Here's the code I use when a "Addition of a row" workflow is triggered on that subform. This makes sure I don't download it again and create a new Creator record to hold the same file but in a new record, as well as include the marker to check when uploading the files back to CRM:

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row.Parent_Record=input.CRM_Contact;
row.Downloaded="Pending Upload";

row.Parent_Record=input.CRM_Contact;
row.Downloaded="Pending Upload";

Here's the code I use when uploading a file to the newly added row in that subform (on user input). This sets the document name for display later:

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if(!isnull(row.Document_File))
{
	v_FileDetected = row.Document_File;
	if(v_FileDetected.contains("_"))
	{
		v_SubstringStart = v_FileDetected.indexOf("_");
		v_FilenameDetected = v_FileDetected.subString(v_SubstringStart + 1);
		v_FilenameFormatted = v_FilenameDetected.replaceAll("_"," ");
		row.Document_Name=v_FilenameFormatted;
	}
}