Prepending or Appending Cell Value to Attachment File Name

Lettyg

Hi! I found this discussion topic https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/65727/attachments-renaming-sorting-and-download-features in which "Phillip" asks "to see a feature associated with the template/document create/edit functionality, which would allow me to optionally designate one or more fields from my sheet to use as the filename for the document attachment..."

However, I cannot find the solution on how to accomplish prepending or appending text that's in a cell to a file name that is attached on that row. Can someone please help me find the detailed steps?

Thanks,

Letty

jmyzk_cloudsmart_jp

Hi @Lettyg

Regarding your requirement to automatically prepend or append text from a cell to the file names of attachments in Smartsheet, you can use Smartsheet API to accomplish this. Although the Smartsheet API doesn't offer a direct method to rename an attachment, this can be achieved through a custom solution:

1. Automated Download and Renaming:

• Method: A script with the Smartsheet API is used to automate the process. The script will:
• Retrieve attachments from each row in Smartsheet.
• Identify the specific cell content in the row you wish to prepend or append.
• Download the attachments automatically and rename them by including the cell value in the file name. It's all done locally on your machine.
• Pros: This efficient method automates the renaming process, ensuring each attachment is correctly labeled with the respective cell value. It doesn't alter the original attachments in Smartsheet.
• Cons: The updated file names will not be reflected in Smartsheet since the renaming occurs locally. Requires local storage space for the downloaded and renamed files.

1. Delete, Rename, and Re-upload (Manual):

• Method: If you need the renamed files to be visible in Smartsheet, you could delete the original attachments, use a similar script to rename them locally, and then re-upload them to Smartsheet.
• Pros: Ensures that the renamed files are updated and visible within Smartsheet.
• Cons: More time-consuming and involves the risk of data loss during the deletion process. It also requires additional bandwidth for both downloading and uploading files.

Here is a demo Python code for the first method.

https://gist.github.com/jmyzk/a9fdd638f39a41aca0c9549b598c27a1

rye

Hi @jmyzk_cloudsmart_jp

I wrote a python code to automate for uploading the renamed-file names from my local folder to smartsheet to its respective rows. The code doesn't have any errors, its running but unable to get any output. Could you please help me with this.