Offloading PDF Attachments from Smartsheet to OneDrive or Box for Email Automation

Frank_2820

I’m an admin for a Smartsheet tool that generates a PDF Assessment report for our clients based on their input. The report is successfully saved as an attachment within each clients' row.

Due to enterprise restrictions, I’m unable to use Power Automate to connect directly to Smartsheet. However, I do have access to Outlook and OneDrive/Box, and I’m exploring a workaround to automate the sending of these reports via email.

My goal:
Automatically offload the PDF attachments from Smartsheet to OneDrive or Box, and then use Outlook (via Power Automate or another method) to send templated emails with the PDFs attached.

Questions for the community:

1. Is there a way to automatically export PDF attachments from Smartsheet rows to OneDrive or Box?
2. Can Smartsheet Data Shuttle support this kind of attachment offload?
3. Are there best practices or recommended tools for bridging Smartsheet and OneDrive/Box for this kind of workflow?

I am not a developer, so generating code would be a problem so I am hoping I can do it without the need to write code.

Any guidance, examples, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

jmyzk_cloudsmart_jp

Hi @Frank_2820

Short answer: Yes—have Smartsheet email you when a PDF is attached, let Power Automate (Outlook trigger) read that HTML email, extract the PDF link and PDF filename, drop the file into OneDrive, and then use the standard “When a file is created” template to send your templated email.

Key point: Smartsheet alert emails are HTML-only (no real email attachments). The email body contains a link (often https://click.smartsheet.com/...). Your flow should pull the URL and the human-readable filename from that HTML.

How I do it (using the same pattern you described)

1. Smartsheet Automation
   • Workflow: When an attachment is added or changed, alert someone → send to an Outlook mailbox you control.
2. Power Automate – Outlook trigger
   • When a new email arrives (V3)
   • Optional filters: From = automation@app.smartsheet.com, Subject contains “attachment”.
3. Parse the HTML body (no custom code)
   • Work with the HTML body. (option: HTML to Text)
   • Checks if 'click.smartsheet.com' and 'pdf' are contained.
   • Split on href=" to get anchor chunks.
   • Filter chunks that contain .pdf (case-insensitive) and, if you want, click.smartsheet.com.
   • From the first matching chunk:
     • URL: take the text up to the next " (that’s your PDF link).
     • PDF name: take the anchor inner text (between > and </a>), and remove the trailing size like (369k).
4. Save to OneDrive/Box
   • Use your existing “save to OneDrive/Box” step with the URL and PDF name you extracted.
   • (You already have this in your flow: URL goes to the “source” field; filename becomes the destination name.)
5. Send the templated email.
   • Separate flow (or downstream): When a file is created in your OneDrive/Box folder → Send an email (Outlook) using your template and attach the file.

Send an email when a file is created in a folder of OneDrive for Business | Power Automate

The following template will not work as the message from Smartsheet does not contain a real attachment, but a download URL instead.

Note: Extracting the URL and PDF name from raw HTML isn’t always obvious—especially if you’re “not a developer” and don’t want to write code. If you need help wiring up the Outlook + OneDrive flow and the few expressions, feel free to reach out to me.