Adding attached photos into generated document

KelliBretsch

We have employees in the field complete a form and attach photos of their daily accomplishments.

Our corporate office then generates a document off of the line to share with project owners updating them on the project status. Is there anyway to pull the attached images with their names directly into the generated document?

We are currently downloading and saving each attached photo. Then inserting them one by one into a cell and using another cell to list the photo description. This is very time consuming and requires that we re-type the photo description several times.

Mike TV

@KelliBretsch

Hi Kelli. Does your group have Dynamic View? If so, I would suggest switching from having your team complete a form to using Dynamic View instead. I was able to quickly create a test sheet with just 2 columns on it. One called Picture and one called Description. Then I went to Dynamic View and created a view there from the sheet. When I created a new entry to the sheet via Dynamic View the field called Picture has 3 dot next to it where you can insert an image. Instead of attaching it to the sheet like a form does, it actually puts the picture in the cell on the sheet in the Picture column.

Then I created a form-fillable PDF with an Image Field and a Text Box Field. The document builder was able to insert the image and description into the PDF without any interaction.

Normal sheet:

Dynamic View new row entry:

PDF results:

KelliBretsch

Thanks Mike, unfortunately we do not currently have Dynamic View due to the cost for adding it.

Mike TV

@KelliBretsch

Bummer. That would be a simple solution to your problem. I'm not sure how to accomplish it otherwise. Dynamic View can be really helpful. Maybe see how much time per year you are spending on manually editing those PDFs for images and compare the cost of time/wages versus the cost of Dynamic View. Maybe you can get them to spring for additional SmartSheet tools.

KelliBretsch

Bummer for sure. Thank you for trying!

Kristine

@Mike TV I'm doing something similar and I do have Dynamic View and the upload is working just fine, what isn't working is then the automation to generate the document is not pulling in the image - just the text for the file name. So when you're preparing your PDF as a form then doing the mapping - what is trick to having it pull in the image?

Mike TV

@Kristine

I created that test sheet over a year ago. Looking back on it now, there's nothing special. The PDF is form-fillable simple form and the picture is being placed into a text entry field into the PDF. Absolutely nothing special about this set up.

Does the picture appear on your sheet like this?

If not and it's the filename being displayed in the sheet cell instead of the picture, then you set it up wrong.