Attachment Tags (and where are they in power automate)

Aidan Lambert

In the process of creating a flow for receipting, I've noticed that the “create a gift attachment” action provides no space to add attachment tags, although the Gift API does have the support to add these. Curiously, it looks to be the only field that didn't get included. Is there a reason for this? And has anyone found a way to accomplish it?

The only way I'm currently seeing around this would be to have the flow call a script on my computer to use the actual API.

Matt Thacker

@Aidan Lambert I haven't tried it yet, but couldn't you just add a separate HTTP action at the end of the automation to POST back to the gift?

Glen Hutson

Aidan Lambert:

In the process of creating a flow for receipting, I've noticed that the “create a gift attachment” action provides no space to add attachment tags, although the Gift API does have the support to add these. Curiously, it looks to be the only field that didn't get included. Is there a reason for this? And has anyone found a way to accomplish it?

The only way I'm currently seeing around this would be to have the flow call a script on my computer to use the actual API.

Not every API endpoint/parameter has a counterpart in Power Automate, but we can pass along this request to add it.

Aidan Lambert

Matt, I think that might be a pretty good work around. This would be my first attempt at using the SKY API, and I'm getting a little lost with how BB handles usage (needing an app, authorization codes, etc.), so I'm not really able to test it yet. But it definitely seems like a much simpler work around than what I thought of.

I also tried exporting the flow, editing the JSON to add a tag, and then importing. However, the import failed (I'm assuming because of the tag property I added that it didn't recognize).

Glen, I (and others I bet) would greatly appreciate you suggesting it. I've also added it to the ideas page. I imagine I'll be needing to learn how to use the SKY APIs at some point either way, but I feel this might be a feature many other customers would enjoy having access to (without making an API app)

Ben Lambert

Hi Aidan (and fellow Lambert!),

This is great feedback, thanks for filing it! We originally didn't include tags in the attachment connector actions because we weren't sure it was really needed/useful (especially since they are expressed as an array of strings, which elevates the complexity of the UX in the Power Automate designer).

But rather than send you down an even more complex path of calling the SKY API from your flow, how urgently do you need this? Would it be possible for you to wait on us to get this added to the next release (you'd then just edit your flow and update the action to specify the desired tags)?

Matt Thacker

So this was a pretty straight forward process. The way I did it below was to initialize a object variable to construct my JSON object. Next was to create an HTTP action with the ‘Content Type’, ‘API key’, and ‘Authorization’ headers. I passed my JSON variable as the body and it worked perfectly.

Glen Hutson

What method did you use to pull the Authorization Header info into the flow?

Aidan Lambert

@Ben Lambert Lovely to meet (¿interact with?) you! Your videos were/are helpful as I try to learn all of this. Now that I stop to think about it, the tags aren't really necessary in this instance, given the small number of attachments per gift, so no need to rush it into the next update. However, I might still make the case that support should eventually be added for tagging attachments (at least for records that might have many attachments, such as constituents or campaigns). Arrays are already used a good bit in various parts of Automate, so I would guess adding them wouldn't be terribly confusing for users.

@Matt Thacker Awesome to see that it works (and thank you again for the suggestion)! I think I'm just having trouble figuring out authorization. @Glen Hutson I used a definitely not correct method. I went to the Gift API endpoint reference, clicked the “Try It!” button, selected an authorization method, clicked “Authorize” in the pop up window, and then copy and pasted the resulting generated string into the Authorization header in the http action. I've also made zero sky apps so far, so that could be another issue.