Question

Unable to automatically send an email with PDF from Slack channel to the agent

  • 3 August 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 69 views

 

Context:

I’m trying to create a zap that automates a repetitive task that happens for each deal and our team has a new channel for each deal, and we work in the real estate industry. When a one person posts a pdf (a contract in this case) my colleague wants to be able to have that trigger an email being sent (to the agent) including a copy of the pdf posted to the channel.

Specific things I'm struggling with:

1) understanding how slack shows files posted to channels / downloads them to your computer,

2) accessing them, and

3) converting the file to a publicly accessible version to include in an email. (unsure if Google Drive would take care of this part once i can actually get a usable pdf link). I tried using PDF.co but it only generated blank PDFs when provided the slack external link to convert. 

Tests I’ve Run:

I’ve used the “create external links” function in slack and tested with sample PDFs i’ve uploaded but they aren’t coming through in a useful format when opened (see this example I created using a random zapier history page printed to pdf: https://slack-files.com/T02LMUJQ5-F05L994PSHJ-e5c3488e55

The closest post i could find to what i need is below and mentions creating external links but that isn’t providing a solution. 

 Basic zap structure I’ve been testing. 

 


4 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @easyautomations-HL 

Good question.

How would you know which agent to send the email to?

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@easyautomations-HL 

Perhaps try this Zap trigger: Slack - New File

It will include a file object and a file url.

 

@Troy Tessalone Thanks for the recommendation I gave it a try but it wont work since i need to filter for only specific channels which is not available in the new file trigger. Even Should I get around that I’m a bit nervous for that solution since the end point is to send an email to an external contact that signifies a specific stage in our process, I can’t afford to accidentally to send the email and with the wrong attachment/link should the filter be unsuccessful in a percentage of the triggers. 

As for finding the agent email - I use the slack Channel ID and or address geolocation as a unique lookup key in our pipeline management spreadsheets for several of our pipeline steps to pass information around and alert/task folks. So i have a set up lookup steps i reuse that could lookup agent’s email by performing a few search steps after the zap triggers. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @easyautomations-HL! 👋

Just came across this and wanted to check how you got on?

Not sure if you’ve already solved this but, I wanted to clarify that the New File trigger has a field that would allow you to limit the Zap to only trigger on new files added in a specific channel:
40a1b8f2c1e31c1b866f88f12f852930.png
And it also outputs the ID of the channel where the file was added:
30c2f91df3bfe4ea989a4d7e8b948030.png
So if you’re only wanting the Zap to run for certain Slack channels you could use a Filter by Zapier action to check the Channels 1 field (output by the Slack trigger) to see if it contains specific channel ID number. 

Would love to hear whether you were able to solve this, and super happy to help if you’re still stuck at all. Just let us know! 🙂

Reply