Dynamic document generation and download

Question

HI All, 
 
 We have a requirement to generate a PDF document and download on click of a link. to generate the PDF we use Generate PDF smart service and this needs a process to be executed execute. 
 The issue we need to generate the document in-flight and download it. 
 User is viewing a report and user should be able to download the report data as PDF on click on a link provided on the report. 
 At the moment I have found any solution other than on click of the link to show another link to download.

Steven Miccile · Answer

Do you just need to replace one of the a!save() parameters with fv!processInfo.pv.docId? 
 docs.appian.com/.../Start_Process_Smart_Service.html

Mike Schmitt · Answer

In 17.2 at least, you can use a!startProcess to launch a process model which will do your PDF generation, and pass back the generated doc ID to your SAIL form.

Steven Miccile · Answer

I am not sure you will be able to generate the document and serve it to the user's browser in one click without writing a plugin similar to Excel Tools' download datasubset functionality. 
 
The normal design pattern here is as you and Mike mentioned, which is to request the document is generated with one click then show a subsequent link to download the document. Another thought is to generate the PDFs ahead of time (i.e. when each row that backs the report is entered rather than viewed later), but that requires extra considerations as load and complexity (data updates, etc.) can easily make this a bad fit for the use case.

Dynamic document generation and download

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