Document download

Question

We want user to download files that are present in ECM system with a single click from Appian user interface. 
 We don't want to download and keep files on Appian server till user explicitly click on link to download file. How can we achieve file download (REST API call) and document link together on single button click?

Mathieu Drouin · Accepted Answer

I don't think this is possible at the moment. 
 
If the Appian and ECM instance are both protected using the same SAML SSO solution, you could simply directly link to the ECM file from within Appian and it should work seamlessly. 
 
 docs.appian.com/.../SAML_for_Single_Sign-On.html

ganeshp · Answer

It must have to be stored in Appian post which you can have sub processes that can one write to the external ECM system based on the doc id to the specific folder in the external system and removal from appian data entites.

manisht209 · Answer

Hi manjunathb58 , 
 
Do you actually need to download the content on Appian ? 
Considering you already have the document in ECM, you might just use the link to the get service to download the document as a response.

Robert Shankin · Answer

Adding to what manisht209 mentioned here - 
Some ECM tools include integration links for exactly this purpose. For example, OnBase has "doc POP" links which can be included in an Appian interface to retrieve content directly from the ECM tool without ever putting the document in Appian. 
 
This scales especially well when the 3rd party tool links take a token value that you can reference from available data on your (record, report, or task) interface.

Robert Shankin · Answer

Please refer to my previous response. If you want the end user to acquire the document directly from the 3rd party tool, identify that tool's api for building direct download links. Put those links in the Appian interface.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Do you have some way of pre-loading certain documents into Appian, before being specifically requested by a user? This would be the only way I can think of to prevent the 2-click method. Though given your use case, it seems like 2 clicks both within Appian is a pretty good solution overall.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

AFAIK there have been no recent changes that would add any new capabilities with respect to the number of clicks required to do this sort of thing.

ujjwalr0002 · Answer

We have a smart service for that to update the document properties. 
 https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/21.1/Edit_Document_Properties_Smart_Service.html

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Thenmozhi Mohanakrishnan said: Is there any other way to set a different external file name while using download document link functionality? 
 Nope. Such behavior will 100% require 2 clicks by the user, at least. 
 The implementation you describe is pretty much already what I'd suggest anyway - copy the document to a temporary copy with a new name, and expose that as the document download link. The user would need to click once to initiate the initial copy/rename, then after that's done, they can click again to download the document. 
 To confirm, the Document Download Link component does not have any way of doing anything "before" the download - literally all it does is provide a direct download link.

Document download

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