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Can get attachment from form i created but not from form shared with me

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Posted on by winston_smyth

I have created a form that takes some text and a file attachment. On submission it triggers a power automate flow.

The flow emails the attachment to an email address.

This works fine when using the form i created.
If i try and use a form that is shared with me for collaboration, it fails.

The flow fails on the "get file metadata" task, saying "the resource could not be found".
As mentioned, it works when using a form i created myself.

I have been referring to this thread & youtube video by @ChadVKealey
They work great, until i try an use a form thats created by someone else and then shared with me.

youtube example

power automate forum post

Thanks for any advise offered.

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ChadVKealey 1,393 on at

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The reason is that the attachments are stored in the OneDrive of the form owner. Sharing the form with you doesn't share that folder with you. Your options are either have that owner share the folder in which they're stored with you (read access is all that's needed) or move the form to a group (that you are both members of) so the files are stored in the SharePoint site associated with that group. I recommend the group form option and always advise people in my organization to use group forms whenever they're involved in some business process and especially when there is a Power Automate flow involved. If you use a personal form and the owner leave the organization, that form will disappear (eventually) and the flow will fail.
winston_smyth 90 on at

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Thank you for the response @ChadVKealey
After moving the form to a group in which i am a member, i have been able to get hold of the attachments.
Appreciate your expertise.
steph1234 11 on at

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Hi,
I've run into a slightly different problem.
Currently, I'm a member of 12 different groups, that each have a corresponding public SharePoint site, within my organization. I've created several group forms and have used power automate to append both the results and attachment, to a SharePoint List.
However, I noticed that for one of my groups, no form created from it will append an attachment to the SharePoint list. It will add the info, but not the attachment.
In the Power Automate script, it adds the image to the group's OneDrive account, however, i receive a 404 message when attempting to use the "Add Attachment" SharePoint function. The identical script works in all of my other groups.
I've thoroughly compared the permissions from the site that doesn't work, to those that do, and can find no discernable permission differences between them in SharePoint, OneDrive, and/or Group Forms.
Any ideas/suggestions on why only one of my group forms is not working? (I've tried multiple forms)

Thanks!
Steph
ChadVKealey 1,393 on at

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@steph1234 , there is no such thing as a "group's OneDrive account". While Microsoft used to use that terminology (around 2015-2016?), and maybe back then it actually was a "OneDrive", in today's world, it's a SharePoint site.

You mention you've checked permissions, etc., but have you actually examined one of the flow runs in which the file is NOT being added? I would start there. Check the form response data to be sure the files are being saved where you expect them to be saved. Check the input and outputs of the parse json and get file content actions. Look at what's actually being added as an attachment to the list item. If any steps are failing, what reason/error code is returned? You mentioned a 404 error, indicating that something can't be found, but without the full text or a screenshot of the error message, it's hard to know what is missing.
steph1234 11 on at

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Hi Chad,
Thank you for your response. I found a work around using the parse Json "FileID" in addition to the "ID" when using "Get File Content" from OneDrive. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "no such thing as group's OneDrive account". Maybe it's semantics? As the call I'm making is to OneDrive, because that's where the file is stored. Here is a screenshot of the "Add Attachment" loop part of my flow. I was trying to identify the root cause of why this script couldn't find the file location for this SharePoint group, when it could find it for all of the others.
ChadVKealey 1,393 on at

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So...it's complicated. The short/simple version is that because OneDrive is basically SharePoint from a technical perspective, you can - in some situations - use actions from the OneDrive connector to work with files stored in SharePoint. See https://youtu.be/nqvvzZmqqhw for an example. It's really about using the appropriate identifiers. If you're using the "Get file content" action from the OneDrive for Business connector to get a file from your OneDrive, you just need the "Id". When using a Group form, those files are stored in the Group's SharePoint team site. The "driveId" is an identifier for the SharePoint site.

I've tried using SharePoint actions to work with files attached to Group forms, but the problem is with the way the file data is returned in the form response. I suspect this is due to the fact that Forms were initially only a "personal" thing, so when the developers were adding "file upload" questions, they assumed the files would always be stored in OneDrive and used the corresponding terminology. At this point, changing the way that works in Forms would be a real pain.
steph1234 11 on at

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Thank you so much for the detailed explanation!