Move SFDC Files to External Storage Test Drive
In this test drive, we will check how CloudFiles can move documents stored in SFDC (e.g. in the Notes & Attachments section of a record) to an external storage such as SharePoint. We will see how you can copy these documents into any external folder based on your custom logic. Additionally we will also see how you can delete the original file from Salesforce if needed.
To test out this feature, follow the simple instructions below :
- Go to 'Accounts' tab and create a new Account. This should create a SharePoint folder visible in the 'Files' tab of the record.
- Within the 'Notes & Attachments' section, upload some files. Try various formats including PDFs, Excels etc...
- Check the 'Files' tab again
- All PDFs would be copied to the 'Presentations' sub-folder
- All other formats would be copied to the root account folder
- All uploaded files would get deleted from Salesforce except for excel files
Copying and Deleting of Salesforce Files may take some time (a few seconds to a minute). If you don't see a copy of uploaded files, try refreshing the CloudFiles widget a couple times.
The GIF below gives a visual representation of these steps.
The following video shows the flow that made this possible. If you'd like detailed steps on this implementation, check out our tutorial on this use-case at Automatically moving files from Salesforce storage to external storage.
In this test drive, we've seen how CloudFiles helps copy or move your Salesforce Files and organize them in your external storage based on file types. However, there are many variations of this possible such that it can fit your custom use-case. Consider these possibilities among many:
- The same functionality can be extended to email-to-case. I.e. your email attachments can be moved to case folders which reside in SharePoint or any other external storage.
- Files of any size or type are supported by this. You can try uploading files larger than 12 MB as well.
- The functionality works for manual uploads as well as automatica uploads (e.g. from other apps such as Conga or Docusign).
- In this demonstration, we've illustrated file organization using few specific file types, but the capability extends to virtually any file type. You can even organise the files based on file properties like file name, creation date etc.
- You can also copy / move files across objects. E.g. files uploaded on a lead object can be copied to the account folder.
You may find other test drives equally engaging. Do visit the Test Drive article for further exploration.