Can I include a card attachment in butler-triggered email?
Asked by Meredith Lucas:

We frequently attach materials to our cards that need to be reviewed by people outside our Trello team. I know I can have Butler email them with a card button, but I can't figure out how to have Butler include the attachment in the email. I've put my script below, and I appreciate any ideas!

(It's a card button so when triggered) send an email notification to "my@email" with subject "{cardname} Review" and message "Hi! Attached is an item for {cardname} for your review. Please let me know your thoughts.\\n\\nAttachment:\\n\\n{attachmentlink}"

I've tried {cardattachment}, {attachmentlink}, and {$attachmentlink}, but I'm basically just trying whatever I can think of and hoping it works.


Answers:
author: Entrepositive
body: [@Meredith Lucas](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2667661)

It seems your exact need for attachments may not yet be available - however, a new feature just became available with a *third-party tool* to access Trello's API. We can now download an attachment programmatically from Trello using Integromat (Zapier may also be an option, although we don't use it and can't say for sure).

Our solution looks like this:

1. New Attachment is added to card; triggers event:

2a. `{attachmentname}` and `{attachmentlink}` are each stored to respective Custom Fields.

2b. Webhook posts data including those two custom fields' data, to Integromat.

3. Integromat "downloads" the attachment as general file data that can then be transferred to any connected service, like a cloud storage, email to send out, another API connection, etc.

4. In our case, we use Integromat to send an email with the attached image file in the email body.

I think the thing that will really help you in your case, is the Custom Fields set up on a "When attachment is added to the card" trigger.

We alos highly recommend a third-party automation software, and we love Integromat. No code knowledge/programming experience required, but there is a learning curve to setting up the automations and understanding how data transmission works, conceptually. I hope this helps!

EP

[@Yair Adi](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4149882)

comments: author: Yair Adi
body: Interesting but muy goal was to my No-board members costumers can see the attachments opening the attachmentlink.

But with the new attachmentlink with the URL inside Trello.com , only board members can see.

I can't make boards members 20 costumers per week, so they can see attachments.


author: Entrepositive
body: Hi [@Yair Adi](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4149882)

I may not be understanding your situation correctly. But I think I do, and it seems solvable with a third-party connection (your desired solution cannot be done within Trello only).

First, let me explain *what I think* your situation needs. You want to:

* Share a link to your attachment
* Link should be accessible within Trello, and outside Trello
* Solution should be scalable or universal to accommodate several customers

Please correct anything that's incorrect there.

How I would do this is depends on the sensitivity (and probably file size) of the shared attachments. I'll assume **not** sensitive and **not** massive file size. I would:

* Use Integromat to read in a Trello attachment, triggered when attachment is added to card
* Store the attachment in a cloud storage (like Dropbox, Google Drive)
* Distribute the *cloud storage* link, rather than the Trello link

In your cloud storage, you should be able to create a link (see attached screenshot) and then automatically share that link via the third-party automation tool. Make sure the link allows for *anyone* to access it.

We use the automation platform Integromat and are quite happy with it; other services like Zapier will probably also do the trick, but do your own research to discover the other applications you'll use it for. The three big ones: Zapier, Integromat, and IFTTT all vary from each other and have different capabilities. Other automation platforms also exist if you want to jump down the rabbit hole.

Hope that helps.

EP

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![Screen Shot 2022-02-22 at 11.33.46 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/184812i09EF09ADC19386CC/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2022-02-22 at 11.33.46 AM.png")


author: Yair Adi
body: I had found a workaround in your similar situation!

First add the links of the attachments to de description manually or auto with Butler Rule: when an attachment is added to a card, set the card's description to "{carddescription}\\n\[Attachment1\]({attachmentlink})"

Second (Optional) edit the description of Attachment1 to any significant.

Thirst modify your card button rule ending "(...)Please let me know your thoughts.\\n\\n{carddescription}"


author: Garrett
body: Hey Meredith,

The trouble is *when* those attachment variables will be valid. The {attachmentlink} variable will only populate a link if Butler knows which attachment to reference. So instead you would need to create a Butler rule that detects when the attachment is added, then send the email.

A card button unfortunately won't work for what you're looking to do, unfortunately! I will let our team know you'd like to see a variable that references the attachment links on a card at all times though.

Hope that helps explain!

comments: author: Entrepositive
body: Hello again [@Garrett](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1548804),

I see this question has been stationary for some time. Any hope of getting variables to reference attachments? A rudimentary way to reference their title like Custom Fields {{%My Field}} would be super helpful. Non-existing or duplicate titles can just be ignored; up the the user to make sure titles are unique.

Our goal:

We'd like to embed a photo that's attached to a card, into an email that gets sent to a client. The client is a member in the board but isn't necessarily a "Trello user," per se. Some people are old-fashioned and live by email and it's not our job to change them, but to adapt to their needs. So linking to the Trello board can be overwhelming for some.

I'm exploring a way to make this work, and have successfully done it with an automation that captured the {attachmentlink} when attachment was made, as [@Yair Adi](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4149882) suggested. But the jury is still out on when a card with an existing attachment is moved in from another board; then there is no way to access that {attachmentlink} var, it seems.

Best,

EP


author: Yair Adi
body: My solution only work for a while.

Trello implement a change in the URL attachments for security. Before you can view an attachment without being a board member (they locate in S3 web servers).

In new boards the URL are inside the Trello board so only members can see.

They don't respect their word and make the change to all the boards, no only to the new like they published, to the old boards too!

That's disrespectful treatment to a paid customer is the reason I migrated to ClickUp.

The only solution to their change in attachment URL is manually upload the attachment to a hosting and copy the public link to the card description, before sending the card description on an email.


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