Fortunately, Adobe as the inventor of PDF and strategic partner with Microsoft, has brought many of these types of tools directly into Microsoft Power Automate to help you streamline and automate many of your document workflows. Through these connectors, all Adobe connectors are also available in Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, and Azure Logic Apps to build integrated custom document workflows within the Microsoft ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Adobe connectors in Microsoft Power Automate<\/h2>\n
Adobe has offered integrations for Microsoft Power Automate since 2017 with tools to help with document automation and has continued to expand and update the connectors with new features and templates:<\/p>\n
Adobe Sign<\/strong> Some useful examples include:<\/p>\n Adobe Sign has over 30 templates and triggers<\/a> pre-created for you to get started quickly.<\/p>\n Adobe PDF Tools<\/strong> Adobe PDF Tools connector has over 30 templates and triggers<\/a> pre-created for you to get started quickly.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s walk through a quick example of how you can use some of the different connectors. We will use this<\/a> template to demonstrate how you can use Adobe Sign and PDF Tools connectors together in the same workflow. In the example below, we will show how you can compress and optimize your PDFs using Adobe PDF Tools connector and then send them out for signature using one of the templates available.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t already created credentials to use with Adobe PDF Tools API, you can create them here<\/a>. PDF Tools API provides a 6-month trial to get started for free.<\/p>\n Once you provide a name and description, your client credentials will be generated. Keep this window open; you will need this information to create a connection in Microsoft Power Automate.<\/p>\n IMPORTANT NOTE: Adobe PDF Tools is a Premium connector so you will need to have the proper Microsoft Power Automate license to use the connector.<\/em> To use Adobe Sign connector, you will need to have an Adobe Sign for enterprise subscription. If you don\u2019t and just want to give it a try, sign up for a developer account<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this scenario, the flow has us taking a PDF, compressing it, and sending it for signature using Adobe Sign. Because sometimes PDFs can be large with huge images, we are going to have it compress the PDF first using Adobe PDF Tools and then send it for signature using Adobe Sign.<\/p>\n Because the trigger for this template is a selected file in SharePoint, we need to set each of the SharePoint actions.<\/p>\n For the For a selected file<\/em>, Get file properties<\/em>, Get file content<\/em> and Get file metadata<\/em> actions, set the Site Address<\/strong> and Library Name <\/strong>to your desired SharePoint site. The condition in the flow is to determine whether the document is a PDF or not. It determines this based on the file extension. If it is a PDF, it will skip to the end. If it is not, then it will convert the document to a PDF.<\/p>\n The \u201cConvert document to PDF\u201d will take whatever document you have selected and convert it into a PDF.<\/p>\n You will notice that the action, like all the Adobe PDF Tools connector actions, have mainly two inputs:<\/p>\n The file content is coming from the file contents of the selected file. Previously in the flow, the file content is stored in the FileContent<\/em> variable. You don\u2019t have to do it this way, but it is how this template is setup. You can also have it passed directly from Get File Contents with SharePoint.<\/p>\n After the condition, you will then see there is another action called Create Searchable PDF using OCR<\/em>. This is used to OCR any PDF in case it is a scanned document that needs to be optimized. Like the previous action, we can see that it asks you to input the File Name and File Content. These values are coming from the output of the previous PDF step. Why is it using variables?<\/strong> After the Create Searchable PDF using OCR action, there are two Adobe Sign connector actions. Let\u2019s walk through what each of them do.<\/p>\n Upload a document and get a document ID<\/strong> Like Adobe PDF Tools, you need to provide a File Name<\/em> and a File Content<\/em> value. In this template, these are passed from the Create Searchable PDF using OCR<\/em> action.<\/p>\n Once the document is uploaded to Adobe Sign, now you can send an agreement for signature.<\/p>\n Document ID <\/em>the documents you would like to include with the agreement you send for signature. You can attach many by clicking \u201cAdd a new item\u201d. The input is the Document ID from the Upload a document and get a document ID <\/em>action.<\/p>\n Next, we need to add a recipient. Click on Add new item under Signature Type. This will expose a few settings. First is the email address which you can pass. For this example, we will set a static example email address, but you can use Dynamic content to pass the email address from a previous action.<\/p>\n Participant Role<\/strong> allows you to specify what type of role the recipient needs to be such as Signer, Approver, Certified Recipient, Form Filler or Form Filler. If you want to learn more about the roles, you can learn about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Message<\/strong> field is the message that will show up in the email to the recipient.<\/p>\n Expiration Time<\/strong> allows you to set limit for a recipient to sign a document. Once that passes, then the link to view and sign will no longer be active.<\/p>\n Reminder Frequency<\/strong> allows you to set how often Adobe Sign will send email reminders to the recipient.<\/p>\n Document Password<\/strong> allows you to encrypt the final PDF with a password.<\/p>\n Form Fields<\/strong> allow you to pass field values into a document. Adobe Sign allows you to merge form field values into fields in a document. You need to specify the Name (which corresponds to the name in the document) and the value you want to pass. This is also an array so you can add many. For more information on adding form fields to your document see the Adobe Sign Text Tag<\/a> documentation.<\/p>\n Redirect Delay<\/strong> and Redirect URL<\/strong> allow you to specify which address to redirect a signer after they sign. There are several other scenarios that can be helpful for document processes:<\/p>\n Store signed agreements into SharePoint<\/a> Adobe is only getting started with these connectors in Microsoft Power Automate. Coming soon, Adobe will be bringing additional features from its Adobe Document Services<\/a> to Power Automate. Here are a few of the highlights:<\/p>\n Adobe Document Generation API<\/strong> An overview of the highlights are available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Adobe PDF Extract API<\/strong><\/p>\n A lot of data is stored inside of PDFs, but it\u2019s often difficult to reliably extract that data for use elsewhere. PDF Extract API converts PDFs into JSON data to reliably capture content structure, element positions, and relationships, which can be parsed and placed into data systems, republished in other platforms, or for search and analysis. Some the key benefits are:<\/p>\n Adobe has provided a number of great connectors to help with document automation using Microsoft Power Automate. In addition to Power Automate connectors, Adobe PDF Tools and Adobe Sign also have add-ins for other Microsoft applications such as Adobe Acrobat for Microsoft Teams<\/a>, Adobe Sign for Microsoft Teams<\/a>, Adobe Sign for Word<\/a>, Adobe Sign for SharePoint<\/a>, Adobe Creative Cloud for Word and PowerPoint<\/a>, and many others<\/a>. These can be a great addition to the automated flows you create in Power Automate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this post, you can learn about the integration between Power Automate and Adobe and how it can help customers automate different scenarios around handling PDFs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ms_queue_id":[],"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","_alt_title":"","ms-ems-related-posts":[],"footnotes":""},"audience":[3378],"content-type":[27,3423],"job-role":[],"product":[3474],"property":[],"topic":[],"coauthors":[2351],"class_list":["post-111062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","audience-it-professional","content-type-customer-stories","content-type-tips-and-guides","product-power-automate"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n![\"Adobe](\"https:\/\/connectoricons-prod.azureedge.net\/releases\/v1.0.1463\/1.0.1463.2403\/adobesign\/icon.png\"\/){kind=icon}
\nAdobe Sign connector<\/a> enables you to take your Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and other formats and route them for electronic signature. Using Adobe Sign connector with Power Automate allows you to dynamically route documents for approval based on data.<\/p>\n\n
\n![\"Adobe](\"https:\/\/connectoricons-prod.azureedge.net\/releases\/v1.0.1444\/1.0.1444.2347\/adobepdftools\/icon.png\"\/){kind=icon}
\nFor people familiar using Adobe Acrobat for creating, editing, and manipulating PDF documents, the new Adobe PDF Tools connector<\/a> these tools to your flows such as:<\/p>\n\n
Quick Start example<\/h2>\n
Get your Adobe PDF Tools API credentials<\/h3>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-Signup-1024x593.png\")
<\/p>\nGet your Adobe Sign account<\/h3>\n
Create a new flow from a template<\/h3>\n
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\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/AdobePDFTools-Connection.png\")
<\/li>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/AdobeSign-Signin-1-827x1024.png\")
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\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/AdobeSign-Signin-2.png\")
<\/li>\nConfigure SharePoint settings<\/h3>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-SharePoint-991x1024.png\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\nPDF Services connector action<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-flow-1024x421.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-action-1.png\")
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\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-action-2.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
\nThe reason that there are variables is because of the condition. If the document is a PDF, then it is skipping the condition. But if it is not a PDF, it needs to get converted which will change the input going into the Create Searchable PDF using OCR action. By using variables, it makes it easier to change the values going into that action.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nAdobe Sign connector actions<\/h3>\n
\nWhen you want to send a document for signature using Adobe Sign, you need to upload it to Adobe Sign as what is called a transient document, which returns a Document ID. The reason for this is it also allows you in other scenarios to upload a document once to Adobe Sign and then send it multiple times without having to upload a document every single time.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-action-3.png\")
\nCreate an agreement from an uploaded document and send for signature<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-action-4.png\")
\nParticipant Order<\/strong> specifies in which order the recipient is signing. You can specify recipients to be in a parallel order or sequential order.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-action-5-723x1024.png\")
\nOnce you trigger the agreement, the recipient(s) will receive an email with a link for them to view and sign an agreement.<\/p>\nOther Helpful Scenarios<\/h2>\n
\nOCR PDFs as they are imported into SharePoint<\/a>
\nPassword protect a new file in OneDrive and email as an attachment<\/a><\/p>\nWhat\u2019s Coming Next<\/h2>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/powerautomateblogmedia.azureedge.net\/powerautomateblog\/2021\/05\/Adobe-Doc-Generation.png\")
\nDocument Generation API<\/a> enables you to dynamically generate documents based on JSON data. Document templates are creating in Microsoft Word, and there is even an Add-In for Microsoft Word<\/a> to allow you to easily tag your documents based on data. Whether it is data from Microsoft Dataverse, SharePoint, Excel, or other sources, you will be able to dynamically generate your documents, which also includes some of these features:<\/p>\n\n
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Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n