Handle files
Mint steps often involve files to complete a task. For example, you can share files securely with users by adding your documents to a Secure Share instance through Mint. Or, you may receive a file during the user journey and plan your steps to process the file content with your workflow. These and many more scenarios depend on files and your ability to handle them successfully.
You can upload, download and manage files in your Mint workflows. Files are stored within the context of a workflow and are identifiable by their reference key (or file ID). The steps in your workflow can process existing files, generate new ones and convert data into different file formats. At the end of a user journey, you can also download the files to review the data collected.
Get started
If you are new to Mint, make sure to follow the instructions below to set up your Signicat environment:
Prerequisites
To proceed with the tutorial, you must have completed the following initial preparations:
- Sign up to the Signicat Dashboard and register your profile. For more details, see the Get started with Signicat guide.
- In the Dashboard, make sure you have set up an organisation, an account and a domain.
Sandbox and production accounts
We recommend you create a sandbox account to test our services before going live. Sandbox and production accounts must be set up separately.
If you require assistance, you can contact us by creating a support ticket in the Dashboard.
To create and edit Mint workflows, your user in the Signicat Dashboard needs the Account Viewer role and at least one of the following permissions:
- Mint Admin
- Mint Editor
- Mint Workflow Builder Editor
For more information, see the Managing roles and permissions page.
When you are ready to use Mint in the Signicat Dashboard, continue by following the steps below.
Create a flow
With Mint you define all your operations inside a workflow. To create a new Mint workflow, do the following:
- In the Signicat Dashboard, go to Products > Signicat Mint.
- From the Mint sidebar, select Builder.
- Select Blank to create a flow without template.
- Enter a name and a description.
What your end-users see
The name and description of a workflow are visible to the end-users at the start of the user journey.
- Select Create flow.
Upload files
The files you upload are stored within the workflow environment and are available for use in all steps. To upload a file, do the following:
- In the workflow builder, select the Settings gear icon () at the top right.
- In the Flow settings, navigate to the Files tab.
- To upload a file, drag-and-drop a file from your device into the "Upload your files" box. Alternatively, select Browse files and choose the file(s) from a folder in your device.
It is important to note that, when you clone (or import) a workflow, files are not migrated automatically. In the cloned (or imported) workflow, you need to do the following:
- Upload the file(s).
- Update the configuration of the steps that reference the file(s).
Delete files
To delete a file, do the following:
- In the workflow builder, select the Settings gear icon () at the top right.
- In the Flow settings, navigate to the Files tab.
- To delete a file, select the delete icon () next to the file.
When you delete a file, it is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.
If you delete a file from a workflow where steps use the file, the workflow will fail on future runs. This happens because steps reference files by their unique ID. To solve the issue, you need to upload a new file (or again the same file) into your workflow and update the configuration of the steps that use the file to point to the new file ID.
Use files in steps
Many Mint steps are designed to process files, whether it involves reading or generating them. For example, you can send an email with a file attached by using the Send email step. To do this:
- Ensure you have followed the instructions to create a flow and upload a file.
- In the Builder UI, select the plus icon (+). Then, select Step.
- In the "Steps" menu on the left, select Send email under Communication.
- Fill in the following fields:
- To: Enter the email address of the receiver and select the plus icon (+) outside the input field to add the key.
- Subject: Enter the title for the email message, for example: "Test document".
- Body: Enter the email message, for example: "Please find the document attached.".
- To attach a file, expand the Select files dropdown list and tick the checkbox next to the file you want to use.
When you run the workflow (after you save and publish), Mint will send an email with the file you uploaded in the workflow environment and later attached to the email message.
Pass files across steps
When passing files from previous steps, you always reference a file in the same way, that is by referencing the file name as a variable. Every file generated in a step is saved as variable that points to the step name and the file name, as configured in the original step.
Note that files generated or uploaded during a user journey are stored within the user journey context and are available for download in the Mint Journeys. Instead, the files you upload when building a workflow are stored within the workflow context.
When configuring a new step that supports files as input, you can choose among the files available for import by doing this:
- In the step configuration, select the Select files dropdown list. Doing this expands the list of variables associated with files that you can use from previous steps.
- Choose the file (variable) to import.
- Review the file object with format
StepTitle.Filename.
For example, in the image below the dropdown list shows what files are available for import in the step configuration. The Merge documents into PDF.Output file file corresponds to the output file generated by the Merge documents into PDF step. Upon running the flow, the output file is generated, stored in the workflow context, and made available to other steps for use.
Files dropdown list
Note that certain steps might generate or retrieve an undetermined number of files. For example, an upload element on a web form might lead to a scenario where users upload multiple files. For this reason, certain steps return a list of files instead of a single file. As a consequence, lists of files may not be compatible with downstream steps configuration causing an error in your workflow.
Download files from Mint Journeys
When a step produces a file as an output, you can retrieve the document from the Mint Journeys at the end of a user journey. To do this:
- Go to Signicat Mint > Journeys.
- Select the completed journey to inspect the report.
- Navigate to the Files tab to review the files generated during the user journey.
- To download a file, select Download next to the file name.
- To download all files as a compressed ZIP file, select Download at the top right.
Next steps
Continue your journey with Mint: