Adobe PDF Services Document Generation

Overview

This flow generates high-fidelity, branded PDFs with Adobe PDF Services Document Generation. On request (from a Power App or an approval flow), it reads a request row from Dataverse, merges its fields into a tagged Word template, renders a polished PDF, stores it in SharePoint, optionally password-protects it, and emails it to the recipient with a share link.

Why it matters: Native Power Automate has limited document-generation fidelity. Adobe PDF Services produces pixel-accurate, print-ready output and supports merge / protect / combine operations — ideal for customer-facing contracts, statements and certificates.

Build note (as-built): The Adobe PDF Services connector action exposes its input file as a multipart contentOnly parameter that cannot be authored through the deployment API, so — consistent with every other FlowLibs Adobe build — all Adobe calls use the built-in HTTP action against the Adobe PDF Services REST API (token -> asset -> upload -> operation -> poll -> download). Built-in HTTP needs no connection reference, so the only connections to authorize are SharePoint, Outlook and Dataverse.

Use Case

Teams that issue contracts, statements, or certificates want branded PDFs generated on demand from CRM data, archived, and delivered automatically — with optional password protection for sensitive documents. A Power App (or an approval flow) calls this flow with the Dataverse requestId; the flow does the rest and returns the file URL.

Flow Architecture

Environment Variables

Connectors & Connections

Connector	API name	Actions used
Microsoft Dataverse	shared_commondataserviceforapps	GetItem UpdateRecord
SharePoint	shared_sharepointonline	GetFileContentByPath CreateFile CreateSharingLink
Office 365 Outlook	shared_office365	SendEmailV2
HHTTP	http	POST /token

Customization Guide

Almost every realistic variant of this flow can be implemented by changing environment variable values. A few cases require small edits inside the flow definition — those are called out explicitly below.

Combine cover/terms pages

Add an Adobe CombinePDF step (upload a cover PDF as a second asset, then /operation/combinepdf with both asset ids) before storing. Adobe combinepdf accumulates a [{assetID}] array.

Robust polling

The demo uses a fixed poll interval; for large documents raise flowlibs_AdobePollIntervalSeconds or widen the Until limits.

Secret management

Store flowlibs_PdfPassword and the Adobe secret in Azure Key Vault and read them via the Key Vault connector instead of plain env vars.

Dynamic tables

Pass line-item arrays into Compose Merge Data for invoices/statements (Adobe Document Generation supports table loops in the template).

e-sign chain

Hand the generated PDF to DocuSign / Adobe Sign for signature after generation.

Batch

Replace the Request trigger with a Recurrence + Dataverse ListRecords (status = Pending) loop to mass-generate.

Key Expressions

The flow is intentionally light on Power Fx / WDL gymnastics — the heaviest expressions are the branch-name concatenation and the approval outcome check. They are listed below in the order they appear in the flow.

@outputs('Compose_Merge_Data')

@coalesce(outputs('Adobe_Start_DocGen')?['headers']?['location'], outputs('Adobe_Start_DocGen')?['headers']?['Location'])

@equals(variables('varJobStatus'), 'done')

@body('Get_DocGen_Status')?['asset']?['downloadUri']

@equals(toLower(variables('varProtect')), 'true')

@base64ToBinary(variables('varFinalPdfBase64'))

@coalesce(triggerBody()?['recipientEmailOverride'], body('Get_DocGen_Request')?['flowlibs_recipientemail'])

@body('Create_Sharing_Link')?['link']?['webUrl']

Customize & download