Integrating JSON data into documents

By leveraging JSON format data, you can include information that goes beyond the confines of your Dataverse (Dynamics 365 environment) into your documents. This article covers preparing templates to support your JSON schema and integrating JSON data into documents using the Create document action of our Connector for PowerAutomate.

To begin, we will walk through the steps needed to add your schema to your template and insert your data into a Flow. Later, an example will demonstrate these steps in practice.

Prerequisites:

DocumentsCorePack Template Designer version 10.40 or higher
DocumentsCorePack Server version 2020.134 or higher.
A SettingsKey must be added to your environment with the following values:
- Name: EnableExternalJsonDesigner
- Value: true
- Product: DocumentsCorePack

NOTE: For more information on how to create a SettingsKey, please click here.

Step-by-Step tutorial: Integrating JSON data into documents

Step 1: Prepare your template by adding a JSON schema

The JSON tab can be found in the DocumentsCorePack Template Designer.

Under this tab, you can add your schema by clicking the Add Queries button. In this window, you can either manually enter your schema, or you can click on Open schema file to open up a file on your computer. The Single Row Query can be enabled if the schema represents only a single row of data. Leaving it disabled will indicate that the schema should represent a table.

NOTE: Enter only the schema here. Add the JSON data into a Flow, as shown in a later step.

example json schema — Figure 2: Some example JSON schema

Adding the schema updates the field list to include your new fields. You can add these fields into your template just like normal fields.

updated fields list — Figure 3: Updated fields list

With this, your template is now able to accept data based upon your specified JSON schema.

Step 2: Generate documents including external JSON data via a Flow

JSON data can be passed to your document in a Flow throught our DocumentsCorePack Connecter. After adding the Create document (sync) (V3) step to your Flow, clicking on Show advanced options will display the JSON Datasource field. Add your JSON data here.

create document with JSON datsource — Figure 4: The Create document (sync) (V3) action, with JSON Datasource highlighted

Example

We want to create a template that contains a small message to address a customer. This template will include fields that will come from our JSON schema.

To begin, we will open Word and bring up the Template Designer. Under the JSON tab, we will select Add Query and enter our desired JSON schema. Adding the schema updates the fields list.

json window with schema — Figure 5: JSON Data Source window with our schema

Integrating JSON data into documents — Figure 6: Updated fields list

We can then add our fields to our template. Our First Name, Last Name, and Weeks until next contact fields can be added normally. Our Signature field, however, is an image field, as we will be passing in a Base64 string to represent our image in our data later. To add this field properly, we can add this field using the Insert as Picture Field option under the Insert Field submenu.