Microsoft Power Automate is a process automation platform which makes automating repetitive tasks with little or no code..

If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription you probably already have access to Power Automate. Check your subscription or talk to your Microsoft partner for more details.

You may be able to automate processes such as picking up when addresses are added to a an Excel spreadsheet and then sending a PDF letter to that address that sits in SharePoint or in OneDrive.

You can send your letters to PC2Paper using Power Automate and our RESTFul JSON API by following these steps below.

In the example below we’ve setup a new Flow in Power Automate with a Manual Trigger. We are getting a PDF file to use, using the OneDrive for Business Action. You can use any action you’d like to provide a file for upload.

Add the Manual Trigger flow (you can use a different one here depending on the process you are after) and the OneDrive for Business Get File Content Action below it. If there is another Action you’d prefer to use you can use that instead.

Uploading a PDF

We have used the HTTP Action to upload our PDF file add this below the One Drive for Business Get File Content Action. You can search for it as HTTP in the action search box, you will want the plain HTTP adaptor.

Once added you can rename this adaptor to “Upload File”

Enter the following details

• For the URI: https://test.pc2paper.co.uk/uploadfileapi.aspx if you are connecting to production enter https://www.pc2paper.co.uk/uploadfileapi.aspx
• Method: Set this to POST
• Headers: Add the following headers and place your PC2Paper username and password (or API keys) into them
• username
• password
• Queries: Over here you will want to enter “fileName” and in the value field give your file a name. You can enter anything in here and you can populate this from a previous action if you have one.
• Body: For the body you will want to enter the following JSON
  

  {
  "$content-type": "multipart/form-data",
  "$multipart": [
  {
  "headers": {
  "Content-Disposition": "form-data: name=\"file[data]\";filename=\"testfile.pdf\""
  },
  "body": @{body('Get_file_content')}
  }
  ]
  }
  
  Where you see this tag @{body('Get_file_content')} you will want to drag in the content from the OneDrive Action that ran before this action. You select this from the little lightening bolt that appears next to the Body text box when you click in it.
  
  

Parse the results from the PDF Upload

After you have completed the previous step you will want to add a “Parse JSON” action. We will use this to parse the JSON returned by the upload file action.

Schema: Enter the following text into the schema box.

{
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"fileGuid": {
"type": "string"
},
"pages": {
"type": "integer"
}
}
}

Content: Select the content box and then select the lightening bolt that appears next to it and select (as per the image above) the Body field from the Upload File step you did previously.

Submit Letter

Now for the final Action

Add another HTTP Action after the “Parse JSON” Action.

Enter the following details

• URI: https://test.pc2paper.co.uk/lettercustomerapi.svc/json/SendSubmitLetterForPosting for production you can use https://www.pc2paper.co.uk/lettercustomerapi.svc/json/SendSubmitLetterForPosting
• Method: Select POST
• Body: This is the same JSON example used in our JSON API example found here. Insert the below JSON into the body text
  
  

  {
  "letterForPosting": {
  "SourceClient": "Power Automate",
  "Addresses": [
  {
  "ReceiverName": "John Smith",
  "ReceiverAddressLine1": "1 Acme Road",
  "ReceiverAddressLine2": "My Street",
  "ReceiverAddressTownCityOrLine3": "Town",
  "ReceiverAddressCountyStateOrLine4": "County",
  "ReceiverAddressPostCode": "Postcode"
  }
  ],
  "ReceiverCountryCode": 1,
  "Postage": 31,
  "Paper": 1,
  "Envelope": 1,
  "Extras": 0,
  "LetterBody": "Dear John, Please find my letter attached",
  "IncludeSenderAddressOnEnvelope": true,
  "SenderAddress": "22 Acme Acres\n Acme Town",
  "YourRef": "MyRef001",
  "FileAttachementGUIDs": [
  "@{body('Parse_JSON')?['fileGuid']}"
  ]
  },
  "username": "username here",
  "password": "password here"
  }
  
  Important: Ensure you changing the following in the JSON. You can read more about these fields here
  
  username and password: Make sure you update these with your own this can also be your API key and API secret
  FileAttachementGUIDs: For this you want to replace @{body('Parse_JSON')?['fileGuid']} with “Body fileGuid” from your Parse JSON action
  
  
  
  Note you can find out more about postage options and country codes in the documentation found here. The postage codes can be found using our postal calculator for a quick lookup

Conclusion

That’s it. Please remember to always test your integration signing up for a free test account on https://test.pc2paper.co.uk you can top up your free test account with the following card number 5555558265554449 (this is not a real card number as it is a test environment), use made up details for the rest of the top-up process. You can then see if the letters you send come through to your test account. Remember to change the test endpoints to our live server when you are done by changing https://test to https://www .

We've had several requests for an example on using our SOAP API, so decided to throw one together for you to get an idea of how it works.

The example below will send PDF documents as a letter with a cover letter which is written as a formatted HTML string (see the LetterBody attribute below).

To make more use of this example and to adapt it to your needs you may need to look at the Letter Pricing API along with the country code list which can all be found here.

If you would like us to advise you on what are the best options to use for postage and paper usage please contact us.

             1: <?php

             2:  

             3: $client = new SoapClient("https://www.pc2paper.co.uk/lettercustomerapi.svc?wsdl");

             4:  

             5: 
            // Your PC2Paper
Username and Password go below
          

             6: $pc2paperUsername = "username";

             7: $pc2paperPassword = "password";

             8:  

             9: 
            //First we upload
a PDF we wish to attach to our letter
          

             10:  

             11: $file = file_get_contents("C:\tempfiles\mytestfile.pdf");

             12:  

             13: 
            //We give the pdf
a friendly name
          

             14: $parametersUpload->filename = "mytestFile.pdf";

             15: $parametersUpload->fileContent
= $file;

             16: $parametersUpload->username=$pc2paperUsername;

             17: $parametersUpload->password=$pc2paperPassword;

             18:  

             19: 
            //We submit our
PDF to PC2Paper
          

             20: $uploadedFileResult = $client->UploadDocument($parametersUpload);

             21:  

             22: 
            // Not the above return value
contains the following
          

             23: 
            // $uploadedFileResult->UploadDocumentResult->ErrorMessages
(A a string array of any errors that took place)
          

             24: 
            // $uploadedFileResult->UploadDocumentResult->FileCreatedGUID
(The created files GUID)0
          

             25: 
            // $uploadedFileResult->UploadDocumentResult->Status
(OK or ERROR, if error check ErrorMessages array
          

             26:  

             27: 
            //After our PDF
has been submited we get a GUID which we store in an array to use with our letter
below.
          

             28: 
            //Note you can attach multiple
PDF's to your letter by adding to this array.
          

             29: $fileGuidArray = array($uploadedFileResult->UploadDocumentResult->FileCreatedGUID);

             30:  

             31:  

             32: 
            // ********** The actual Letter.
          

             33: 
            // We put an address
together
          

             34: $address->ReceiverName = "Tom
Smith";

             35: $address->ReceiverAddressLine1
= "Line 1 ";

             36: $address->ReceiverAddressLine2 = "Line
2";

             37: $address->ReceiverAddressTownCityOrLine3
= "My Town";

             38: $address->ReceiverAddressCountyStateOrLine4
= "County";

             39: $address->ReceiverAddressPostCode
= "ZZ1 2ZZ";

             40:  

             41: 
            // Add the address
to an address array
          

             42: $addressArray = array($address);

             43:  

             44: 
            //Add the address array to our
letter
          

             45: $letter->Addresses = $addressArray
;

             46:  

             47: 
            //Setup our postage
options (use the LetterPosting API for these values 
          

             48: 
            //or ask us and we will be happy
to provide the values based on your needs)
          

             49:  

             50:  

             51: 
            // 1=UK , 240=US
for a list of more please refer to country.csv file from the API section of our website.
          

             52: $letter->ReceiverCountryCode = 1; 

             53:  

             54: $letter->IncludeSenderAddressOnEnvelope = true;

             55: $letter->Postage = 3; //UK
First Class

             56: $letter->Paper = 1; // B&W
Single Sides print

             57: $letter->Extras = 0;

             58: $letter->Envelope = 1; //Simple
DL envelope

             59: $letter->Pages = 2;

             60: $letter->FileAttachementGUIDs = $fileGuidArray;

             61:  

             62: $letter->SenderAddress = "Peter
Smith\nMy Town";

             63:  

             64: 
            //This is the cover letter of
your letter. Leave this null if you do not want a cover letter
          

             65: 
            //You may use formatted
HTML in here to format your letter.
          

             66: $letter->LetterBody = "<p>Hi
Tom,</p> <p>This is a letter sent from PHP!</p>";

             67:  

             68:  

             69: $parameters->letterForPosting =
$letter;

             70:  

             71: 
            // Your PC2Paper
username and password
          

             72: $parameters->username = $pc2paperUsername;

             73: $parameters->password = $pc2paperPassword;

             74:  

             75: $result = $client->SendSubmitLetterForPosting($parameters);

             76:  

             77: 
            // The return object
will give you the following
          

             78: 
            // $result->SendSubmitLetterForPostingResult->CostOfLetter
          

             79: 
            // $result->SendSubmitLetterForPostingResult->ErrorMessages
(any errors that took place)
          

             80: 
            // $result->SendSubmitLetterForPostingResult->FundsLeftInYourAccount
          

             81: 
            // $result->SendSubmitLetterForPostingResult->LetterId
          

             82: 
            // $result->SendSubmitLetterForPostingResult->Status
(OK if everything went ok or ERROR, if error check the ErrorMessages array)
          

             83:  

             84:  

             85: print_r($result);

             86: ?>

The PC2Paper API documentation has been updated to version 3. The API now enables you to associate costs from our Letter Pricing API with letters. There is also a .NET C# example of how to use the XML RPC interface for sending PDF documents.

To find out more click here..