Adobe PDF Services connector for Microsoft Power Automate

Last updated on Feb 07, 2023 11:00:16 AM GMT

Overview

Adobe PDF Services connector brings the power of Adobe Acrobat Services to all your connected Microsoft applications through Power Automate flows. Realize cost savings and increased productivity by implementing cloud-based document workflows without any code. With access to over twenty PDF API actions, build customized document workflows that are connected to the ecosystem of applications and services in Microsoft Power Platform.

Power Automate flows creates an environment where any supported service can be inter-connected. The use cases for the Adobe PDF Services connector are:

Agreements and Contracts
Content Publishing (Reports, Whitepapers)
Client/Employee Onboarding
Financial Reporting & Invoices
Data Analysis & Retrieval

Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft Power Automate is a tool that connects different apps and services into coordinated multi-step workflows so that repetitive tasks can be automated without the need for complex API coding.

There are three Power Automate concepts that drive all workflows. The first is that all services can expose their API through a connector to the service. Connectors may have Triggers that start workflows. Connectors must have Actions that drive what happens within the workflow. There are common logical connectors between actions that control the workflow based on parameters generated by previous actions.

Microsoft PowerApps

PowerApps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs. Using PowerApps, you can quickly build custom business apps that connect to your business data stored either in the underlying data platform (Microsoft Dataverse) or in various online and on-premises data sources (SharePoint, Excel, Office 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and so on).

Apps built using PowerApps provide rich business logic and workflow capabilities to transform your manual business processes to digital, automated processes. Further, apps built using PowerApps have a responsive design, and can run seamlessly in browser or on mobile devices (phone or tablet). PowerApps "democratizes" the custom business app building experience by enabling users to build feature-rich, custom business apps without writing code.

Prerequisites

Adobe PDF Services connector for Microsoft Power Automate requires credentials to access. You can obtain credentials through our generous Free Trial with 1000 PDF Transactions for up to six months. Once your trial is exhausted, there are multiple purchase options available. Please see our pricing page for purchase options including pay as you go and volume discounts, or get started now with our free trial.

Accessing the Power Automate interface

To access the Power Automate interface, login to your Microsoft 365 organization. Click the Applications icon on the upper-left corner of the window, and choose Power Automate. You are then redirected to the Power Automate home page: https://flow.microsoft.com.

Note:

If you don't see the Power Automate app, contact your Microsoft 365 administrator.

On the Power Automate home page do the following:

Click Connectors on the left rail of the page.
In the Search field, type Adobe PDF Services.
Select the Adobe PDF Services connector.

Accessing the PowerApps interface

To create an app, start with powerapps.com. Make sure you have an appropriate PowerApps license. If not, contact your Microsoft 365 administrator for help.

After you sign in, on the left rail, click Data, and then click Connections.
In the Search field, type Adobe PDF Services.
Choose the Adobe PDF Services connector.

You can create two types of apps: canvas and model-driven apps. For more information, see Overview of creating apps in PowerApps.

While creating your app, you can add a workflow or task with Adobe PDF Services by using the native integration of Power Automate inside PowerApps by doing the following in the app design interface:

Choose an object in the app.
Click Action.
To configure the workflow, click Flows.

How to get credentials?

Getting started with PDF Services API is easy with just a few steps:

Sign up for a free trial account here.
After creating a free trial, you’ll obtain your credentials that can be used for all the PDF actions in your flows.
Set up your connection

Add your credentials to the Adobe PDF Services connector. You can do this by copying the below-mentioned credential details to your one-time connector setup:
- Client ID 
- Client Secret 
- Organization ID 
- Account ID 
- Private Key - both Base64 encoded and unencoded private keys are accepted
Once you complete these steps, you can add any of the PDF Services connector actions to your flow.

How to access the Adobe PDF Services API along with your pay-as-you-go AWS Marketplace credentials?

You can access the Adobe PDF Services API with your pay-as-you-go AWS subscription. You need to subscribe to the Adobe PDF Services API from AWS, and set up access to the paid subscription in Power Automate with a new set of credentials. Do the following:

Subscribe to the Adobe PDF Services API in AWS Marketplace: Click any of the links below to go to the PDF Services API offering page on AWS Marketplace, and then click Continue to Subscribe.
- PDF Services API (US)
- PDF Services API (International)
Create Your New Paid Credentials: Click Set Up Your Account.

Alternately, you can click on the Click Here link in the Having issues signing up with your product message box.

Adobe's credential creation page is displayed. Fill in your credentials name and description when prompted. If you are an existing trial user, you will have to create new credentials for your pay-as-you-go subscription.

Your new credential is ready to use.
Remove your existing Adobe PDF services trial connection: On the left rail of Power Automate, click Data > Connections. Select your trial Adobe PDF Services connection, click the options menu (...), and then click Delete.
Set up a new connection: Copy the following credential details, and then paste for your one-time new Adobe PDF Services connector setup.
- Client ID (API Key)
- Client Secret 
- Organization ID 
- Technical Account ID
- Base64 Encoded Private Key
Note:

The Private Key is downloaded in a zip file. You need not convert the key to Base64. Simply copy and paste the entire code beginning from:
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- / -----END PRIVATE KEY-----

Note:

If you unsubscribe from AWS and resubscribe later, you’ll have to go through this same process again to create new credentials, and then add them on Power Automate.

Adobe PDF Services actions

Actions

An action represents what you want to happen after the workflow is triggered. Actions allow users to perform operations that can create or manipulate PDF documents using Adobe PDF Services.

Each action has one or more required (and/or optional) inputs that are needed for the action to be implemented correctly.

The action produces a document output. For example, creating a PDF from a Word document provides you a PDF of that same document or exporting a PDF to a PowerPoint file provides you the output format of PowerPoint.

List of Adobe PDF Services actions

For a current and detail list of available actions, refer the documentation.

Resources and Help

For technical questions, feel free to post on our forum.