Attachment Viewer is an add-on for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for some sections in many areas such as Bank and Payments or Sales and Purchasing (a more detailed list is available at the end of this documentation). This tool is crucial for any such section since it allows users to easily add attachments, either by drag and drop or by choosing them from a folder. Moreover, attachments can be quickly viewed with the help of thumbnails, without having to download every attachment.

Availability of attachment viewer functionality

Attachment Viewer can be found on many pages. The availability of this functionality is indicated by the presence of this icon under the Attachment Viewer title:

If this exact icon does not appear under the Attachment Viewer header, the functionality is not available on the page.

Add a new attachment

Users can add a new attachment either by dragging and dropping the file on the attachment icon in the top right corner or they can select the attachment from a specific folder on their PC by clicking on it.

Add supporting attachments or delete an attachment

Supporting attachments can be added by clicking on the icon located in the top right corner below “Attachment Viewer” or by dragging and dropping of file on the icon .

Users are able to move between particular attachments using arrows ⬅ ➡ .

On the other hand, the attachment can be deleted by clicking on the icon and confirming that the user really wants to delete the attachment.

Zoom an attachment

Zooming an attachment can be done by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL + mouse wheel.

View of the whole attachment

Users can view the whole attachment by clicking on the following icon:

This icon is situated to the right of the icon . The selected attachment will be displayed on a new tab.

Save an attachment

Users can download a document by clicking on the following icon, which is located next to the document view icon:

Print an attachment

Attachments can be printed (Print) by right-clicking on the preview of a specific attachment.

Unavailability of attachment preview

When the size of the attached file is larger than 3 MB (or any other limit user sets in Attachment Viewer Settings),

then the preview of the attachment will not be displayed and the icon on the right appears along with the name of the particular attachment and some other details.

Moreover, users will not be able to view the whole attachment using a special icon, which is situated to the right of the icon .

When users upload a different format than a PDF, the following icon appears (other formats such as Excel or JSON are supported but only PDFs can be previewed).

Settings

Attachment Viewer settings can be set in two sections.

Attachment Viewer Settings

Attachment Viewer respects standard processes in Business Central using standard attachment tables - therefore its functionality is just an extension of such processes. Attachment Viewer can be set on the Attachment Viewer Settings page where users can, among other things, activate or deactivate the following two features.

Copy Planning Line Att. To SH

This button adds new functionality to the Jobs module. It allows users to add attachments to the Job Planning Lines, and when they create a corresponding Sales Invoice, it will automatically include all the attachments they have added to each line.

When you are in the Job Planning Lines, select the job line to which you want to add the attachment and add it.

To create a corresponding Sales Invoice, follow these steps:

1. Go back to the Job Card and click on the 'Line' tab

2. Select 'Documents'

3. Choose 'Create Sales Invoice'

After creating the invoice, navigate to Sales Invoices/Credit Memos (accessible from the same section where you created the invoice). From there, select either 'Post' or 'Post and Send'. More information about the second option is provided in the subsequent section.

When you view the newly posted invoice in Posted Sales Invoices, you will find the attachment from the corresponding job line displayed alongside it.

Copy Att. from Inc. Doc. on PSI

This feature allows users to manually add attachments from Posted Sales Invoices during the Post and Send process.

After creating a new Sales Invoice with the attachment of your choice, click on the arrow next to the 'Post' function located in the upper left corner, and select 'Post and Send'.

After the window with your predefined mailing options appears, scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the 'Add File from Source' option.

Select your attachment from the list and confirm your choice. The attachment will now be displayed at the bottom of the window, under the invoice.

Editting Attachments in Ledger Entries and Posted Documents

The standard version of the Attachment Viewer does not allow editing attachments in ledger entries or documents that have already been posted. We designed a secure three-level editing system in case you need to do some additional changes.

1st level: No editting is allowed

At this level it is not possible to do any changes in the documents attached to your Posted Purchase or Sales Invoices or Credit Memos as well as to General, Vendor or Customer Ledger Entries.

2nd level: Checkbox in User Setup

At this level, you can enable the adding of supplementary attachments to the pages above for individual users. The functionality can be set in User Setup by adding the checkbox called Allow Edit Posted Doc. in Att. Viewer using the Personalize action.

Once the Personalize mode bar appears below the main control bar, click the + Field button and the window on the right will show you the available fields that can be added to this page.

Select the field Allow Edit Posted Doc. in Att. Viewer and drag it to the settings page. Confirm the customization by clicking the red Done button in the upper right corner.

Then you check the checkbox for the specific user for whom you want to allow additional attachments.

3rd level: Toggle button in Attachment Viewer Settings

At this level, you can enable the adding and deleting of attachments to the pages above to all users in the system. Similarly to the second level you need to add the corresponding field through the Personalize mode first. This time go to Attachment Viewer Settings, activate the Personalize mode and add the Posted document editable toggle button to the settings table. Confirm the change.

Turn on the switch. The following window will appear asking you to enter a password that will be sent to you upon request.

Bulk Attachment Download in Attachment Viewer Settings

To download attachments in bulk, you can use the feature that allows you to download attachments according to selected parameters into a .zip file. This feature is available on the Attachment Viewer Settings page, in the Actions section, click Download Attachments.

On the following page, you can use toggle buttons to select whether you want to export sales documents, purchase documents, or job-related attachments. For each category, you can further refine your selection using filters. Once the filters are set as desired, click OK to confirm the settings and all selected attachments will be downloaded as a single .zip file.

Presence of attachments in entries

If you are not used to having the attachment factbox open when you work with entries, you can also use the Attachment Exists column to easily find out if an attachment has been added to a particular row of an entry. The values in this column can be either Yes or No, depending on whether the system detects attachments for the given record or not. It is possible to filter on the values in this column.

This functionality is availale in general ledger entries, vendor ledger entries and customer ledger entries.

Attachment Viewer Pages

In this section, it is possible to show or hide the Attachment Viewer functionality on the pages named in the table below.

When you view a page that supports our extension a new line with the corresponding page name is created and the visibility checkbox is automatically ticked.

If you don’t want to use Attachment Viewer on any of these pages, unmark the checkbox on the given line.

New pages and their IDs can also be added to the table manually.

List of Business Central pages where the Attachment Viewer is available

Bank Account Card
Bank Account List
Blanket Purchase Order
Blanket Purchase Orders
Blanket Sales Order
Blanket Sales Orders
Contact Card
Contact List
Customer Card
Customer Ledger Entries
Customer List
Employee Card
Employee List
Fixed Asset Card
Fixed Asset List
General Ledger Entries
General Journals
Job Card
Job G/L Journal
Job List
Job Planning Lines
Opportunity Card
Opportunity List
Payment Journal
Posted Purchase Credit Memo
Posted Purchase Credit Memos
Posted Purchase Invoice
Posted Purchase Invoices
Posted Sales Credit Memo
Posted Sales Credit Memos
Posted Sales Invoice
Posted Sales Invoices
Purchase Credit Memo
Purchase Credit Memos
Purchase Invoice
Purchase Invoices
Purchase Order
Purchase Order List
Purchase Quote
Purchase Quotes
Purchase Return Order
Purchase Return Order List
Sales Credit Memo
Sales Credit Memos
Sales Invoice
Sales Invoice List
Sales Order
Sales Order List
Sales Quote
Sales Quotes
Sales Return Order
Sales Return Order List
Vendor Card
Vendor Ledger Entries
Vendor List