File and Folder ID in BOX now supported in Nintex Workflow Cloud

[gonzalo_marcos]

Nintex Workflow Cloud Release 54 comes with very good news for those of you using Nintex for BOX.

Now, the actions in the BOX connector accept the File or Folder ID as parameters to identify and work with files and folders. And, as you can see in the examples below, the new feature has been added to the actions, it’s not replacing the previous option of the action working with the objects paths. So, if you were already using BOX actions in your workflow with paths don’t panic, you won’t have to change anything.

This new feature comes as a response to the feedback we’ve received during the last months from customers and partners asking for a way to interact with BOX objects using the file and folder ID. From here I’d like to thank my product team at Nintex, for the great job they’ve done here and the quick reaction to the BOX and Nintex user's request (myself included ).

Why is this Important?

You might be wondering why some of us were asking for this feature, why do we need the File and/or the Folder ID if we can use the Path?

Well, that’s correct, the path can be a way to interact with BOX objects, actually, from the end user perspective using the Path the user can navigate through the folders structure and specify the file or folder he/she wants to interact with. The path is more user-friendly, much better option than memorizing an ID to locate your folder.

On the other hand, if you’ve played already a little bit with the BOX API you’ve probably realized that the ID is the preferred method to interact with BOX objects, especially in more complex scenarios. Here are some examples of the scenarios in which using the file and folder ID is required:

• Keep the relationship between workflow and folder when the folder is moved or renamed. A good example is when as part of your process you need to delete a file with which you've been working throughout the workflow and that file gets moved by another user in BOX when the workflow is half the way through.

• Keep the relationship between workflow and file when the file is moved or renamed. For instance when your workflow needs to get a file to be sent and that file is manually moved from BOX.

• Issues with special characters in file or folder names.

• Integration scenarios of Systems of Records using the BOX API to include the display of files or folders. For instance, if you use Salesforce and embed BOX in the page layout of the object that requires using files and folders ID.

So, in summary, a great feature for the BOX and Nintex integration, this is definitely going to boost the process automation bit of the BOX platform.

[barkerd]

Excellent post Gonzalo!  This is really going to help our customers using Box.

[erutman]

This is going to be great for our environment!  My question is, how do I retrieve the File ID in the first place for a targeted object?  Is the "Get File Metadata" the way to do this for a file?  How about a folder?  Any idea if this is the same as the "Item ID" value in the Box Folder and Files report?  Thanks!

[gonzalo_marcos]

Hi Ezekiel Rutman-Allen‌, good question. At this stage the idea is more to get the file/folder ID at the time we create content in BOX with actions like Create/Move Folder or Copy/Move file so that it can be referenced later in the workflow in actions like delete/update files and folders. If you wanted to get the file ID for an existing file you need to locate it first with the path, in that case yes, you're right, i'd use the Get file metadata action. However I don't see what would be the use case, do you have a particular scenario in mind?

Thanks