Idea
Improve the standard Document Attachment functionality in Business Central by allowing users to select and download multiple attachments at once as a single ZIP file.
In addition, provide a list page for viewing and managing document attachments related to the records in the current business context.
Current limitation
Business Central allows users to attach multiple files to records through the standard Document Attachment functionality. However, when several attachments need to be retrieved, users must open or download the files individually.
This becomes inefficient when a record contains several attachments or when users need to retrieve attachments belonging to multiple related records, such as a set of Sales Orders.
There is also no convenient standard page that allows users to see the attachments belonging to the records represented by the filters currently applied to a business document list.
Proposed functionality
Download multiple attachments
Extend the standard Document Attachment functionality so that users can select multiple attachments and download them in a single operation.
When multiple files are selected, Business Central should:
- collect the selected document attachments;
- create a ZIP archive containing the selected files;
- preserve the original attachment file names inside the archive; and
- download the resulting ZIP file to the user.
When the attachments belong to a specific record, the ZIP file should use the record identifier/code as its file name where applicable, making the downloaded archive easy to associate with the Business Central record.
Attachment list based on the source page
Add an action to the Document Attachment FactBox that opens a dedicated list of related attachments.
The page should show attachments according to the table and record filters of the page from which it was opened.
For example, when the action is invoked from the Sales Order List, the attachment list should contain only Document Attachment entries related to Sales Orders that satisfy the filters currently applied to the Sales Order List.
This would allow users to:
- view attachments across multiple records without opening each record individually;
- select multiple attachments;
- download the selected attachments as ZIP files; and
- retain the business context and filtering of the originating page.
Example scenario
A user opens the Sales Orders page and filters the list to a specific customer or another business criterion.
The user opens the attachment functionality and chooses the action for viewing related attachments.
Business Central opens the attachment list containing only attachments associated with Sales Orders matching the source page filters.
The user can then select the required attachments and download them together instead of downloading every attachment individually.
For attachments associated with an individual Sales Order, the generated ZIP archive can be named using the Sales Order No.
Benefits
This functionality would:
- reduce the number of operations required to retrieve document attachments;
- improve usability when records contain several attachments;
- make it easier to work with attachments across filtered sets of business documents;
- avoid the need for partners and customers to implement the same bulk-download functionality repeatedly in extensions; and
- provide reusable standard functionality for document attachment handling across Business Central.
Open-source contribution
This idea is suitable for open-source contribution to the Microsoft BCApps repository.
An implementation of the proposed functionality has already been developed and validated, and I am willing to contribute the implementation, automated tests, and any required adjustments through the BCApps contribution process.