Secure Microsoft Word Documents with Power Automate

We recently released the ‘Secure Word Document’ action which can be used to secure (also known as protect) a Microsoft Document covering all the typical file formats (DOCX, DOC, DOTX, DOT, DOCM, DOTM and RTF). The action provides the following options for securing / protecting the Word document controlled by the ‘Protection Type‘ option:

• AllowComments – Users are permitted to add / modify comments only
• AllowFormFields – Users can enter data into form fields only
• AllowRevisions – Users can add revision marks only
• ReadOnly – Users are blocked from applying any modifications to the file
• NoProtection – The document is not protected

For this post we’ll provide two very basic examples for using the ‘Secure Word Document’ action to add protection and remove protection from the Word document. **We’ve also included a bonus video showing how you can quickly use Encodian Trigr to deploy the flow used for these examples to your entire SharePoint environment!

Protect a Microsoft Word Document with Power Automate

For this basic example we’re simply going to create a manually invoked Power Automate Flow, secure the selected Word Document and save to OneDrive, simple!

1. Navigate to https://make.powerautomate.com

2. Click ‘New flow‘ > ‘Instant cloud flow‘

3. Complete the form:

3.a Flow name: Enter a relevant name for your flow

3.b Trigger: Select the ‘Manually trigger a flow‘ trigger action

3.c Click ‘Create‘

4. Select the ‘Manually trigger a flow‘ trigger action, click ‘Add an input‘

5. Select ‘File‘

6.Underneath the ‘Manually trigger a flow‘ trigger action, add the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action:

6.a. Filename: Manually enter a value, in a real world scenario you would obtain the filename from the file properties.

6.b. File Content: Select the ‘File Content‘ property provided by the ‘Manually trigger a flow‘ trigger action

6.c. Password: Enter the password which will be used to protect and remove protection from the document

6.d. Protection Type: Select the ‘ReadOnly‘ option

7. Underneath the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action, add the OneDrive ‘Create File‘ action

7.a. Folder Path: Select the location within OneDrive to save the protected Word document

7.b. File Name: Select the ‘Filename‘ property provided by the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action

7.c. File Content: Select the ‘File Content’ property provided by the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action

That’s it all done! The Power Automate flow will now secure the selected document and save you the configured OneDrive location! Your flow should look similar to the following:

After executing the flow, you will see the secured Microsoft word document added to your OneDrive:

And upon opening the file you’ll be able to verify the protection level applied to the document:

Remove protection from a Microsoft Word Document with Power Automate

Following on from adding protection (securing) a Microsoft Word Document, this section outlines how to remove protection.

1. Configure your flow as per the ‘Protect a Microsoft Word Document with Power Automate‘  of this article

2. Update the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action as follows: 2.a. Protection Type: Select the ‘NoProtection‘ option

That’s it :)! The flow has now been configured to remove protection from the selection Microsoft Word Document!

Deploy the Power Automate Flow to all SharePoint Sites and Document Libraries

What if you wanted to deploy the Flow you have created to secure / protect Microsoft Word documents to all SharePoint libraries? This can be very quickly achieved using Encodian Trigr, checkout the following video guide 🙂

Finally…

We hope this post provides a helpful example of how you secure Microsoft Word documents using the Encodian ‘Secure Word Document’ action and Microsoft Power Automate.

Please share any feedback or comments – all are welcome