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Many questionnaires ask for a document alongside the answer, such as a certificate, a policy, or an insurance letter. Attachments let you pair those files with the rows that need them and export them together with the questionnaire.

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Turning attachments on

An administrator enables attachments for the organization under Settings > RFP settings > Attachments.
  • Enable attachments adds an Attachments column to every questionnaire.
  • Attachment sources: the folders, documents, and integrations attachments can come from. Pick them with Edit sources. Nothing is attached while none are selected. Files you upload in Edit sources are selected right away. Upload puts them in the open folder, or in Shared files when none is open. Dragged files go into the folder you drop them on.
While attachments are off, a questionnaire’s own evidence or reference column is filled only with links to public web pages found in your sources. When no public page supports a row, that cell stays empty. Realm never names an internal document, such as a SharePoint or Confluence page, that the buyer cannot open. Your organization’s or the RFP’s fill instructions can change this. Attachment sources can hold PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Docs, and Google Slides files. Files you upload from your computer can be PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, plus a few older spreadsheet formats, or PNG, JPEG, GIF, or WebP images. Google Docs and Google Slides can be attached from your knowledge, but not uploaded. See Supported file types.

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Attaching during a fill

When Realm fills a row it checks whether the question asks for a document. If it does, Realm searches the attachment sources and attaches the best matches. Documents you attached to similar questions in earlier RFPs are considered first. The Attachments column sits beside the answer. Click a cell to expand the row and see the attached files, together with a note when the request was only partly met or when nothing in your sources matched.

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Attaching by hand

Expand a row and click Attach document to open the picker, or point at the row’s cell in the Attachments column and click +. The picker starts on the documents approved for attachments, and you can search for others. You can also upload a file from your computer straight into the row. Uploaded files are stored with the project’s files, or in an organization-wide RFP Attachments folder for RFPs without a project. To add a screenshot to an answer, upload the image into the row. The row shows a small preview of each image. Realm never attaches images during a fill.

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Exporting with attachments

In the export dialog, turn on Include attachments to download a zip containing the exported file and every attached document. Before you download, Realm lists any attached document that was deleted, and any that changed since it was attached, so you can check the bundle before you use it. Attaching a document to a row puts it in the bid, so everyone who can export the RFP or its project gets it in the zip, even someone who can’t open that document elsewhere in Realm. Only a deleted document is left out. A project’s Export dialog lists the attachments of its questionnaires in their own section, with a box that includes them. See Exporting the project’s files.

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Images in Word exports

When you fill the original Word file, Realm places each image attached to a row inside that row’s answer, after the answer text. This happens whether or not Include attachments is on. If a row has several answer columns, the images go with the longest answer. Each image keeps its own size, scaled down to fit the answer cell. If a row has no answer text, its images go in the answer column that holds the most text in that section. An image placed in the Word file is not also added to the zip. The list of attachments in the export dialog still shows images before you export. If Realm cannot read an image or find a place for it, the export lists the row so you can add the image yourself. Excel, CSV, and PDF exports treat images like any other attachment. A written response shows the PNG and JPEG images attached to rows next to the answers they belong to. The document keeps its own copy of each image. Other image types are left out; add those to the document yourself.