About Shannon_W

Hi Raju,   I responded to your email about this, but in case anyone here is following along, this error means that the list ID you're specifying while adding a contact, 1, doesn't exist in the account. You can make a GET call to  https://api.constantcontact.com/v2/lists to see the lists and list ID's in the account. You will most likely see lists with ID's that are 10 digits long.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mike,   I believe you're probably looking at the right field name, "name." Is it possible that the customer has actually named their campaign to be a number instead of what most of our customers do? We also have a campaign field called id that should be just a number. See this page for the campaign field names.   I'd be happy to take a look at the particular campaign if you want to email the campaign id or name and the Constant Contact username to webservices@constantcontact.com.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Octavian,   UPDATE: Upon looking at the error you were getting, the issue is more likely that you need to set the address_type to be either "PERSONAL" or "BUSINESS." Setting that value should solve your issue. You have the value as null right now.   Previous response: You are setting the custom field names yourself, right?   Try setting the custom field names to be in the format "custom_field_n" where n=1=15. Below are two code samples for the custom field portion, and at least one of them should work. Sorry for the ambiguity here, but I'm prioritizing a quick response to you (I'm not sure whether label is still required).   $contact->custom_fields = array( array('name' => 'custom_field_1', 'value' => 'value 1'), array('name' => 'custom_field_2', 'value' => 'value 2') ); $contact->custom_fields = array( array('label' => 'Custom Field 1', 'name' => 'custom_field_1', 'value' => 'value 1'), array('label' => 'Custom Field 2', 'name' => 'custom_field_2', 'value' => 'value 2') );   Let me know how that goes.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer     ... View more

Hi Brad,   To do this, you must have some coding ability, which I'm hoping you do since you're on the developer forums. Are you using the signup form post URL described here? If so, we send you an HTTP response from our server with the error code, (400 or 429 in the case of a failure), and an error message body. That error message body is what you're looking to display to your end user who has input their email address. Your code must capture our HTTP error response body, and display it to the user on your failure page.   If you're using a plugin, you can contant the plugin developer, who should be listed wherever you downloaded the plugin to request this feature.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mark,   Is this when you're logged into your Constant Contact account that you're only seeing some lists? Could you include a screenshot here so that we can see what you mean?   Thanks in advance.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Diane,   One issue here is that we don't allow attachments to be sent to contacts in emails sent through Constant Contact. Attachments too often get flagged by firewalls and spam filters and sent into the junk/bulk folder, or never make it there in the first place in the case of firewalls.   You can link to a file, which is usually what we advise. To link to a custom URL, with each URL being contact-specific, you could make use of our custom fields, uploading a different value for each contact on your list.    This article explains how to insert contact-specific values into an email. You could place a whole link inside a contact field this way. Keep in mind that to test this, you'll have to send a live (NOT test) email to yourself to make sure the value is being correctly merged into the email based on what is inside your own contact record in your account.   As for using the API, you can either use the API to upload the contacts or not. The end result will be the same whether you use the API to send us the contacts, or upload them by logging into your account.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mike,   I sent you an email about this, but just for others who may come across this post in the future, not sending the access token either in the header of the request, or in the URI would have been causing the 401 error. A missing API Key, which should be appended to the URI, could have also caused this, but you were clearly sending the API Key in the URI.   As for the VB question, people can use the , but the examples are written in C# and would thus need to be translated into VB if that's your preferred language.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mike,   I think you're probably logged into an account whose owner has a first name of Laura. Let me know if you think that's impossible.   I responded to your post here about the 401 errors.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi,   The most common reason for getting a 401 error is not including an API Key at the end of the URL you're calling. Can you confirm you're sending all of this information in the API call?   https://api.constantcontact.com/v2/...?api_key=xxxxx   Headers: Content-type: application/json Authorization: Bearer yourAccessToken   If you do think you're sending all of that, could you send me full URL (including the API Key) you're sending a request to, along with your request headers, to webservices@constantcontact.com?   Thanks!   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Raghav,   That sounds transactional to me. To do it in our system, you'd either follow the 3 steps above, or a slightly modified version where you resend the same email campaign out to new contacts using the resend feature. Either way, you'd be first adding the email address to the account and putting them on a list to receive the email, and then making another request to schedule the email.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mike,   You will need an API Key, and it will need to be appended to the URL you send a request to. We consider you an 'app' or 'application' in Mashery. You will want to go through the 4 steps on the bottom of the API Keys tab to register an application (where you get your API Key), all the way through to getting an access token for the Constant Contact account you'll be accessing. I'm going to refer only to the V2 endpoints to avoid further confusion. Your request to us to get campaigns will look something like this:   GET  ... //api.constantcontact.com/v2/emailmarketing/campai gns?api_key=xxxxx   Request Headers: Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer accessTokenValue   Once you get a list of campaigns in the account, with their ID's, you can make subsequent calls to get campaign details and tracking for each campaign. I hope that clarifies things. If not, feel free to respond.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer   ... View more

Hi Raghav,   It sounds like you might be looking for a more transactional service, where you're sending to one contact at a time. Our service isn't designed for one-of emails sent to one contact. We're built more for sending marketing communications to lists of people. (You may want to search for 'transactional email service" if sneding to one contact at a time is your primary use case for an email marketing system.) In our system, these are the steps you would take for this:   1. Clear an existing contact list to be sent to, or create a new list in the account.  2. Add the contact(s) you want to email to that list, including their first name if desired. 3. Schedule the email, specifying the list ID from above for the sent_to_lists.   Let me know if you have any questions.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Steve,   Absolutely. You may want to use our .NET SDK and convert the C# addContact example file into VB. The raw documentation pages for adding contacts are here and here. If you'd be interested in using a simple post URL, especially if your primary and only goal is to add contacts individually to an account, this is an article I wrote about how to use it.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Steve,   This is our V1 API documentation. It may have been what you were looking for. This is the page that shows how to add a new contact, and this is the page that has all of the contact parameters and fields. Perhaps your point was that you have to go to too many pages to find all that, and your point is well-taken. However, we have come quite a way with our V2 documentation, but it certainly is catered towards seasoned developers.   If those pages don't help you solve your problems, I'd be happy to take a more in-depth look at your XML. The entire XML with the values filled in would be best, and you can send that to webservices@constantcontact.com for help.   Thanks!   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer     ... View more

Hi Steve,   I also believe you're close here. In using our XML API, you're using our older API. I'd generally recommend using our V2 (JSON) API because it will be around longer, but if you choose to keep going this way, the issue may be very small.   Instead of "ACTION_BY_VISITOR," you need to us "ACTION_BY_CONTACT." The name of this parameter varies based on the version of the API you're using, so you probably saw the visitor version when you looked at V2 documentation, or a forum post about the V2 API.   I hope that helps! If you still get a 400 error, I would vary the email address you're using to make sure you're adding an email address that's never been in the account. Also make sure your variables like [Username] inside the XML are getting filled in properly, if you haven't already checked.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Wayne,   Sorry if this seems overcomplicated, but I believe you're doing this in the most efficient manner possible. We actually haven't gotten many related requests, although we do get requests to see other types of list history data. Our data structure currently doesn't store much history for lists particularly and that's why you have to go through another avenue, like getting the email campaigns first like you are. Storing more list history would be a rather large feature and/or infrastructure change for us, but I will pass on your feedback!   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Mike,   Our XML API is older, and we usually refer to it as our V1 API. It uses URI's that start with api.constantcontact.com/ws. The V2 API uses JSON and the URI's begin with  api.constantcontact.com/v2. The last link you refer to below is for the latter. I'd recommend using the V2, JSON, API if you can, because it will be supported for longer than the XML API.   You'll want to decide which API you want to use and refer to this documentation for V1 and this documentation for V2.   Either way, you can follow the steps here to generate an API Key.    Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi,   You posted this on the developer forums, which are typically used for API-related questions. Our archive URL page that you refer to can't be adjusted in the manner you'd like, but you can pull your email campaigns through our API, and sort and view those campaigns on your own page, if that's what you were thinking of doing.   Sorry for the limitation with our archive homepage.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi everyone,   We now have a simple HTML form to give you! To get the HTML Code, simply login to your account, and go to    -Contacts --Sign-up Tools ---Action (dropdown) ----Embed Code   That HTML code should be all you need to take contacts from your webpage or application and add them directly into your account. If you're looking for more flexibility in the design of your form, you can also use the post URL method, which is similar, but requires a little bit more HTML/programming knowledge. More information on that can be found here.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Wendy,   That T_Variable error probably means that you're not using PHP 5.3 or above, which the CCSFG requires. If you can upgrade your PHP version, this could go away.   We know we need to provide an easier to use signup form, and work is well underway on that front. We're hoping to release a new form soon that you'll be able to find by logging into your account and going to Contacts>>Sign-up Tools.   I can't guarantee the timeframe, but it should be out this month or next. Of course, Formstack is another option you could use. In addition, if your site is built in Wordpress, there are some Wordpress plugins that you could use (on the Wordpress Plugins site).   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Aline,   We'll have to refer you back to the developer of the plugin for this issue, since it was developed and is supported outside of us. The contact information should be located where you downloaded the plugin.    If this was a signup form to add to your website, we are very close to releasing html code that you can place on websites for this purpose. It should be done within a month, barring unforeseen cirncumstances. I believe it will be located at Contacts>>Sign-up Tools when it is finished.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Jennifer,   That integration was built and is supported by eTapestry/Blackbaud. You should reach out to them with questions. I did find this article that has some instructions for how to set up the integration: https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/etap/releasenotes730.pdf.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi,   I don't have an example that doesn't use a file right now, but this code will import a file using one of the bulk import functions in the PHP SDK.   define("APIKEY", "xxx"); define("ACCESS_TOKEN", "xxx"); $cc = new ConstantContact(APIKEY); try { $listID = "xxx"; //insert your list ID $directory = __DIR__ . '/new list'; $fileName = 'test.csv'; //change to your fileName $contents = file_get_contents($directory . '/' . $fileName); $fillList = $cc->addCreateContactsActivityFromFile(ACCESS_TOKEN, $fileName, $contents, $listID); } catch (CtctException $ex) { //catch & print exceptions print json_encode(array('status'=>'failure', 'message'=>$ex->getMessage())); }   You might consider catching the errors from your script to see what the problem is, if you don't want to use a file. I hope that helps!   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Chuck,   Thank you for the details, and I will respond to your email when I've tested more. It would make sense that this is happening with a different (newer) type of account than I was testing in. I think you're probably right about the campaign 'container' in the UI having an issue.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more

Hi Chuck,   I had some time to test this today, and couldn't reproduce the behavior. To clarify, when you say the event is duplicated in our UI, you mean you see two entries for the event when you go to the "EventSpot" tab in the account, right? You're taken to the "My Events" sub-tab by default. I can't seem to find "My Campaigns" anywhere in our UI, but that's not where I spend most of my time, of course.   To reproduce, I created a new event, added an invitation to it, did a GET to https://api.constantcontact.com/v2/eventspot/events?api_key=xxx, and then another GET to https://api.constantcontact.com/v2/eventspot/events/event-id ?api_key=xxx. I then did a PUT to the latter URL that contains the particular event ID (to modify the existing event).   To be fair, I only changed the values below:   Title StartDate  EndDate TimeZoneId Location Type Contact.Name Contact.OrganizationName     I omitted the following for simplicity. If you think there's any chance that modifying only these values below causes the issue, I can go back and test them, but that seems unlikely.   IsVirtualEvent OnlineMeeting.Url (set if virtual event only) Contact.PhoneNumber (set if virtual event only)   Can you identify times that this is happening and times it's not? Perhaps it's something particular to the account, or event settings. I can take a look at your code, and/or the specific account & event(s) that this is happening for. If you want me to look at more than account non-specific code, feel free to email webservices@constantcontact.com with the account username and an affected event.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer   ... View more

Hi Chuck,   Sorry for the delay on this. I should have time to troubleshoot this issue today. We've been down a person in API support for a week, but are back at full strength as of today.   Best Regards, Shannon Wallace Partner API Support Engineer ... View more