About ral0731

Ryan,   I'll pass this along, and get back to you -- thanks.   Becky ... View more

Ryan,   You helped me in late October with some API info in getting a mailng list set up for a Loyalty Card program. We finally got the loyalty card program launched about two weeks ago, and already have more than 215 members on the email list. However, we seem be having some hit-and-miss problems with it, in that some of the previously-subscribed CC people are being removed from all lists, and not being added back in to anything -- not even the loyalty card list. The code you gave us was:   Search for contact (GET) if(Contact exists) Copy Contact to temp variable remove contact (PUT) add temp contact back to account (PUT) else if(Contact does not exist) Add contact to account (POST)   Our developer did some testing/troubleshooting on the matter, and this is part of her response:   ...There is really no pattern that can be identified.  I've put a 2 second delay in the script just in case it is a timing issue.  I also thought it could be related to updating a record that was already on the Loyalty Card list, but I've added [my emal address] 5 times in a row, with different lists selected and it worked. There were a couple of times in all of my testing today (probably ran the script 50 times) when the subscriber was not re-added. One time the card number [a custom field we created] was updated but the lists were not updated. The exact same code worked later. Since it is unreliable with the same data, seems like it might be an issue with the Constant Contact server...   Below are some of the time stamps from some of the addresses that were affected. The first column is when they were entered/registered for the loyalty card (I.e. the time that they were moved from 'active' contacts to 'removed' contacts as we were registering them for the loyalty card, and adding them to the loyalty card mailing list). The second column is when they were initially added to our CC database. There doesn't seem to be any real pattern. Do you have any suggestions/ideas on what to do? Is there any other information from us that might to figure out what is going on?   Thanks for the help...we appreciate it.   Becky     1/9/2012 9:32 AM CST 12/8/2008 3:08 PM CST 1/9/2012 11:29 AM CST 6/5/2008 10:07 AM CDT 1/9/2012 5:10 PM CST 6/5/2008 10:07 AM CDT 1/3/2012 10:57 AM CST 6/5/2008 10:07 AM CDT 1/9/2012 1:53 PM CST 9/20/2011 12:39 AM CDT 1/9/2012 3:01 PM CST 6/5/2008 10:07 AM CDT 1/4/2012 12:22 PM CST 6/5/2008 10:07 AM CDT 12/29/2011 2:25 PM CST 12/8/2008 3:41 PM CST 1/7/2012 6:12 PM CST 9/11/2011 10:03 PM CDT ... View more

Ryan,   Thank you for your response. But, you cannot specify a specific list for the Welcome email to go to, correct? It goes to all lists? If that's the case, it won't work for us, because we need an auto-response email that is tailored to a particular interest group/mailing list -- our loyalty card registrants.   Once an autoresponder goes live, it's not as big a concern that people do not receive it until the next day (although it is not optimal, it can be dealt with). The bigger problem is simply testing the process, to make sure it works. If we can only initiate one auto-response per 24 hours, it will take us a long time to be sure it works, particularly if it initially doesn't work the way we need it to in the API (from our previous conversation -- where we have to run that algorhithm you gave us -- query -- remove -- auto-respond -- add back in), etc. <ugh>   Becky ... View more

Ryan,   Thanks again for the quick response. We have our next meeting with the developer on Wednesday, and I'll pass this information along. If we follow this logic, will it then be an autoresponder email that I create for them?   Becky ... View more

Ryan,   Thanks for the reply. I think I'm following you a little bit, but I'm not really sure. For instance the ACTION_BY_CONTACT and ACTION_BY_CUSTOMER must be something in the API? I don't have anything to do with the API;  I just know that our web developer used the API to help create our sign-up page. I'm simply the marketing manager for the company, who's helping to put the loyalty program together, and who uses CC for all of our e-newsletters. And I thought that CC would be a good collection point for our registrations, since we wanted to market to them through emails.   I understand the essence of the 403 error, and kind of wondered what would happen, as I knew that if you tried to sign up (again) for enewesletters, and were already  in there, flags were triggered, etc. It sounds like of convoluted to have to delete people from lists, and add them back in. The hope was to develop a simple system that was automated, so that I didn't have to monitor it -- we're hoping the Loyalty program takes off, but it's certainly not the only thing I have to take care of day-to-day -- it's really not feasible for me to delete and add people back in on a regular basis, and keep the flow of messaging constant. I know there will be times that I'm unable to 'monitor' it.   I'm wondering if our best solution might be to pick up a different enewsletter provider, for just our Loyalty program customers. I don't really want to do that, because we've had CC for several years, but it would certainly be a way to keep them separate from everybody else, and it wouldn't make a difference if they were already in our CC database.   Our developer got the API to work, to where they're put in their own 'Loyalty' list -- but I had no idea I wouldn't really be able to market to them in a somewhat automated way once they were in there. We both assumed we'd be able to use an autoresponder function, just to them, pretty easily. Guess we didn't do enough homework. <drat>     Becky   ... View more