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Mailchimp Transactional Connector

Author: Matthew Teets

Introduction

This Mailchimp connector allows the user to configure recipient settings, monitor account activity, and send transactional emails containing information on purchases by leveraging the Mailchimp Transactional (Mandrill) API.

Capabilities:

  • Send Transactional Email
  • Add Email to Allowlist
  • Remove Email from Allowlist
  • Add Email to Denylist
  • List Account Senders
  • Make Custom API Call

Setup

Resources

For information and additional help, see the following sections of the Mailchimp Transactional API documentation:

Requirements

To use the Mailchimp Transactional connector:

  • You must have a Mailchimp Transactional account.
  • Create an account here
  • You must also have a valid API Key in order to make any calls to the Transactional API.
  • Generate a new API Key here
  • You then need to add the domain that you will be sending your emails from.
  • Learn more on how to add your domain here
  • You will need to configure your DNS records to enable DKIM and SPF
  • Learn how to configure your DNS records here
  • You will need to then verify ownership of your domain.
  • Verification documentation here

Setting up the connector

Mailchimp Connector General Settings:

  • Navigate to the Mailchimp connector via the Connections tab in DaVinci.
  • Select New Connection in the upper right-hand corner.
  • Search for the desired connector (in this case, Mailchimp).
  • Select the Mailchimp connector.
  • Once the Mailchimp connector has been added the Your Connections list, click on the connector.
  • From here you will see two text fields labeled Transactional API Key and Transactional API Version.
  • Transactional Key:
    • Copy and paste your API Key into this text field.
  • Transactional API Version:
    • This field will already be filled out.
      • Only change this if the API version is out of date.
      • Check the API version in the request URL's found here
        • Example: https://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/allowlists/add
        • The version here is 1.0
  • Click Apply

Using the connector in a flow

Some Mailchimp Transactional connector use cases:

  • Password reset emails
  • Purchase confirmation emails
  • Forum activity
  • Shipping update/notification emails

Mailchimp Transactional API Request Requirements:

  • You must have a fully verified and configured Mailchimp account.
  • Both the Transactional API Key and the Transactional API Version must be copy/pasted into the connector settings.

Use Case - send a transactional email in a flow:

  • Navigate to the flow studio and in the upper right-hand corner select Create New Flow
  • Insert the desired name and description and click next.
  • Select Blank Flow then click save.
  • Once inside the flow sandbox add the Mailchimp Transactional connector and choose the Send Transactional Email capability.
  • This Mailchimp capability has four capability level properties that can be filled out 1 of 2 ways:
  • Manually inserting the desired values into the fields.
  • Selecting the appropriate output variables from a previous connector via the angle bracket button ( {} ).
    • E.g. an HTTP connector with an HTML form that prompts the user for the desired values.
  • Subject is simply the subject of the email being sent.
  • Text is where the desried, formatted message is inserted.
  • From Email is used to identify the one sender email address.
  • Recipient Email is used to identify the recipient email address(es).
  • This capability is able to send one message to either one recipient or multiple.
    • To do this, simply insert a comma-separated list of desired email address.
      • E.g. customer_1@gmail.com, customer_2@gmail.com, customer_3@gmail.com, customer_4@gmail.com
        • The connector handles any unintentional spacing oddities with the comma-seperated values.
  • The Mailchimp Transactional connector does not generate any output on its own.
  • To see the HTTP response object sent by Mailchimp you can do the following:
    • Add an HTTP block after your Mailchimp connector.
    • Click on the Custom HTML Message capability.
    • In the Message text area select the circular angel bracket button ( {} )
      • From the dropdown, select the Mailchimp connector.
      • Choose the output (object) by clicking (+).
    • Click apply
  • In the upper right hand corner click Save, Deploy, and Run.

Use Case - add an email to your allowlist in a flow:

  • Add the Mailchimp Transactional connector to the desired flow and choose the Add Email to Allowlist capability.
  • This Mailchimp capability has two capability level properties that can be filled out 1 of 2 ways:
  • Manually inserting the desired values into the fields.
  • Selecting the appropriate output variables from a previous connector via the angle bracket button ( {} ).
    • E.g. an HTTP connector with an HTML form that prompts the user for the desired values.
  • Allowlist Email is used to identify the email address being added to the allowlist.
  • Can only handle one email at a time.
  • Comment is an optional description of why the email was added to the allowlist.
  • The Mailchimp Transactional connector does not generate any output on its own.
  • To see the HTTP response object sent by Mailchimp you can do the following:
    • Add an HTTP block after your Mailchimp connector.
    • Click on the Custom HTML Message capability.
    • In the Message text area select the circular angel bracket button ( {} )
      • From the dropdown, select the Mailchimp connector.
      • Choose the output (object) by clicking (+).
    • Click apply
  • In the upper right hand corner click Save, Deploy, and Run.

Use Case - print JSON object containing list of account senders in a flow:

  • Add the Mailchimp Transactional connector to the desired flow and choose the List Account Senders capability.
  • This Mailchimp capability has zero capability level properties!
  • Therefore, all you have to do is plug it into the desired position in your flow and click apply.
  • The Mailchimp Transactional connector does not generate any output on its own.
  • To see the HTTP response object sent by Mailchimp you can do the following:
    • Add an HTTP block after your Mailchimp connector.
    • Click on the Custom HTML Message capability.
    • In the Message text area select the circular angel bracket button ( {} )
      • From the dropdown, select the Mailchimp connector.
      • Choose the output (object) by clicking (+).
    • Click apply
  • In the upper right hand corner click Save, Deploy, and Run.

Use Case - create custom API call:

  • Navigate to the flow studio and in the upper right-hand corner select Create New Flow
  • Insert the desired name and description and click next.
  • Select Blank Flow then click save.
  • Once inside the flow sandbox add the Mailchimp connector and choose the Make Custom API Call capability.
  • This Mailchimp connector capability has 4 capability level properties that can be manually filled out:
  • Endpoint:
    • Used to call a specific operation from inside the Mailchimp Transactional API.
  • Method:
    • Specifies the HTTP CRUD request.
      • E.g. GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH.
  • Headers:
    • Key-value pairs that represent the meta-data associated with the Mailchimp Transactional API request and response.
      • E.g. Content-Type: application/json
  • Body:
    • Used to manually craft a JSON request body for the Mailchimp Transactional API.
  • The Mailchimp connector does not generate any output on its own.
  • To see the information retrieved by the Mailchimp connector you can do the following:
    • Add an HTTP block after your Mailchimp connector.
    • Click on the Custom HTML Message capability.
    • In the Message text area select the circular angel bracket button ( {} )
      • From the dropdown, select the Mailchimp connector.
      • Choose from any of the offered successful response output variables.
        • rawResponse
        • statusCode
        • headers
    • Click apply
  • In the upper right hand corner click Save, Deploy, and Run.

Capabilities

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