Meet the Team - Erick Pece

What do salt and vinegar chips, mountain biking, and 'refresh your screen' all have in common?  They are synonymous with Erick Pece, JangoMail's Director of Technical Support!

1.  What is your position at JangoMail?

Meet Erick Pece, JangoMail's
Director of Technical Support

Director of Technical Support

2.  How long have you worked for JangoMail?

Close to three years

3.  How do you use JangoMail personally?

I use JangoMail both for internal support team use to send notifications, scheduling reminders, etc...I also use JangoMail for a few non-profit projects I'm involved in.

4.  What do you like best about working for JangoMail?

The team environment and flexibility to provide customers with the best support options - we're not reading from scripts! 

5.  What feature do you like most?

I have a background in software development, so my first choice would be our API, since it allows people to integrate with our system directly inside their own.  After that, the ability to connect directly to a web database is my next choice!

6.  What is your educational background or what experience led you here?

I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and Information Management, and have had experience as a systems and network administrator at several other companies.  The team-oriented environment led me to JangoMail.

7.  What is your favorite hobby / pastime?

Mountain biking.

8.  What is your guilty pleasure?

Baked Salt and Vinegar chips. I can't stop myself when they're around!

9.  What is one random fact people don't know about you?

After graduating college in 2008, I haven't lived anywhere for more than 1.5 years until now.  I've been living in the same city for just over 2 years - we're on a roll!

10. Do you have a catchphrase, funny saying, or personal quote?

I often develop internal tools for our support team to provide them with the best information, which in turn allows them to provide customers with that information. Depending on my workload, I'll sometimes get requests to add features to these tools.  In some cases, I'm able to turn around that request in 5-10 minutes, at which point I'll say, "Refresh your screen."  I guess I'd say that's a phrase I've become known for by the support team.

How to use the API method SendMassEmail to connect to a website database

The SendMassEmail method of the JangoMail Email Marketing API is a versatile method that can launch an email campaign to recipients in a variety of ways. There are various "To" input parameters, each with its own use depending on where your email list data is stored.

The full specification of the method is located here. The "To" input parameters include:

• ToGroups - send to an entire Email List - specify the name of an Email List (also called an Email Group) to send to. Specify multiple Email Lists separated by a comma
• ToGroupFilter - sent to a segment of an Email List - specify the name of an Email List followed by a colon followed by a valid SQL filter (just the WHERE clause). For example, if you have an Email List called Contact List with the fields FirstName, LastName, and Company, then an acceptable input value would be "Contact List: Company = 'ABC Corporation'". An additional acceptable input value would be "Contact List: Company = 'ABC Corporation' OR FirstName = 'John'".
• ToOther - specify a string of email addresses in any unstructured format. JangoMail will parse the data and pull out the email addresses and send to them. Optionally, pass structured data on-the-fly with field name and field value information, in order to send personalized emails to a dataset on the fly.
• ToWebDatabase - pass in a SQL query (usually a SELECT statement) that will be executed against your web site database, in real-time, to pull down a list of email list data, to send a personalized email campaign.

This article will focus on how to use the ToWebDatabase input parameter.

In order to be able to use this feature, your JangoMail account first needs to know how to connect to your web database platform. There are two steps to this:

1. You must create a Web Database Connection Profile. Create a Web Database Connection Profile under Lists --> Databases --> Add New Item --> Internet Web Database. If you're not familiar with creating a connection profile, see the detailed PDF guide.
2. Then you must set this Profile as the Master Profile, so that the API knows that this connection profile is the one to use when you use ToWebDatabase. Set the Web Database Connection Profile as your Master Profile under Settings --> Integrating JangoMail with Other Systems --> Set Master Profile for Web DB. See screenshot below:

Set Master Connection Profile here.

If you attempt to call SendMassEmail and specify a value for ToWebDatabase without first having set a Master Profile, you will get this web service Exception:

MissingWebDatabaseSettings: There is no Master Web Database Connection Profile set for your account. This must be set prior to specifying a SQL query for the ToWebDatabase parameter.
Once you have set the Master Profile, you're ready to make the API call and pass in a SQL query in the ToWebDatabase input parameter. If you wanted to send to all email addresses that had been added to your database in the last 24 hours, for example, your SQL query might be:

select * from Accounts where AccountCreateDate >= dateadd(hh, -24, getdate())

And the full API call would look like the screenshot below:

How to use the ASP.Net script file to integrate your web database with JangoMail

If your organization's web site and database platform is ASP.Net and SQL Server, JangoMail provides a file (w_5.aspx) which you may place on your web server, which allows JangoMail to pull email list data in real-time from your database, as well as update your database with recipient actions, like unsubscribes, bounces, opens, and clicks.

The steps are:

1. Go to the Lists section and click on the Databases tab.
   
2. Click Add New Item.
   
3. Choose Internet Web Database and then choose the ASP.Net option.
   
   
4. Retrieve the w_5.aspx file and place on your web server.
   
   
5. Once you have the w_5.aspx file uploaded to your server, click Configure this connection.
   
6. Fill in the variable names and values, including the SQL query to retrieve your email list data.
   
   
   
7. Save the profile, and then click the Connect icon next to the profile name.
   

You may alter the w_5.aspx file as you see fit. For example, if your web site connects to SQL Server via ODBC instead of the default ASP.Net method, then you may modify the connection string in the w_5.aspx file.

Want to use this feature from the API?

Find out how in this blog post.

Further Reading

Detailed PDF Guide on Connecting to Internet Web Site Databases
Writing your own custom script file for any platform