exportContacts.md

Export Contacts

This guide will walk you through the process of exporting selected contacts to downloadable file using the Bash library.

Required Access Level: Export

Find out more by checking our API's documentation: https://elasticemail.com/developers/api-documentation/rest-api#operation/contactsExportPost

What's a contact?

When using Elastic Email, you send emails to contacts – recipients who receive your emails. Contacts can be grouped by created segments or lists.

Preparation

It's a Bash script so it's a program to be run by Unix shell. On linux (eg. Ubuntu) there's no need to install anything additional.

Create a new file eg. script.sh

Download the lib from ElasticEmail repository https://github.com/ElasticEmail/elasticemail-bash and make sure the script has executable rights

$ chmod u+x ElasticEmail

Let's dig into the code

Put the below code to your file.

In the first line indicate that it's a bash script:

#!/bin/bash

Variable for host value:

host=https://api.elasticemail.com

Use your API key (remember to check a required access level):

apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY

and create header variables for api key:

apiKeyHeaderName=X-ElasticEmail-ApiKey
apiKeyHeader=$apiKeyHeaderName:$apiKey

Define a method that will be used:

apiMethod=campaignsPost

Specify options:

• fileFormat - specify format in which file should be created, options are: "Csv" "Xml" "Json".
• emails - select contacts to export by providing array of emails
• fileName - you can specify file name of your choice

Other options:

• rule - eg. rule=Status%20=%20Engaged – Query used for filtering
• compressionFormat - "None" "Zip"

fileName="exported.csv"
fileFormat="Csv"
compressionFormat="Zip"

Define emails to be exported:

emails=("johnsmith@domain.com" "karol.szczycinski@elasticemail.com")

Let's transform it to format required by the lib emails=value1 emails=value2 emails=...:

emailsParams=""

for email in "${emails[@]}"
do
    emailsParams="emails=\"$email\" $emailsParams "
done

And finally, you can use the lib to make an api call:

./ElasticEmail --host $host $apiMethod $apiKeyHeader fileFormat="$fileFormat" fileName="$fileName" compressionFormat="$compressionFormat" $emailsParams

The whole code to copy and paste:

#!/bin/bash

host=https://api.elasticemail.com

apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY

apiKeyHeaderName=X-ElasticEmail-ApiKey
apiKeyHeader=$apiKeyHeaderName:$apiKey

apiMethod=contactsExportPost

fileName="exported.csv"
fileFormat="Csv"
compressionFormat="Zip"

emails=("johnsmith@domain.com" "johndoe@domain.com")

emailsParams=""

for email in "${emails[@]}"
do
    emailsParams="emails=\"$email\" $emailsParams "
done

./ElasticEmail --host $host $apiMethod $apiKeyHeader fileFormat="$fileFormat" fileName="$fileName" compressionFormat="$compressionFormat" $emailsParams

Run the code

bash script.sh