Create data field

The CreateDataField method can be used to create a data field within your dotMailer account.

This is useful if you will need to dynamically create and store values within dotMailer relating to a contact.

Guidance Notes

You cannot create a datafield that already exists, if you are unsure which datafields currently exist please call ListContactDataLabels. The Data fields fieldName can only be up to 20 characters in length and must consiste of hyphens, underscores, and alphnumeric characters only. The data field that is created will be private by default. The amount of data fields you can create will be limited by the account type you have.

Parameters

username	string	This is the username from your API key. It is in the format of an email address and will look similar to apiuser‑908709770324@apiconnector.com	required
password	string	This is the password from your API key.	required
fieldname	string	This is the name of the data field you want to create.	required
dataType		This is the type of data that the data field will store. The possible values are String, Numeric, Date or Boolean.	required
defaultValue		This is the default value you would like the data field to store.	optional

Return values

None.

Error responses

ERROR_DATAFIELD_INVALID
ERROR_DATAFIELD_LIMITEXCEEDED
ERROR_NON_UNIQUE_DATAFIELD
ERROR_APIUSAGE_EXCEEDED
ERROR_INVALID_LOGIN
ERROR_PARAMETER_INVALID
ERROR_SYSTEM_SERVICETEMPORARILYUNAVAILABLE
ERROR_UNKNOWN

Request

POST /API.asmx HTTP/1.1
Host: apiconnector.com
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: length
SOAPAction: "http://apiconnector.com/CreateDataField"

Example of use in C# .NET

/// <summary>
/// This method can be used to create a data field within your dotMailer account
/// </summary>
public void CreateDataField()
{
    const string username = "apiuser-XXXXXXXXXXXX@apiconnector.com";
    const string password = "password";
 
    Console.WriteLine("CreateDataField");
    Console.WriteLine("---------------");
 
    // Get an instance to the web reference
    com.apiconnector.API api = new com.apiconnector.API();
 
    try
    {
        string dataFieldName;       // holder for the data field name, useful for outputting field name in try/catch
 
        // create some data fields
        //
        // we execute each one individually, so if there is a problem, we can easily see which
        // create caused the issue.
        //
        try
        {
            dataFieldName = string.Format("DTNumeric{0}", DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
            api.CreateDataField(username, password, dataFieldName, com.apiconnector.ContactDataTypes.Numeric, null);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} - field created", dataFieldName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex; // re-throw the error and let the outer try/catch decode the error
        }
 
        try
        {
            dataFieldName = string.Format("DTString{0}", DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
            api.CreateDataField(username, password, dataFieldName, com.apiconnector.ContactDataTypes.String, "");
            Console.WriteLine("{0} - field created", dataFieldName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex; // re-throw the error and let the outer try/catch decode the error
        }
 
        try
        {
            dataFieldName = string.Format("DTDate{0}", DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
            api.CreateDataField(username, password, dataFieldName, com.apiconnector.ContactDataTypes.Date, null);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} - field created", dataFieldName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex; // re-throw the error and let the outer try/catch decode the error
        }
 
        try
        {
            dataFieldName = string.Format("DTBool{0}", DateTime.Now.Millisecond);
            api.CreateDataField(username, password, dataFieldName, com.apiconnector.ContactDataTypes.Boolean, null);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} - field created", dataFieldName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex; // re-throw the error and let the outer try/catch decode the error
        }
 
 
        // Create a data field that will be deleted by DeleteDataField()
        try
        {
            dataFieldName = "DTTest";
            api.CreateDataField(username, password, dataFieldName, com.apiconnector.ContactDataTypes.String, "");
            Console.WriteLine("{0} - field created", dataFieldName);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex; // re-throw the error and let the outer try/catch decode the error
        }
    }
    catch (SoapException ex)  // catch any soap issues/errors from the web service
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Error -> {0}", ex.Message);                
    }
 
    Console.WriteLine();
}

Sample request

POST /API.asmx HTTP/1.1
Host: apiconnector.com
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: length
SOAPAction: "http://apiconnector.com/CreateDataField"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <CreateDataField xmlns="http://apiconnector.com">
      <username>string</username>
      <password>string</password>
      <fieldname>string</fieldname>
      <datatype>String or Numeric or Date or Boolean</datatype>
      <defaultValue />
    </CreateDataField>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Sample response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: length
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap:Body>
    <CreateDataFieldResponse xmlns="http://apiconnector.com" />
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

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