Updating a Contact's Information

If you would like to update a contact's information, you'll first have to make sure the contact exists. After this, you can either update the user or create a new one. In the example below, we'll update their first name. To do this you'll need to know the user's email.

If you'd like, you can test with our Postman Collection here: Postman collection

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have valid authorization credentials. Please see this page for more information.

Procedure

In order to search for a contact or update their information, you will need to decide which identifier you'd like to use:

In our examples, we'll use email.

1. Use a POST request to check that the contact exists

'POST' \  'https://your-engage-domain.com/api/rest/contact/get' \
{
  "type": "EMAIL",
  "value": "j.mcexample@example.com"
}'

<soapenv:Envelope
    xmlns:soapenv="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:ecm="https://your-engage-domain.com/developer/ecmapi">
    <soapenv:Header/>
    <soapenv:Body>
        <ecm:contactGet>
            <identifier>
                <type>EMAIL</type>
                <value>j.mcexample@example.com</value>
            </identifier>
        </ecm:contactGet>
    </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

2. Use a POST request to update the information

To use contact/update you will need to provide:

• The contact identifier type in the URL and the body of the call.

• The attribute to update.

• The new value.

• In this example, we update the contact's name. You could substitute in any stored attribute, such as their mobile phone number.

Please note that the identifier type is written differently in the body of the call and the request URL. In our example, we are using the email address, which is "EMAIL" in the URL, and "emailAddress" in the body of the call. Please see the contact/update entry in Swagger for a full list. 

POST \'https://your-engage-domain.com/api/rest/contact/update?identifierType=EMAIL&unifiedIdentifierName=j.mcexample%40example.com' \
{
"emailAddress": "j.mcexample@example.com",
"attributes":
[
{"name": "FirstName", "value": "John"},
{"name": "LastName", "value": "McExample"},
]
}

<soapenv:Envelope
    xmlns:soapenv="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:ecm="https://your-engage-domain.com/developer/ecmapi">
    <soapenv:Header/>
    <soapenv:Body>
        <ecm:contactUpdate>
            <identifierType>EMAIL</identifierType>
            <contact>                
                <emailAddress>j.mcexample@example.com</emailAddress>
                <!--Zero or more repetitions:-->
                <attributes>
                    <FirstName>John</FirstName>
                    <LastName>McExample</LastName>
                </attributes>
            </contact>
        </ecm:contactUpdate>
    </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Conclusion

You should receive a 204 response and no further information. This indicates the profile has been updated. If there was a problem, you might receive a 400 response.

Related Topics

Implementation and Error Handling