The coding requires that for some processes, the API functions should be used in a logical progressive process.

This basic understanding of how our software works will help speed up your implementation of integrating the API functions.

The software is a contact management solution which also has mass emailing capabilities and functionality.  The primary unique ID for each contact record is the email address.   Options, additions, capabilities and actions are linked to the email address. This differs from many autoresponder solutions where the ‘list’ is the primary.

Basic Process

You must determine if the email address already exists.

Options:
Start by using the add_contact function to determine if the email address already exists

– if the email address already exists the API will return an error.
In the event of an email_address exists error, any other parameters will not be processed as an email address can only be in the database once.

Depending on the result of add_contact call you can then decide which API function should follow

i.e If the email address does exist and you have called the list of active autoresponder using list_responders you could add that email address to an auroresponder list using the add_to_list function.

As an alternative,
you may decide to use the get_contact function and check if the status message is ok and brings back stored standard records of that contact or if it returns an error.
Note: if the email address exists then the API will return a list of all standard form fields and the associated record data.