Identify a user, tie them to their actions and record traits about them with Segment API on New Contact from Twilio SendGrid API

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New Contact from the Twilio SendGrid API

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Identify a user, tie them to their actions and record traits about them with the Segment API

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Getting Started#

This integration creates a workflow with a Twilio SendGrid trigger and Segment action. When you configure and deploy the workflow, it will run on Pipedream's servers 24x7 for free.

Select this integration
Configure the New Contact trigger
1. Connect your Twilio SendGrid account
2. Configure timer
Configure the Identify a user, tie them to their actions and record traits about them action
1. Connect your Segment account
2. Optional- Configure Anonymous ID
3. Optional- Configure Context
4. Optional- Configure Integrations
5. Optional- Configure Timestamp
6. Optional- Configure Traits
7. Optional- Configure User ID
Deploy the workflow
Send a test event to validate your setup
Turn on the trigger

Details#

This integration uses pre-built, source-available components from Pipedream's GitHub repo. These components are developed by Pipedream and the community, and verified and maintained by Pipedream.

To contribute an update to an existing component or create a new component, create a PR on GitHub. If you're new to Pipedream component development, you can start with quickstarts for trigger span and action development, and then review the component API reference.

Trigger#

New Contact on Twilio SendGrid

Description:Emit new event when a new contact is created

Version:0.0.6

Key:sendgrid-new-contact

View on GitHub

Twilio SendGrid Overview#

The Twilio SendGrid API opens up a world of possibilities for email automation, enabling you to send emails efficiently and track their performance. With this API, you can programmatically create and send personalized email campaigns, manage contacts, and parse inbound emails for data extraction. When you harness the power of Pipedream, you can connect SendGrid to hundreds of other apps to automate workflows, such as triggering email notifications based on specific actions, syncing email stats with your analytics, or handling incoming emails to create tasks or tickets.

Trigger Code#

import orderBy from "lodash/orderBy.js";
import common from "../common/timer-based.mjs";

export default {
  ...common,
  key: "sendgrid-new-contact",
  name: "New Contact",
  description: "Emit new event when a new contact is created",
  version: "0.0.6",
  type: "source",
  dedupe: "unique",
  hooks: {
    async activate() {
      const currentTimestamp = Date.now();
      const state = {
        processedItems: [],
        lowerTimestamp: currentTimestamp,
        upperTimestamp: currentTimestamp,
      };
      this.db.set("state", state);
    },
  },
  methods: {
    ...common.methods,
    _maxDelayTime() {
      // There is no report from SendGrid as to how much time it takes
      // for a contact to be created and appear in search results, so
      // we're using a rough estimate of 30 minutes here.
      return 30 * 60 * 1000;  // 30 minutes, in milliseconds
    },
    _addDelayOffset(timestamp) {
      return timestamp - this._maxDelayTime();
    },
    _cleanupOldProcessedItems(processedItems, currentTimestamp) {
      return processedItems
        .map((item) => ({
          // We just need to keep track of the record ID and
          // its creation date.
          id: item.id,
          created_at: item.created_at,
        }))
        .filter((item) => {
          const { created_at: createdAt } = item;
          const createdAtTimestamp = Date.parse(createdAt);
          const cutoffTimestamp = this._addDelayOffset(currentTimestamp);
          return createdAtTimestamp > cutoffTimestamp;
        });
    },
    _makeSearchQuery(processedItems, lowerTimestamp, upperTimestamp) {
      const idList = processedItems
        .map((item) => item.id)
        .map((id) => `'${id}'`)
        .join(", ")
      || "''";
      const startTimestamp = this._addDelayOffset(lowerTimestamp);
      const startDate = this.toISOString(startTimestamp);
      const endDate = this.toISOString(upperTimestamp);
      return `
        contact_id NOT IN (${idList}) AND
        created_at BETWEEN
          TIMESTAMP '${startDate}' AND
          TIMESTAMP '${endDate}'
      `;
    },
    generateMeta(data) {
      const {
        item,
        eventTimestamp: ts,
      } = data;
      const {
        id,
        email,
      } = item;
      const slugifiedEmail = this.slugifyEmail(email);
      const summary = `New contact: ${slugifiedEmail}`;
      return {
        id,
        summary,
        ts,
      };
    },
    async processEvent(event) {
      // Transform the timer timestamp to milliseconds
      // to be consistent with how Javascript handles timestamps.
      const eventTimestamp = event.timestamp * 1000;

      // Retrieve the current state of the component.
      const {
        processedItems,
        lowerTimestamp,
        upperTimestamp,
      } = this.db.get("state");

      // Search for contacts within a specific timeframe, excluding
      // items that have already been processed.
      const query = this._makeSearchQuery(processedItems, lowerTimestamp, upperTimestamp);
      const {
        result: items,
        contact_count: contactCount,
      } = await this.sendgrid.searchContacts(query);

      // If no contacts have been retrieved via the API,
      // move the time window forward to possibly capture newer contacts.
      if (contactCount === 0) {
        const newState = {
          processedItems: this._cleanupOldProcessedItems(processedItems, lowerTimestamp),
          lowerTimestamp: upperTimestamp,
          upperTimestamp: eventTimestamp,
        };
        this.db.set("state", newState);
        return;
      }

      // We process the searched records from oldest to newest.
      const itemsToProcess = orderBy(items, "created_at");
      itemsToProcess
        .forEach((item) => {
          const meta = this.generateMeta({
            item,
            eventTimestamp,
          });
          this.$emit(item, meta);
        });

      // Use the timestamp of the last processed record as a lower bound for
      // following searches. This bound will be subjected to an offset so in
      // case older records appear in future search results, but have not
      // appeared until now, can be processed. We only adjust it if it means
      // moving forward, not backwards. Otherwise, we might start retrieving
      // older and older records indefinitely (and we're all about *new*
      // records!)
      const newLowerTimestamp = Math.max(
        lowerTimestamp,
        Date.parse(itemsToProcess[0].created_at),
      );

      // If the total contact count is less than 100, it means that during the
      // next iteration the search results count will most likely be less than
      // 50. In that case, if we extend the upper bound of the search time range
      // we might be able to retrieve more records.
      const newUpperTimestamp = contactCount < 100
        ? eventTimestamp
        : upperTimestamp;

      // The list of processed items can grow indefinitely.
      // Since we don't want to keep track of every processed record
      // ever, we need to clean up this list, removing any records
      // that are no longer relevant.
      const newProcessedItems = this._cleanupOldProcessedItems(
        [
          ...processedItems,
          ...itemsToProcess,
        ],
        newLowerTimestamp,
      );

      // Update the state of the component to reflect the computations
      // made above.
      const newState = {
        processedItems: newProcessedItems,
        lowerTimestamp: newLowerTimestamp,
        upperTimestamp: newUpperTimestamp,
      };
      this.db.set("state", newState);
    },
  },
};

Trigger Configuration#

This component may be configured based on the props defined in the component code. Pipedream automatically prompts for input values in the UI and CLI.

Label	Prop	Type	Description
N/A	`db`	`$.service.db`	This component uses `$.service.db` to maintain state between executions.
Twilio SendGrid	`sendgrid`	`app`	This component uses the Twilio SendGrid app.
	`timer`	`$.interface.timer`

Trigger Authentication#

Twilio SendGrid uses API keys for authentication. When you connect your Twilio SendGrid account, Pipedream securely stores the keys so you can easily authenticate to Twilio SendGrid APIs in both code and no-code steps.

About Twilio SendGrid#

Send marketing and transactional email through the Twilio SendGrid platform with the Email API, proprietary mail transfer agent, and infrastructure for scalable delivery.

Action#

Identify a user, tie them to their actions and record traits about them on Segment

Description:Identify lets you tie a user to their actions and record traits about them. It includes a unique User ID and any optional traits you know about them (note requires userId or anonymousId). See the docs [here](https://segment.com/docs/connections/sources/catalog/libraries/server/http-api/#identify)

Version:0.2.5

Key:segment-identify

View on GitHub

Segment Overview#

The Segment API enables you to collect, manage, and route your customer analytics data to various tools for marketing, analytics, and data warehousing. By harnessing the Segment API on Pipedream, you can automate the ingestion and syncing of user events and properties to multiple destinations, allowing you to create seamless data pipelines without manual intervention. Pipedream's serverless platform empowers you to build custom workflows that react to events in real-time, enrich data, or trigger actions across your tech stack.

Action Code#

import segmentApp from "../../segment.app.mjs";

export default {
  key: "segment-identify",
  name: "Identify a user, tie them to their actions and record traits about them",
  description: "Identify lets you tie a user to their actions and record traits about them. It includes a unique User ID and any optional traits you know about them (note requires userId or anonymousId). See the docs [here](https://segment.com/docs/connections/sources/catalog/libraries/server/http-api/#identify)",
  version: "0.2.5",
  type: "action",
  props: {
    segmentApp,
    anonymousId: {
      propDefinition: [
        segmentApp,
        "anonymousId",
      ],
    },
    context: {
      propDefinition: [
        segmentApp,
        "context",
      ],
    },
    integrations: {
      propDefinition: [
        segmentApp,
        "integrations",
      ],
    },
    timestamp: {
      propDefinition: [
        segmentApp,
        "timestamp",
      ],
    },
    traits: {
      type: "object",
      label: "Traits",
      description: "Free-form dictionary of traits of the user, like email or name.",
      optional: true,
    },
    userId: {
      propDefinition: [
        segmentApp,
        "userId",
      ],
    },
  },
  async run({ $ }) {
    return this.segmentApp.identify({
      $,
      data: {
        anonymousId: this.anonymousId,
        context: this.context,
        integrations: this.integrations,
        timestamp: this.timestamp,
        traits: this.traits,
        userId: this.userId,
      },
    });
  },
};

Action Configuration#

This component may be configured based on the props defined in the component code. Pipedream automatically prompts for input values in the UI.

Label	Prop	Type	Description
Segment	`segmentApp`	`app`	This component uses the Segment app.
Anonymous ID	`anonymousId`	`string`	A pseudo-unique substitute for a User ID, for cases when you don't have an absolutely unique identifier. A User ID or an Anonymous ID is required.
Context	`context`	`object`	Dictionary of extra information that provides useful context about a message, but is not directly related to the API call like ip address or locale
Integrations	`integrations`	`object`	Dictionary of destinations to either enable or disable
Timestamp	`timestamp`	`string`	Timestamp when the message itself took place, defaulted to the current time by the Segment Tracking API. It is an ISO-8601 date string. For example, `2022-04-08T17:32:11.318Z`
Traits	`traits`	`object`	Free-form dictionary of traits of the user, like email or name.
User ID	`userId`	`string`	Unique identifier for the user in your database., A User ID or an Anonymous ID is required.

Action Authentication#

Segment uses API keys for authentication. When you connect your Segment account, Pipedream securely stores the keys so you can easily authenticate to Segment APIs in both code and no-code steps.

Segment's APIs are accessed programmatically using access tokens, as well as write keys.

Access Token

Create access tokens via the Access Management page in your account: https://app.segment.com/{your-workspace-name}/settings/access-management. See "Get a Token" for more details. Please note, that you must be on a Team or Business plan to create an access token.

Write Key

You will also need to find your write key, which is a unique identifier for your Source. To find a write key, you first need to create a non-Cloud Source such as a website, server, or mobile source. (Cloud-sources do not have write keys, as they use a token or key from your account with that service.) Then, in the Source, go to “Settings’, and then go to “API Keys”. See "Locating Your Write Key" for more details.