Automatically update Profile attributes

Question

What is the easiest way to update profile attributes included in _Subscribers list without exporting, updating and uploading the subscribers again?

Answer 1

You can do this using the Marketing Cloud SOAP API with the UpdateAdd method, as described in the developer documentation: Update a Subscriber

Just add an Attributes-node on the same level as the Lists-node in the documentation's example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:a="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing" xmlns:u="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">
    <s:Header>
        <a:Action s:mustUnderstand="1">Create</a:Action>
        <o:Security s:mustUnderstand="1" xmlns:o="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd">
            <o:UsernameToken>
                <o:Username>USERNAME_GOES_HERE</o:Username>
                <o:Password>PASSWORD_GOES_HERE</o:Password>
            </o:UsernameToken>
        </o:Security>
    </s:Header>
    <s:Body xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
        <CreateRequest xmlns="http://exacttarget.com/wsdl/partnerAPI">
            <Options>
                <SaveOptions>
                    <SaveOption>
                        <PropertyName>*</PropertyName>
                        <SaveAction>UpdateAdd</SaveAction>
                    </SaveOption>
                </SaveOptions>
            </Options>
            <Objects xsi:type="Subscriber">
                <ObjectID xsi:nil="true">
                </ObjectID>
                <EmailAddress>[email protected]</EmailAddress>
                <Lists>
                    <ID>123</ID>
                    <ObjectID xsi:nil="true">
                    </ObjectID>
                </Lists>
                <Attributes>
                    <Name>First Name</Name>
                    <Value>John</Value>
                </Attributes>
                <Attributes>
                    <Name>Last Name</Name>
                    <Value>Doe</Value>
                </Attributes>
                <Attributes>
                    <Name>Company</Name>
                    <Value>Salesforce</Value>
                </Attributes>
            </Objects>
        </CreateRequest>
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>