API From Mobile Connect Via Ampscript

Question

I am trying to take all responses from Mobile Connect and dump them into a third party resource for analysis via an ampscript api. I am trying to do this within mobile connect using ampscript but I can't seem to get it to work!

Unfortunately there isn't much debugging in here so I am hoping someone with more expertise than I can assist.

Here is what I have tried:

%%[

Var @msgpass, @msgfail
SET @msgpass = "Stop Activated" 
SET @msgfail = "Stop Not Activated"

IF indexof([MSG(0)], "STOP") > 0 THEN
OutputLine(v(@msgpass))

ELSE
OutputLine(v(@msgfail))
VAR @payload, @response

SET @payload = '{
"sender": {
"name": "Phillip J Fry",
"handle": "Phillip_Fry_the_Delivery_Guy"
},
"subject": "Question",
"body": "Didn't we used to be a delivery company?",
"attachments": [],
"metadata": {}
}'

SET @request = HTTPPost("https://api2.frontapp.com/Secret:)", "application/json", @payload, @response, "Authorization", "Bearer Secret :)", "Accept-Charset", "utf-8")

ENDIF

]%%

Answer 1

I think the issue is that you are opening the string for @payload with a single quote ' and inside of your "body" you are using a single quote in Didn't which is then closing your string at Didn'. This then makes the JSON invalid and also adds extra characters that are incorrect syntax for AMPScript.

This is a bit 'hacky', but to retain it in AMPScript (since I believe SSJS is not allowed inside of Mobile Connect), what I would do is to replace all instances of your single quotes inside your JSON with another character.

I usually use a ~ or similar char that would be very unlikely to ever be inside your content. I then do a ReplaceList() (I use this instead of Replace() because Replace() will only affect the first match of your string, where ReplaceList() will replace all matches of the selected string value.) inside of the HTTPPost, like so:

SET @payload = '{
"sender": {
"name": "Phillip J Fry",
"handle": "Phillip_Fry_the_Delivery_Guy"
},
"subject": "Question",
"body": "Didn~t we used to be a delivery company?",
"attachments": [],
"metadata": {}
}'

SET @request = HTTPPost("https://api2.frontapp.com/Secret:)", "application/json", ReplaceList(@payload, "'", "~"), @response, "Authorization", "Bearer Secret :)", "Accept-Charset", "utf-8")

This will make the object include your single quotes again in the POST, but prevent any errors due to mismatched quotes inside of your JSON.

I believe if you are pulling in the JSON from a DE field or from an outside source (instead of manually creating it in the script) and attaching it to the var, you will be fine with the single quotes inside of it, but not 100% certain on this.