How Do I identify the Data Extension used by a Send

Question

Okay - why do I want to do this...

My SubscriberKey is my systems ContactID. My contacts can have multiple emails. The SentEvent identifies the Send and the Subscriber Key which I can retrieve successfully. However, I need to know which Data Extension was used which would give me the email address used.

So - I can retrieve Sends, which has Email and EmailSendDefinition unfortunately I cannot Retrieve the objects Email or EmailSendDefinition since they're not supported by the method. By adding "EmailSendDefinition.CustomerKey" my Request retrieves the Send data but I cannot then access the CustomerKey because it's not instantiated - ie

Can anyone point me in the right direction? or explain what the code (.Net C#) is doing wrong? or advise of a better method to meet the requirement?

Code is

    RetrieveRequest rr = new RetrieveRequest();
    rr.ObjectType = "Send";

    String[] props = { "ID", "EmailName", "Status", "EmailSendDefinition.CustomerKey", "Client.ID"};

    rr.Properties = props;

  APIObject[] results = null;
    String requestID = null;
    string status = null;
    APIObject[] lSources = null; 

    Send se = null;

    do
        {
            status = etFramework.Retrieve(rr, out requestID, out results);
          for (int i = 0; i < results.Length; i++)
            {
                //se = (Send)results[i];
                se = results[i] as Send;

                SendOutputBuffer.AddRow();
                SendOutputBuffer.EmailName = se.EmailName;
                SendOutputBuffer.SendID=se.ID;
                SendOutputBuffer.Status=se.Status;
                if (se.EmailSendDefinition != null)
                    MessageBox.Show(se.EmailSendDefinition.CustomerKey);
            }

            //This call the API again to get the next 2500 records
            rr = new RetrieveRequest();
            rr.ContinueRequest = requestID;
        } while (status.Equals("MoreDataAvailable"));//This means there are more than 2500 records 

Answer 1

Good question. It's one I've encountered myself.

It's been discussed previously:

• Retrieving data extension used to filter e-mail send
• How Do I Retrieve the DataExtension Used for A Send (via the SOAP API)?
• Retrieving Data Extension names used in a Send.

It's not possible via API, but you can cook something up using Send Logging, which is basically involves inserting code into every email to record the sending Data Extension.

Problem is...you can send to multiple Data Extensions at once. Since only one is recorded, how do you differentiate? In some cases that doesn't matter, but...

Answer 2

You can use the personalisation string _DateSourceName and print these into a send log