Journey Builder Custom Activity - unable to retrieve DE fields

Question

I've just started learning Journey Builder, or Marketing Cloud for this matter, the other day. My goal is to create a Custom Activity that would post data to an endpoint URL. So, I've performed the following:

1. Created the Data Extension and named it "APITestUsers" and added the following fields: Email, Name, Phone and Origin. I've also put in two test records as you can see below.

2. Created an Attribute Group named "PostData" (Is this required BTW?)

3. Linked the Contact Key field to my Data Extension's Email field.
4. Set up a journey utilizing the data extension and the custom activity.

I've followed the guides and tips here: Creating a custom activity, How data binding works, Sample REST activity

Below is the "arguments" node in my config.json:

"arguments": {
    "execute": {
        "inArguments": [
            {
                "contactIdentifier": "{{Contact.Key}}"
            },
            {
                "phoneNumber": "{{Contact.Attribute.PostData.Phone}}"
            }
        ],
        "outArguments": [
            {
                "foundSignupDate": ""
            }
        ],
        "url": "(my execute URL)"
    }
},

And this is the response I get:

{ "inArguments": [ { "contactIdentifier": "(contact email here)" }, { "phoneNumber": "" } ], "outArguments": [ { "foundSignupDate": "" } ], "activityObjectID": "a9acbef2-1055-4247-b6d3-7ec02da9644a", "journeyId": "72340558-049a-4350-b44d-d76af8a31a4f", "activityId": "a9acbef2-1055-4247-b6d3-7ec02da9644a", "definitionInstanceId": "8a03990e-fd07-4b6b-be03-07a39bc79d41", "activityInstanceId": "dea3ab26-0508-4b84-af2d-5fe4cb7dd219", "keyValue": "(contact email here)", "mode": 0 }

To my desperation, I've also tried other data-binding values and the results are always either the Execute URL doesn't get triggered, or I just get an empty field:

• {{Contact.Attribute.Phone}}
• {{Contact.Phone}}
• {{Contact.Default.Phone}}
• {{Contact.Attribute.APITestUsers.Phone}}

I am clearly missing something here. Please advise, guys. Thanks much!

Answer 1

Ok, so I just managed to figure out what the issue was. When I was testing using the data-binding syntax below,

{{Contact.Attribute.APITestUsers.Phone}}

I haven't linked my data extension to an attribute group (and later learned that this is actually a required step). At some point, I eventually linked the DE to an attribute group but then, at the same time, I changed the data-binding syntax. Otherwise, I would have gotten the expected results already.

So, the above syntax is working for me. Just make sure that your data extension is linked to an attribute group before anything else.