How can one retreive the business unit level subscription status from within the business unit?

Question

I'm building an Ampscript-based preference center in a microsite inside a business unit on an enterprise 2 account. I can easily update my subscribers but I cannot seem to find a way to find the subscriber's status within that business unit.

If I do a retrieve request, I get the subscriber's status in the parent account business unit.

If I attempt a lookup on the _subscribers table, I get no results. (same if I try to run it as a query).

I've tried using list subscribers and filtering on the list ID but again, it doesn't return any results.

Would appreciate any suggestions.

Answer 1

According to SFMC Support, there's no way to do this.

My workaround has been to retrieve all of the lists for a subscriber. If all of them are unsubscribed, then the overall status is unsubscribed.

Answer 2

This is an older thread but I ran across it while researching the issue and want to leave some help for others in a similar situation.

This article describes a process that can be used to create a BU level list with subscriber status - https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000230283&type=1

This is an excerpt from the page:

Process steps

Note: This Automation must be created once per Business Unit.

1. Query Activity: Export the "All Subscribers" from the Parent-level ListID from the _ListSubscribers table into a Data Extension. We suggest using the "Overwrite" type so it is updated entirely every time this is done.

2. Data Extract: Export the data from the Data Extension.

3. File Transfer: Transfer the file from the Data Extract into the Import Folder of your FTP.

4. Import Activity: Import this data into the "Mock All Subs" List that is going to mimic that Business Unit's All Subscribers list.

5. Query Activity: Use a query to pull the subscribers from the "Mock All Subs" List, then import them into a Data Extension. Again, we recommend using the "Overwrite" type.

6. Data Extract: Export the data from the Data Extension

7. File Transfer: Transfer the file from the Data Extension into the directory of your choice.

Translation:

When you create the "Mock All Subs" list and pass in status = 'active' the actual BU Subscriber status will take precedent. You can then read the BU level subscriber status by querying the _ListSubscribers data view for the "Mock All Subs" list.

This is a very complicated answer to a simple question, but I can confirm that it works.

Answer 3

You could use the _ListSubscribers data view in conjunction with a list containing all of the subscribers in that business unit. You would need to follow these steps. The only route to obtain BU level opt-out using System Data Views:

1. In the BU, create a List that will never be sent to (so status is "pure")
2. Ensure this List contains all Subscribers that match the BU filter (copy or query + extract + import)
3. Run a Query Activity selecting from BU._ListSubscribers using ListID = the List from #1