Use the Mailchimp API

Question

I\'d like to use the Mailchimp Node.js API in my Parse Cloud Hosting app to subscribe a user to a mailing list. Parse doesn\'t support NPM but, given that the Mailchimp API

Answer 1

Here's how I got it to work using the MailChimp API v3.0, the method below supports adding/updating a subscriber, as well as adding/removing him to/from a Group!

Prerequisite: You need to get an MD5 hash method to convert the user's email into a hash.

• Here's the one I used: http://www.webtoolkit.info/javascript-md5.html#.Vuz-yjZOwXV
• Copy the code in the link, and paste it into a newly created file, name it "md5js.js" for example.
• Update the code you copied to start with exports.MD5 = function (string) {
• You can test the conversion you got from the copy/pasted module by comparing the result with this online tool: http://www.miraclesalad.com/webtools/md5.php

    var jsmd5 = require('cloud/md5js.js');

    // here replace that with your own data center (by looking at your API key).
    var datacenter = "us13";
    var MAILCHIMP_URL = "https://:@" + datacenter + ".api.mailchimp.com/3.0/";
    var MAILCHIMP_LIST_NEWSLETTER_ID = ;

    Parse.Cloud.define("SubscribeUserToMailingList", function(request, response) {

      if (!request.params ||
            !request.params.email){
        response.error("Must supply email address, firstname and lastname to Mailchimp signup");
        return;
      }

      var email = request.params.email;
      var firstName = request.params.firstname;
      var lastName = request.params.lastname;

      // this converts the email string into an MD5 hash.
      // this is Required if you want to use a "PUT" which allows add/update of an entry, compared to the POST that allows only adding a new subscriber.
      var emailHash = jsmd5.MD5(email);

      var mailchimpData = {
        'email_address': email,
        'status': "subscribed",
        'merge_fields': {
          'FNAME': firstName,
          'LNAME': lastName
        },
        'interests': {
          "": true  // optional, if you want to add the user to a "Group".
        }
      };

      var url = MAILCHIMP_URL + "lists/" + MAILCHIMP_LIST_NEWSLETTER_ID + "/members/" + emailHash;

      // using a "PUT" allows you to add/update an entry.
      Parse.Cloud.httpRequest({
        method: 'PUT',
        url: url,
        body: JSON.stringify(mailchimpData),
        success: function(httpResponse) {
          console.log(httpResponse.text);

          response.success("Successfully subscribed");
        },
        error: function(httpResponse) {
          console.error('Request failed with response code ' + httpResponse.status);
          console.error(httpResponse.text);

          response.error('Mailchimp subscribe failed with response code ' + httpResponse.status);
        }
      });
    });