First Look at Notifying Multiple Recipients using Lists

Check out the video below to watch us:

• Give an overview of the Lists feature
• Discuss list organization while creating a couple lists
• Subscribe new and existing recipients to a list
• Send to a list using the listId and pattern methods
• View the List Sends in the Courier Logs

Be sure to Like the video and Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Using Lists with the Courier Node.js Library

During the stream we used the newly updated Courier Node.js SDK to work with our lists. During this we ran into a few issues and shortly after the stream ended, we released a patch to address them. The following code uses v1.6.1 of the SDK which can be installed using yarn or npm.

> npm install @trycourier/courier

Creating a List

A list can be created ahead of time or when a recipient subscribes to a list that doesn't exist. We created a couple lists using both methods. List IDs are composed of up to 4 parts separated by a dot. For our example, we are creating a list for Courier Live Alerts so we'll use courier.devrel.live. You can learn more about List ID Pattern guidelines in our help center.

const { Courier } = require("@trycourier/courier");
const courier = new Courier({ apiKey: "<AUTH_TOKEN>" });

const listId = "courier.devrel.live";

const main = async () => {
  await courier.lists.put(listId, {
    name: "Weekly Product Updates"
  });

  const list = await courier.lists.get(listId);
  console.log(list);
};

main();

Because the list.put method doesn't return anything, I also added a call to the list.get method to show the list had been added.

Subscribing to a List

To add a recipient to a list, you first need to make sure they have a Profile stored in Courier. Here is how you would add a new recipient to a list that will be created on the fly.

const { Courier } = require("@trycourier/courier");
const courier = new Courier({ apiKey: "<AUTH_TOKEN>" });

const listId = "courier.product.live";

const main = async () => {
  const { status } = await courier.mergeProfile({
    recipientId: "CUSTOMER94107",
    profile: {
      email: "customer@company.com",
      given_name: "Customer",
      custom: {
        twitter: "https://twitter.com/company"
      }
    }
  });

  console.log(status);

  await courier.lists.subscribe(listId, "CUSTOMER94107");

  const { results } = await courier.lists.findByRecipientId("CUSTOMER94107");
  console.table(results);
};

main();

Here we created a new recipient profile using the Profiles API and then subscribed them to a new list. Because the lists.subscribe method doesn't return anything, I also added a call to the list.findByRecipientId method to show that the recipient was added to the newly created list.

Sending to a List

Now that we have a couple lists, we can send a notification to them. We can target a specific list by sending using its List ID

const { Courier } = require("@trycourier/courier");
const courier = new Courier({ apiKey: "<AUTH_TOKEN>" });

const listId = "courier.devrel.live";

const data = {
  title:
    "Courier Live: First Look at Notifying Multiple Recipients using Lists",
  hosts: [
    {
      name: "Aydrian",
      twitter: "https://twitter.com/itsaydrian"
    },
    {
      name: "Danny",
      twitter: "https://twitter.com/DannyDouglass"
    }
  ]
};

const main = async () => {
  try {
    const { messageId } = await courier.lists.send({
      event: "COURIER_LIVE_ALERT",
      list: listId,
      data
    });
    console.log(messageId);
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(e.message);
  }
};

main();

We can target multiple lists by using a pattern. We could send to all subscribers under courier by using the pattern courier. or we could target all the live lists with the pattern courier.*.live. You can learn more about patterns in our help center. Let's send to every list under courier.

const { Courier } = require("@trycourier/courier");
const courier = new Courier({ apiKey: "<AUTH_TOKEN>" });

const pattern = "courier.**";

const data = {
  title:
    "Courier Live: First Look at Notifying Multiple Recipients using Lists",
  hosts: [
    {
      name: "Aydrian",
      twitter: "https://twitter.com/itsaydrian"
    },
    {
      name: "Danny",
      twitter: "https://twitter.com/DannyDouglass"
    }
  ]
};

const main = async () => {
  try {
    const { messageId } = await courier.lists.send({
      event: "COURIER_LIVE_ALERT",
      pattern,
      data
    });
    console.log(messageId);
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(e.message);
  }
};

main();

Courier will handle gathering and de-duping all the recipients that satisfy the pattern. Check out the Lists API Reference documentation to learn about all that can be done with lists.

Is there something you’d like to see us do using Courier? Let us know and it might be the subject of our next Courier Live. We stream a new Courier Live every Wednesday at noon Pacific. Follow us on Twitch to be notified when we go live.

-Aydrian