Handling marketing automation triggers

You can influence the triggers that start Marketing automation processes by implementing custom handlers for the ProcessTrigger global event.

For example, you can use the handler to include additional activity data into the trigger macro resolver. This then allows you to create macro conditions that start a marketing automation process, for example, based on the data submitted by a contact in a column of an online form.

Example

The following example demonstrates how to add online form submit activity data into a marketing automation trigger macro resolver.

You have a Marketing automation process that subscribes contacts to a newsletter.

A trigger starts the process whenever a user submits the ContactUs form.

Now you can improve the trigger to make it start the process only when users submit the form with the "example.com" domain in the email field.

1. Open your Xperience solution in Visual Studio (using the WebApp.sln file).

2. Create a custom module class.

   • Add the class into a custom Class Library project within the solution (in your Xperience administration project, not the MVC live site project)..

3. Override the module's OnInit method and assign a handler to the AutomationEvents.ProcessTrigger.Before event.

   C#

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   using CMS;
   using CMS.DataEngine;
   using CMS.Automation;
   using CMS.OnlineForms;
   using CMS.Activities;
   using CMS.MacroEngine;
   
   // Registers the custom module into the system
   [assembly: RegisterModule(typeof(ProcessTriggerHandlerModule))]
   
   public class ProcessTriggerHandlerModule : Module
   {
       // Module class constructor, the system registers the module under the name "ProcessTriggerHandlers"
       public ProcessTriggerHandlerModule()
           : base("ProcessTriggerHandlers")
       {
       }
   
       // Contains initialization code that is executed when the application starts
       protected override void OnInit()
       {
           base.OnInit();
   
           // Assigns a handler to the AutomationEvents.ProcessTrigger.Before event
           AutomationEvents.ProcessTrigger.Before += ProcessTrigger_Before;
       }
   }

4. Define the handler method (inside the custom module class):

   C#

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   void ProcessTrigger_Before(object sender, AutomationProcessTriggerEventArgs e)
   {
       // Only applies to activity-based triggers
       if (e.TriggerInfo.TriggerTargetObjectType == ActivityTypeInfo.OBJECT_TYPE)
       {
           foreach (TriggerOptions option in e.Options)
           {
               // Gets the related activity from the macro resolver
               MacroResolver resolver = option.Resolver;
               ActivityInfo activity = resolver.GetNamedSourceData("Activity") as ActivityInfo;
   
               // Checks if the activity represents the "form submit" action
               if (activity != null && activity.ActivityType.Equals("bizformsubmit"))
               {
                   int formId = activity.ActivityItemID;
                   int itemId = activity.ActivityItemDetailID;
   
                   // Gets the form
                   BizFormInfo form = BizFormInfo.Provider.Get(formId);
   
                   if (form != null)
                   {
                       // Gets the submitted form data
                       string className = DataClassInfoProvider.GetClassName(form.FormClassID);
                       BizFormItem item = BizFormItemProvider.GetItem(itemId, className);
                       if (item != null)
                       {
                           // Makes FormData available in the trigger condition evaluation
                           resolver.SetNamedSourceData("FormData", item);
                       }
                   }
               }
           }
       }
   }

5. Save the class and Rebuild your solution.

You can now use FormData in the trigger condition evaluation. Change the trigger's macro condition to:

FormData["Email"].EndsWith("@example.com")

The trigger now automatically starts instances of the process when a visitors submits the form with the "@example.com" suffix in the value of the Email field.