Stampr Engineering

[mailcogs-blog]

Now you can email your postal mail to stampr

At stampr, we're all about making it as easy as possible to get your mail to us, and shipped out.  With that in mind, we'd like to announce that starting today you can email your mail directly to u...

That's right...  Email-to-mail!  We've set up email-to-mail to basically just be a lightweight wrapper to our API.

If you're familiar with mustache templates and need to send some mail, I highly recommend you check out that link.

Attach a CSV filled with user data (and mailing addresses, of course)

Attach a PDF, or type your message with mustache markup for replacement from the CSV

Done.

One idea we've been playing with is setting up an automated paper mailing to go out after an emailed newsletter.  

There is something just so much more lasting about an IRL impression from a paper mailing.

[mailcogs-blog]

Developing some new features.  Creating a devstart.app script was the best investment in time ever…

[mailcogs-blog]

Creating a new Batch for Testing

Whenever you create a new mailing in stampr, it is immediately queued and prepped for mailing.  

If you're looking for fast, efficient service this is great!  However, if you're trying to do some testing... you probably don't want all the mailings you create to be sent out.

This tutorial will detail how to create a special Batch for you to use with testing.

What are Batches?

Batches are basically folders (or buckets) to attach to your mailings.  All mailings must belong to a batch and can easily be looked up by batch.

Batch Statuses

Batches all have statuses.  Currently, there are two:

hold

processing

Hold

When a batch status is set to hold, it prevents all mail assigned to that batch from being sent out.  

This is perfect for testing because we can create mailings and they won't count towards your monthly send limit.

Processing

This is the default status for batches.  All mail added to a batch in processing will immediately be sent out.

Potential Gotcha: If you're going from hold -> processing, switching to processing will trigger the mailings in that batch to send.

Creating Our Testing Batch

The PHP client includes two different implementations to send mail.  The first is called "simple" and lets you send mail without thinking too much about it.  The second is called "advanced".

The advanced implementation is what we'll be using to create our testing batch.

Here's a gist that demonstrates how to create our new batch with the status set to hold.

Using the Testing Batch

Use the Batch ID returned in the stampr Hello World, and all mailings you create will not be sent out.

[mailcogs-blog]

Stampr API Hello World with PHP

If you haven't already, visit Setting up the PHP Stampr API Client and learn how to configure everything.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use the simple interface for sending mail with the PHP client.  If you need more control, check out the Advanced Implementation here.

WARNING: This tutorial will lead to real mailings being created and mailed.  If you only want to test, read about how to create a testing Batch.

Hello-World.php

Create a new file called hello-world.php.  Check out this gist.

Modify the File

Make sure to update the login credentials, addresses and content.  

Stampr::mail()

There are two separate implementations within the Stampr client.  This Hello World uses the "simple" version, which allows you to just send mail without having to dive too deep.

For more power, be sure to check out the Advanced Implementation detailed on the github page readme.

Execute

In a command prompt, type php hello-world.php.  If all goes well, you should see something like... "Mailing #12345 was created".  

Done!  Your mail will be queued for printing and mailing.  You can check your account for status updates.

[mailcogs-blog]

Setting up the PHP stampr API client

This post covers the PHP stampr API client.  You can see all of the available stampr API clients here.  

Download the PHP client

If you don’t already have it, download and install composer: https://getcomposer.org/

Extract the client and open a command prompt

cd into the directory to install with: php composer.phar install

The composer install will create a vendor directory with a few dependencies. The PHP client leans heavily on Guzzle.

The Stampr client exists in src/Stampr.  You can move these files if you wish.  

Assuming you don't move them, you can get started with your script by including the following at the top of your file:

require 'vendor/autoload.php'; require 'src/Stampr/Stampr.php'; $stampr_login = "[email protected]"; $stampr_password = "your.stampr.password"; $endpoint = "https://stam.pr/api"; $stampr = new Stampr($stampr_login, $stampr_password, $endpoint);

That's it!  You're ready to get started making calls