Set Custom Signup Dates

Whether you are importing your first batch of existing users or updating user info, you will need to set the signup date for each user. Many of our reports highlight performance based on signup month, so it's extremely important that you pass along a user's actual sign-up date. Otherwise, the list upload date will be used instead, skewing your reporting.

Signup/Import Job

This job will overwrite/set custom signup dates for existing or new users. Custom signup dates may only be set using the API.

  1. See the JOB call page for imports and exports. In the API call, you must include the list and file parameters, as well the signup_dates parameter with the value of 1 or true.
  2. The CSV that is uploaded (using the file parameter) must have the first column labeled email, and the second column labeled signup_date).
  3. Please see the Set Variables on Users page for the required date and time formatting.

Signup Update Job

Like the Signup/Import, this job allows you to update, but also lets you to use JSON instead of a CSV file - which makes this call to run faster. Custom signup dates may only be set using the API.

See the JOB call and scroll down to type 'update'.  In the API call, signup_date may be passed along with the optional parameters: vars, lists, optout or keys. Note that the default key is email and other keys can be passed along at signup only if enabled by the Support team.

Please see the Set Variables on Users page for the required date and time formatting.

Example API calls for both Singup/Import and Signup/Update are below. For more, see job Examples page in For Developers documentation.

Example in PHP:

$api_client.apiPost("job", array("job" => "import",
"list" => "test_list", "signup_dates" => "true", "file" =>"hello.csv"), array('file'));

Example in Ruby:

sc = Sailthru::SailthruClient.new("123456789101112131415","123456789101112131415","https://api.sailthru.com")
sc.api_post(:job, {"job"=>"import","list"=>"test2","signup_dates"=>true,"file"=>"hello.csv"}, "file")

Result

The user's system signup date/time will be updated. Note that default time is midnight unless a specific time is passed.

Alternatively, the user's list signup date/time (the date they were added to the list that is named in the api call) could be updated if they signed up for a newsletter, etc. after the initial instance of their user profile.

Syntax for Date-Related Variables

Variables typically use the following inputs: 1 for True or 0 for False.

However, when dealing with date-related variables, use null instead of 0 to prevent the date appearing in the interface as December 31, 1969 or January 01, 1970. This issue may occur due to Unix Time.

For further information, see:

Wikipedia's "Unix Time"

Stack Overflow's "What Happened On Dec 31 1969 At 7:00 PM"