Email infrastructure service offered as an add-on for MailChimp, Used to send personalized, one-to-one e-commerce emails, or automated transactional emails.

1. Mandrill Templates
Bharat Singh
Software Consultant
Knoldus Software LLP.

2. Agenda
● Mandrill
● Dynamic Templating
● Handlebars
● Merge Vars
● Merge Tags & MCTL
● Editable Content
● Demo

3. Mandrill
Quick Overview : What ?
● Email infrastructure service offered as an add-
on for MailChimp
● Used to send personalized, one-to-one e-
commerce emails, or automated transactional
emails.

4. Mandrill
Transactional Emails: Why ?
● Also referred to as app-based email, it is the
little mail you receive after performing a certain
action, or an action is taken for you
● Your own STMP server v/s Mandrill

5. Mandrill
Transactional Emails: Why ?
● Also referred to as app-based email, it is the
little mail you receive after performing a certain
action, or an action is taken for you
● Your own STMP server v/s Mandrill

6. Mandrill
Integration: How ?
● SMTP : Traditional way [limited]
● API : Extended options and Reporting

7. Dynamic Templating
● Create email design & store frequently-used content to reuse.
● Send email using the template & provide only dynamic
recipient-specific content.
Advantages :
● Efficiency : API calls are lightweight [only dynamic data].
● Useability : Non-developers can edit template design.
Via : MailChimp, API, Mandrill Console

8. Dynamic Templating
Handlebars
● A handlebars expression is
{{ some contents }}.
● Handlebars templates are basically made up of data, paths
and helpers
Data
● All the static content of the template is your data, which does
not get included in handlebars or helpers, ex: Html tags

9. Dynamic Templating
Path
All the dynamic content sent to the Mandrill is accessed by a
specific path. It includes the name of the Merged Var followed by
a ‘.’ operator and then the name of the key or element.
Merged Vars
● global_merge_vars : To provide a global variable value
"global_merge_vars": [{
"name": "CompanyName",
"content": "Knoldus Software LLP"
}]

10. Dynamic Templating
Merged Vars
● merge_vars : To provide a recipient specific variable value
"merge_vars": [{
“rcpt” : “bharat@knoldus.com”,
“vars”: [
{
"name": "Name",
"content": "Bharat"
}
]
}]

11. Dynamic Templating
Helpers
● Inline helpers are used as: {{helperName arg1 arg2 arg3}}
● Block helpers are used as:
{{#helperName arg 1 arg2}}
other stuff
{{else}}
else block - helper specific if it's supported and how it
works
{{/helperName}}

12. Dynamic Templating

13. Dynamic Templating

14. Dynamic Templating
Block Helpers
● The if helper : When using the {{#if}} helper in Handlebars, any
expression whose value is not false, undefined, null, "", 0, or []
will evaluate as true.
● The unless helper : The content inside the block will be
displayed when the expression is evaluated to false, or unless it's
true. It's equivalent to if not

15. Dynamic Templating
Block Helpers
● The if-elseif-else helper :
{{#if `operating_system == "OS X"`}}
<p>Click here for instructions to install on a Mac</p>
{{elseif `operating_system == "Windows"`}}
<p>Click here for instructions to install on a PC</p>
{{/if}}

16. Dynamic Templating
Block Helpers
● The each helper :
<div class="entry">
<ul>
<li style="list-style: none">{{#each browsers}}</li>
<li>{{this}}</li>
<li style="list-style: none">{{/each}}</li>
</ul>
</div>

17. Dynamic Templating
● Merge Tags
● Introduced initially by MailChimp, Mandrill supports these to
help Mailchimp users to port templates.
● Format : *|MERGETAG|*

18. Dynamic Templating
● Merge Tags
● Conditional Merge Tags :
*|IF:MERGE=x|*
<p>content to display if the value for MERGE is x</p>
*|ELSEIF:MERGE=y|*
<p>content to display if the value for MERGE is not x, but
is y</p>
*|ELSE:|*
<p>alternate content to display</p>
*|END:IF|*

19. Dynamic Templating
● Merge Tags
● Encoding Merge Tags :
● *|HTML:YOUR_MERGETAG|*
● *|URL:YOUR_MERGETAG|*
● *|TITLE:YOUR_MERGETAG|*
● *|LOWER:YOUR_MERGETAG|*
● *|UPPER:YOUR_MERGETAG|*

20. Dynamic Templating
● Editable Content
● Its the part of MailChimp template language
● Used to create regions that can be completely replaced with
contents
<div mc:edit="header">
<h2>Thank you for your purchase</h2>
</div>
<div mc:edit="main" >
We appreciate your business
</div>
<div mc:edit="footer">
Company contact information will go here.
</div>

21. Dynamic Templating
● Editable Content
● "template_content": [
{
"name": "header",
"content": "<h2>Your Order is Complete</h2>"
},
{
"name": "main",
"content": "We appreciate your business.
}
]

22. Questions ?

23. References
● https://mandrill.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/200775387-
Templates-and-Dynamic-Content
● https://www.sitepoint.com/need-transactional-email/
● http://blog.mandrill.com/handlebars-for-templates-and-dynamic-
content.html

24. Thank You