Barcode

Overview

MailUp v8.3 and above gives you the ability to dynamically generate a barcode, linked to a recipient field. This feature comes in handy in many scenarios, such as when needing to insert a unique discount or promotion code in an email campaign.

The frontend page mentioned below (barcode.aspx) will render and print out a barcode image, starting from a numeric/alphanumeric sequence dynamically retrieved from a recipient field.

The system passes two unique values to the page ("IdOptin" and "Hash") in order to avoid a fraudulent use of the feature.

How it works

The feature works as follows:

• A special image URL is generated as shown below
• The image URL (i.e. the HTTP location of the image) is included into the src property of the image HTML tag.

Base URL

http://<consoleurl>/frontend/Barcode.aspx

URL completed with parameters

<img src=http://<ConsoleHost>/frontend/Barcode.aspx?idoptin=[_idoptin]&hash=[_hash]&BarcodeHeight=60&SymbologyId=14&NarrowBarWidth=2&bearerbarsmode=0&BitmapTargetFormat=1&Ratio=0&TargetDynField=[PromoID]&FontHeight=0,2 />

Output sample

Below a sample of Interleaved 2 of 5 rendered from a 14 digits sequence

How to build your Barcode URL

The system does not yet include a feature to build the URL for you, so for now you need to build it yourself. Don't panic, though, it only takes a minute 

Here are the steps to take:

1. Open your text editor: we recommend Notepad++, but Windows Notepad will be fine too.
2. Paste in the editable window the following snippet:
   
   http://<ConsoleHost>/frontend/Barcode.aspx?idoptin=[_idoptin]&hash=[_hash]&BarcodeHeight=60&SymbologyId=14&NarrowBarWidth=2&bearerbarsmode=0&BitmapTargetFormat=1&Ratio=0&TargetDynField=[PromoID]&FontHeight=0,2
    
3. Replace the parts of the query string marked in red with your account-specific information:
   1. Replace <consolehost> with your admin console URL
   2. Replace LatestShippedOrderId with the recipient field you've chosen to hold (and filled in with) the barcode numeric number.
4. Select it (CTRL + A) and copy it to clipboard (CTRL +C)
5. Now open your web browser and log into your admin console
6. Click on Messages > Email > New > Create New Email or edit an existing message.
7. In the message editor, switch to HTML mode
8. Write a plain and empty HTML Img tag such as <img src="" /> in the writable area of the editor as below
   
   
9. Enter the URL you copied above into the src tag. For example, assuming your admin console URL were http://c9x8d.s56.it/ and that the recipient field you are using to store the unique number to use in the barcode is called PromoID, the code would look as follows:
   
   <img src="http://c9x8d.s56.it/frontend/Barcode.aspx?idoptin=[_idoptin]&hash=[_hash]&BarcodeHeight=60&SymbologyId=14&NarrowBarWidth=2&bearerbarsmode=0&BitmapTargetFormat=1&Ratio=0&TargetDynField=[PromoID]&FontHeight=0,2" /> 
    
10. Click on Save. Now you should be seeing the barcode rendered in the preview window as shown below
    
    

Troubleshooting

• Barcode rendering fails: the application may receive a wrong sequence format against a certain symbology : the application won't display any error message but it will display instead an empty 1x1 pixel image so that the calling image won't appear as broken

Parameters

Request parameters (Table 1)

Here is a description of the parameters mentioned in the barcode 

Symbology format Id reference (Table 2)