Integrate Mailgun with StoryChief

Mailgun is a service that handles “email as a service”. The user can send and receive emails through the API of Mailgun. The user can also retrieve data such as “logs”, “subscriptions”, and “databases” through the API of Mailgun.

StoryChief is an online service that allows users to create and publish digital stories. They have their own API so that users can integrate StoryChief service into their applications.

In this article, I will describe integration of Mailgun and StoryChief by showing two examples on how to use Mailgun API to send email messages and retrieve StoryChief API to retrieve stories.

The first example shows how to use Mailgun API to send mail messages. This example does not require user authentication because it does not need to authenticate itself with StoryChief.

The second example uses OAuth authentication to authenticate with StoryChief. It requires the user to authorize the application by using a special URL. After the user authorizes, the application is authorized to access StoryChief API. The application can communicate with StoryChief API using the authorization token received from StoryChief. In this example, the application knows your personal information such as your username. You all should be careful to prevent this app from leaking your data or sending fake emails to people you know.

Example 1. Mailgun API without Personal Authentication

To send mails using Mailgun API, first create an account on https://www.mailgun.com/signup/. Click on Documentation link and scrpl down to find list of APIs:

Click on SMTP API and you will see the general interface for SMTP API (as shown below. Use the information in this site and try to find specific information about SMTP API such as how to send email messages (right side of page. and how to retrieve lists of sent mails (bottom of page):

Use PHP for this example (and for other examples. Here is the code for sending mails using Mailgun SMTP API:

<?php

//get Session ID from Mailgun website

//create array of info and pass it to Mailgun function

$info = array();

$info['to'] = '[email protected]'; //destination email address

$info['from'] = '[email protected]'; //sender's email address

$info['subject'] = 'Hellow World!'; //message subject line

$info['text'] = 'Hello World!'; //message body

$info['html'] = '<b>Hello World!</b>'; //message body HTML

$info['headers'] = array( //additional headers if you want

'X-Mailgun-Key' => '<a rel="nofollow" href="http://api.mailgun.net/signup/XXXXXXX" target="_blank">YOUR KEY</a>',

'Content-Type' => 'text/plain; charset=UTF-8',

);

//use Mailgun function to send email

$result = mailgun_mail($info);

if($result === false. { //check result status

echo "Mail sending failed";

} else { //to see message details, go to Mailgun website

echo "Sending mail successfully"; //message details are available at URL in $result like http://api.mailgun.net/v3/XXXXXX/messages/XXXXXX/XXXXXX

The process to integrate Mailgun and StoryChief may seem complicated and intimidating. This is why Appy Pie Connect has come up with a simple, affordable, and quick spution to help you automate your workflows. Click on the button below to begin.