PowerShell Scripting to Replicate MailChimp Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for MailChimp offer live access to MailChimp data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for MailChimp and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate MailChimp data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing MailChimp data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

You can set the APIKey to the key you generate in your account settings, or, instead of providing your APIKey, you can use the OAuth standard to authenticate the application. OAuth can be used to enable other users to access their own data. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL by registering an app with MailChimp.

See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Collecting MailChimp Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MailChimpCmdlets

2. Connect to MailChimp:

   $mailchimp = Connect-MailChimp -APIKey $APIKey

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-MailChimp -Connection $mailchimp -Table "Lists"

   You can also use the Invoke-MailChimp cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

   $data = Invoke-MailChimp -Connection $mailchimp -Query 'SELECT * FROM Lists WHERE Contact_Country = @Contact_Country' -Params @{'@Contact_Country'='US'}

4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

   $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting MailChimp Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MySQLCmdlets

2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

   $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Loop through the MailChimp data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the MailChimp resource (Lists) and to exist in the database.

   $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Lists" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your MailChimp data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with MailChimp data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

• Once you have connected to MailChimp and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

  Select-MailChimp -Connection $mailchimp -Table "Lists" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Lists" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

• If you wish to replicate the MailChimp data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-MailChimp cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

  $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}