Lambda Powered Amazon Pinpoint Templates

Amazon Pinpoint allows you to manage Email, SMS, Push, and Voice templates via the AWS Console and APIs. Pinpoint is also extremely extensible and does not require you to use these templates. This is a POC built to showcase how you can retrieve and render templates outside of Pinpoint for use in Pinpoint campaigns using Lambda functions.

This example uses MustacheJS with custom Helpers to render email templates stored in S3 using Pinpoint Endpoint Attributes AND data returned from invoking other Lambda functions. In this way, data can be rendered in templates that exist in other RDS, DynamoDB, on-premises systems, Salesforce CRM, or wherever!

Example Email Template


{{content-block "common/header.html"}}

<p>Here is my Ice Cream promotion email.  I am so happy you are here {{properCase Attributes.FirstName}}</p>

<p>Your price is {{currencyFormat Attributes.Price Attributes.Locale Attributes.Currency}}

<p>Your Deal expires {{dateFormat Attributes.ExpireDate "dddd, mmmm d, yyyy"}}

<p>
  {{#invokeLambda "example-invoked-lambda"}}
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td>Product Image from Lambda:</td>
      <td><img src="{{{image}}}" width="100" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Product Name</td>
      <td><a href="{{{link}}}">{{{name}}}</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Price:</td>
      <td>{{{price}}}</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
  {{/invokeLambda}}
</p>

<p>
  {{#translate-text "en" Attributes.PreferredLanguage.[0]}}
  This is English that will be translated into the preferred language of the current user by Amazon Translate.
  {{/translate-text}}
</p>


{{content-block "common/footer.html"}}

Note that the content-block "common/header.html" is also parsed for MustacheJS expressions and even more content-blocks. Each content-block is therefore recursively processed:

...
<td style="border:0px;">
  <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
    <tr>
      <td align="left" valign="top">
        <table width="100%" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" border="0">
          <tr>

           {{#ifEquals Attributes.brand "mainbrand"}}
             {{content-block "common/mainbrand/brand_header.html"}}
           {{/ifEquals}}
           {{#ifEquals Attributes.brand "subbrand"}}
             {{content-block "common/subbrand/brand_header.html"}}
           {{/ifEquals}}

          </tr>
          <tr>
            <td width="100%" bgcolor="FFFFFF">
              <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="min-width: 100%;">
                <tr>
                  <td>
...

MustacheJS Registered Helpers

Helper	Description
content-block	fetches a templatized content block by S3 key and recursively processes it
ifEquals	compares two values together
currencyFormat	formats a string of numbers for currency display
dateFormat	formats a string into a date string
invokeLambda	block invokes another lambda and makes the return object available inside the block
translate-text	translates the given text using Amazon Translate
upperCase	RETURNS AN UPPERCASED VERSION OF THE STRING
lowerCase	returns a lowercased version of the string
properCase	Returns A String Where Every Word Starts With A Capital Letter
urlencode	Encodes a string to be placed in a URL

Repository content

Main files:

.
├── README.MD                                           <-- This instructions file
├── templates                                           <-- Folder for email templates, sync to S3
├── lambda                                              <-- Folder for the AWS Lambdas
│   └── campaign-hook
│       └── index.js                                    <-- Function called by Pinpoint, Campaign Filter Lambda Hook
│   └── template-engine
│       └── index.js                                    <-- Function to recursively render templates from S3
│   └── example-invoked-lambda
│       └── index.js                                    <-- Example function that returns values used in blocks

Example Segment

Save the following as a CSV file to test the example templates located in this repository. It has the necessary attributes to render the ice_cream email.

ChannelType,Id,Address,User.UserId,Attributes.FirstName,Attributes.brand,Attributes.Price,Attributes.Locale,Attributes.Currency,Attributes.ExpireDate
EMAIL,1,EMAIL_ADDRESS1_HERE,1,Ryan,mainbrand,125.32,en-US,USD,2020-03-10T10:00:00
EMAIL,2,EMAIL_ADDRESS2_HERE,2,JOHN,subbrand,321.45,zh-CN,JPY,2020-05-10T10:00:00

Set up

Deploy the Templates in an S3 bucket aws s3 templates/ s3://[BUCKET NAME]
Deploy Lambdas

Run npm run build in each Lambda folder to build a deployable Zip file
Ensure Lambda functions have IAM permissions to call Pinpoint, invoke other Lambda functions, and access files in S3
Ensure Lambda functions have environment variables defined

Lambda Function Environment Variable Name Value

campaign-hook TEMPLATE_ENGINE_LAMBDA [ARN of the Template Lambda Function]

template-engine TEMPLATE_BUCKET [Template S3 Bucket Name]

Lambda Function	Environment Variable Name	Value
campaign-hook	TEMPLATE_ENGINE_LAMBDA	[ARN of the Template Lambda Function]
template-engine	TEMPLATE_BUCKET	[Template S3 Bucket Name]

Create a Pinpoint Project
Connect the campaign hook Lambda to a Pinpoint Project Full Lambda Hook Documentation for

aws lambda add-permission \
 --function-name [CAMPAIGN_HOOK LAMBDA ARN] \
 --statement-id lambdaHookStatement1 \
 --action lambda:InvokeFunction \
 --principal pinpoint.[REGION].amazonaws.com \
 --source-arn arn:aws:mobiletargeting:[REGION]:[AWS_ACCOUNT_ID]:/apps/[PINPOINT_PROJECT_ID]/*

 aws lambda add-permission \
 --function-name [CAMPAIGN_HOOK LAMBDA ARN] \
 --statement-id lambdaHookStatement12 \
 --action lambda:InvokeFunction \
 --principal pinpoint.[REGION].amazonaws.com \
 --source-arn arn:aws:mobiletargeting:[REGION]:[AWS_ACCOUNT_ID]:/apps/[PINPOINT_PROJECT_ID]

 aws pinpoint update-application-settings \
 --application-id [PINPOINT_PROJECT_ID] \
 --write-application-settings-request 'CampaignHook={LambdaFunctionName="[CAMPAIGN_HOOK LAMBDA ARN]",Mode="FILTER"}'

Create a Pinpoint Template with the following Message Body

<!DOCTYPE html>
{{! BaseTemplate=emails/ice_cream.html TargetAttribute=html_ice }}
<html>{{Attributes.html_ice}}</html>