Sending Emails - Step by Step

Author: Shaurya Sharma

This guide walks you through sending an email using the Email Service.

Prerequisites

1. Run the Flask Server

   • Make sure you have installed all required Python packages (e.g., Flask, pymongo, brevo-python, jinja2, requests, python-dotenv, premailer).
   • Ensure you have a proper .env file containing MONGODB_URI, MONGODB_DB_EMAIL_SERVICE, BREVO_API_KEY, BREVO_SENDER_EMAIL, and BREVO_SENDER_NAME.
   • Start the server, typically with:

     python app.py
   • The server should be running on the configured port (default is 5001 in the code).

2. Confirm Your Topic Setup

   • Before sending an email, you need a valid topic in your database (topics collection).
   • Each topic typically references a template.
   • If your topic supports sub-options (e.g., countries), ensure corresponding reports documents exist.

3. Test the API

   • You can use cURL, Postman, or any other REST client to interact with the endpoints.

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Sending a Single Email

Follow these steps to send an email to one recipient.

Step 1: Prepare the Request

• Endpoint: /send-email
• Method: POST

Step 2: Craft the JSON Body

Below is an example request body:

{
  "email": "recipient@example.com",
  "topic_id": "64a888c0aaaabbbbccccddd1",
  "pdf_links": [
    "https://example.com/documents/file1.pdf",
    "https://example.com/documents/file2.pdf"
  ]
}

• email: The recipient’s email address.
• topic_id: The _id of the topic from your MongoDB topics collection.
• pdf_links (optional): A list of URLs for PDFs to attach to the email.

Step 3: Send the Request

Use any HTTP client tool. For example, with cURL:

curl -X POST \
  http://localhost:5001/send-email \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "email": "recipient@example.com",
    "topic_id": "64a888c0aaaabbbbccccddd1",
    "pdf_links": [
      "https://example.com/documents/file1.pdf",
      "https://example.com/documents/file2.pdf"
    ]
  }'

Step 4: Check the Response

A successful response typically returns:

{
  "message": "Email sent successfully"
}

If an error occurs (e.g., invalid topic_id, PDF download failed), you will receive an error with a corresponding status code (e.g., 400 or 500).

Step 5: Verify the Email Delivery

• Check your email inbox (the address specified in the request).
• Review the email_reports collection for a log entry indicating success or failure.

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Troubleshooting

• Topic or Template Not Found: Ensure topic_id is valid and that the topic references an existing template (if required).
• PDF Links Failing: Verify the PDF URLs are correct and publicly accessible.
• Email Not Delivered: Double-check your Brevo API Key, sender email, and that your domain is verified in Brevo.
• Server Errors (500): Inspect the Flask logs or the console output for Python traceback details.