Sending e-mails with SendGrid and Azure Functions

In this blogpost I’ll show how to send e-mails with SendGrid and Azure Functions.
The goal is to send an email like this, stating in Dutch that some products that people are selling are hijacked.

SendGrid in Azure

First or all we need a SendGrid instance, you can simply create one using the Azure Portal. But who uses the portal to create Azure services? If you’re still doing that you probably have a completely unmanged Azure subscription and you have no control over it. So start using Azure ARM templates or Azure CLI! SendGrid has a nice free tier.

ARM

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{
    "name": "[parameters('sendgridAccountName')]",
    "type": "Sendgrid.Email/accounts",
    "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
    "apiVersion": "2015-01-01",
    "plan": {
        "name": "free",
        "publisher": "Sendgrid",
        "product": "sendgrid_azure",
        "promotionCode": ""
    },
    "properties": {
        "password": "[parameters('sendgridPassword')]",
        "acceptMarketingEmails": "0",
        "email": ""
    }
}

Azure Function

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[FunctionName("SendHijackMails")]
public async Task SendHijackAlertsAsync(
    [ServiceBusTrigger(
        "hijack-alert",
        Connection = "ServiceBusConnectionString")] Message updatedMessage,
    [SendGrid(ApiKey = "SendGridApiKey")] IAsyncCollector<SendGridMessage> messageCollector,
    ILogger log) 
{
    var hijackedAlert = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<HijackedAlert>(
                    Encoding.UTF8.GetString(updatedMessage.Body));

    var msg = new SendGridMessage();
    msg.AddTo(hijackedAlert.Email, $"{hijackedAlert.FirstName} {hijackedAlert.LastName}");
    msg.From = new EmailAddress("info@somecompany.com");
    msg.TemplateId = "d-sampletemplateId";

    msg.SetTemplateData(new DynamicTemplateData()
    {
        Products = hijackedAlert.Products.Select(x => new EmailProduct()
        {
            Name = x.Product?.Title,
            Url = x.Product?.Url,
            ProductId = x.ProductId
        }).ToArray()
    });

    await messageCollector.AddAsync(msg);
}

Handelbar syntax

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<br>

<div><strong>Hijackt alert</strong>- Sellest.io heeft geconstateerd dat er nieuwe aanbieders zijn gevonden voor de volgende producten:</div>

<ul>
{{#each products}}
<li><a href="https://app.sellest.io/#/product/{{this.productId}}">{{this.name}}</a></li>
{{/each}}
</ul>