Subscriber resolving via X-Header

Subscriber resolving is essential while setting AbuseHQ up as your Abuse Desk Automation.

In this post, we will explain how E-Mail Service Providers or Mailbox Providers can use the power of X-Headers to handle subscriber resolution in less than 60 minutes.

Before moving forward, make sure you have read Subscriber Data Model and decide if Contracts is a feature you want to use and which additional information you want to add under the resolver_data part.

Don't worry, as you can always add more key-value pairs, but be careful with renaming or deciding not to send certain ones. This way, breaking automation, which depends on specific fields, is straightforward.

AbuseHQ is configured out of the Box to understand the following X-Header without any configuration requirements on the AbuseHQ side.

X-Header

X-AbuseHQ-Resolve:

The value of the Header needs to be in this form when you decide to use contracts:

JSON

{

"subscriber": {

"id": "<subscriber_id>",

"resolver_data": {

"<subscriber_key1>": "<subscriber_value1>",

"<subscriber_key2>": "<subscriber_value2>"`

}

},

"contract": {

"id": "<contractid>",

"resolver_data": {

"<contract_key1>": "<contract_value1>",

"<contract_key2>": "<contract_value2>"

}

}

}

and this way, when not using contracts:

JSON

{

"subscriber": {

"id": "<subscriber_id>",

"resolver_data": {

"<subscriber_key1>": "<subscriber_value1>",

"<subscriber_key2>": "<subscriber_value2>"

}

},

"contract": {

"id": "<contractid>",

"resolver_data": {

"<contract_key1>": "<contract_value1>",

"<contract_key2>": "<contract_value2>"

}

}

}

The number of subscriber_keys and contract_keys is not restricted, but we recommend only adding necessary ones and keeping the values as simple as possible.

The correct JSON part has to be encoded with BASE64 and added as a value to the X-Header, which will end up looking like this:

Text

X-AbuseHQ-Resolve: ewoJInN1YnNjcmliZXIiOiB7CgkJImlkIjogIjxzdWJzY3JpYmVyX2lkPiIsCgkJInJlc29sdmVyX2RhdGEiOiB7CgkJCSI8c3Vic2NyaWJlcl9rZXkxPiI6ICI8c3Vic2NyaWJlcl92YWx1ZTE+IiwKCQkJIjxzdWJzY3JpYmVyX2tleTI+IjogIjxzdWJzY3JpYmVyX3ZhbHVlMj4iCgkJfQoJfSwKCSJjb250cmFjdCI6IHsKCQkiaWQiOiAiPGNvbnRyYWN0aWQ+IiwKCQkicmVzb2x2ZXJfZGF0YSI6IHsKCQkJIjxjb250cmFjdF9rZXkxPiI6ICI8Y29udHJhY3RfdmFsdWUxPiIsCgkJCSI8Y29udHJhY3Rfa2V5Mj4iOiAiPGNvbnRyYWN0X3ZhbHVlMj4iCgkJfQoJfQp9Cg==

Adding a header like this to all outbound emails will let AbuseHQ automatically do all the magic for you and will present you with the correct (Contract and) Subscriber information.

This will show you exactly which Customers you need to handle sooner rather than later, depending on their behavior's impact on your business.

If you want to read about AbuseHQ Data Structure, we recommend reading this article: Understanding The AbuseHQ Data Structure.