Adding 4Comply to Existing Forms

A Developer Walks into their Manager’s Office

You’ve just met with your manager, and he’s assigned you a new web development project.  Fun, right?  Well, it gets better.  When you arrived at the office today, you were just another web developer.  But today, you need to become a privacy developer because your new project is learning how to get your company up to snuff on things like CC-PA and G-D-P-R. 

Previously, you helped your company develop a fantastic website, great lead forms, landing pages, and, of course, a personalized user experience.  You also connected your website, marketing, and sales systems together so the data flows to generate revenue.

As a developer, newly tasked to add privacy compliance to your systems, where do you start?

Introducing 4Comply

4Comply is a privacy compliance API service that enables developers to add compliance to their existing forms and systems quickly.  In this article, we will show just how easy it is to update your existing forms using the 4Comply API.

Key Concepts

The fields Consent Code, Processing Purpose, Consent Type, and System are how you tell 4Comply what the customer gave consent to and where it originated.  The exact values depend on how you setup 4Comply.  Usually, the fields contain these values:

Consent Code="Yes"  (The person gave some type of consent)

Processing Purpose="Event Registration with Consent"  (the purpose of the processing that needs to take place)

Consent Type="Communicate Electronically"  (What type of consent they gave).

Most companies may only need a single Consent Type: Communicate Electronically.  Sometimes an organization’s attorneys will, due to different laws and different business goals, require different types of consent.  But for most companies, “Communicate Electronically” will be sufficient.

System="Eloqua"  (Name of the system where data originated). 

The system value is optional but recommended.  If you don’t enter a value, 4Comply will use “default.”  The system must also match a value in the system table under configuration in the 4Comply Dashboard.

4Comply includes a set of default processing purposes, which you can review in the documentation.

Next, let’s explore further by creating a developer account and submitting your first request using the interactive API Reference

Create and Configure your 4Comply Developer Account

• Go to the 4Comply Website:  https://4comply.io
• From the top navigation select Developer, the choose Create Free Developer Account
• Complete the form with your contact details and Submit
• Create your username and password
• You will next see the main Dashboard and other 4Comply options
• Click on Settings option located in the upper-right corner
• Your Tenant ID and Secret Key are displayed on the screen.  Please make a note of these, you’ll need them in the next step.

Submit Your First Request Using the API Reference

Go to the API reference by accessing the API Documentation

From within the 4Comply Dashboard, select  Documentation in the upper right, or visit https://docs.4comply.io

• Select API Reference
• Select Consent & Digital Citizens
• Select Add consent for a user
• Open Select Regulations & Consent
• You should see details for the Request Body and Responses
• Scroll down to Send a Test Request

For our first test, we’re going to submit a request for a user in California. 

• Click on Headers under Send a Test Request
• Add the following required values
  • Insert your tenant_id
  • Set geo_override = CA
  • Set geo_type = state

A note about geo_type: for most regulations, they apply to an entire country or countries.  The exception is within the United States, which currently has laws by State. For all other countries, geo_type should be “country.”

Your page should look like the following:

Now configure the Body for your request.  To speed things up, simply copy and paste the information below. 

{
	"email_address": "youremail@domain.com",  
	"consent_code": "yes",
  	"processing_purpose": "Event Registration with Consent",
	"system": "Eloqua",
	"business_unit": "Acme Widgets"
}

Your screen should appear as follows:

When ready, click Send to POST your request.

If everything worked as expected, you should see a similar response.

Outstanding.  You’ve submitted your first consent record.  Now, let’s jump over to the 4Comply Dashboard and take a look.

Under Consent/Permissions Distribution, select Consent Entries. You should see your consent entry.

Congratulations

You’ve successfully created a new 4Comply Developer Account and submitted your first consent record.  Now, visit the 4Comply Documentation to learn more about updating your existing forms.