#foreach Outputting same value

[mtbaker]

For custom SFDC fields, I'm trying to display the custom URL site for each Rep.  The URL looks correct when I output it in the email (sample below), but when I test the email and click the link, both links reference the same URL.  I've done lots of searches to find the answer but am stuck.  Thanks...

#foreach ($Account_Rep_Assignment__c in $Account_Rep_Assignment__cList)

    #set ($url = "$Account_Rep_Assignment__c.Rep_Event_Reg_Site__c.substring(8)")
    $url
    <br>

	<a href="http://${url}">Click here to make an appointment!</a>
    <br>
    <br>
    
#end

icmarc.secure.force.com/events?SiteId=a0lf1000006P8BCAA0
Click here to make an appointment!

icmarc.secure.force.com/events?SiteId=a0lj0000003QSzZAAW
Click here to make an appointment!

[Scott_McKeighe2 · Accepted solution]

@SanfordWhiteman  goes into great detail on the troubling issues of  foreach  statements and links in Velocity here on his blog.  I would encourage you to start there and see how much overlap there is with your use case and how he recommends approaching a solve. I'll also 100% defer to him on a more elegant solution / blob of VTL code if one exists!

We had a similar conundrum of needing to pass over a SFDC custom object that had a variable number of links stored in it to output properly tracked URLs. That was the foreach loop wasn't actually creating unique variables for every link it encountered in the object. What worked for us was to combine the foreach statement with an evaluate statement to create unique variables as the script encountered them. 

Something a little like this:

#foreach ( $question in $arraytest)
#evaluate( "${esc.h}set( ${esc.d}finalurl_${foreach.count} = ${esc.d}arraytest[$i].question_url )" )
#evaluate( "${esc.h}set( ${esc.d}finaltitle_${foreach.count} = ${esc.d}arraytest[$i].question_title )" )
#set ( $i = ${foreach.count} )
#end

Why this worked for us: we had a maximum number of potential links that could ever exist, and so we knew how many corresponding variable sets the foreach and evaluate statements produced (in our case, 5). We simply combined that with conditional if statements to render the link, should the variable exist because of the foreach.

Something like this:

#if( $finalurl_1 )
<p><a href="https://${finalurl_1}">$finaltitle_1</a></p>
#end
#if( $finalurl_2 )
<p><a href="https://${finalurl_2}">$finaltitle_2</a></p>
#end
#if( $finalurl_3 )
<p><a href="https://${finalurl_3}">$finaltitle_3</a></p>
#end
#if( $finalurl_4 )
<p><a href="https://${finalurl_4}">$finaltitle_4</a></p>
#end
#if( $finalurl_5 )
<p><a href="https://${finalurl_5}">$finaltitle_5</a></p>
#end

Again, there may be a more elegant way of producing the same result and I will happily defer to someone more experienced with VTL like @SanfordWhiteman  -- but in essence, you have to have unique variables for the links.

Hope this helps!

[SanfordWhiteman]

Scott's got the right take!

[mtbaker]

@Scott_McKeighe2 @SanfordWhiteman - thank you both for your help on this issue.  I read through Sanford's post, and after picking myself up off the floor regarding this being a Marketo-only issue ("Links don't work in #foreach loops"??)...I got to work.

Followed Scott's example as a guide, and it worked!  This particular use case should work for us since we likely would only have a few reps associated with a given account.

Very surprising to have to implement a workaround for this but grateful that there is one - thanks again!