Programmatically create contact list

Question

I know how to programmatically add contacts to a contact list, either through the contact itself, or through the List Manager API:

xContact.SetListSubscriptionsFacet(xConnectClient, listId);

Source: https://www.brimit.com/blog/sitecore-9-list-manager-changes

var subscriptionService = serviceLocator.ServiceProvider.GetService<ISubscriptionService>();
subscriptionService.Subscribe(contactListId, contactId);

Source: https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/digital_marketing/the_list_manager/the_list_manager_api

But none of these services have anything on how to programmatically create a list. I can probably do it a dirty way by manually adding an item to /sitecore/system/Marketing Control Panel/Contact Lists (based on Contact List template), but if Sitecore needs to do some indexing or other things when creating lists, this will of course not be enough.

So how can I programmatically create a contact list?

Sitecore 9.0.2 (rev. 180604)

Answer 1

Here is the code which allows to create a contact list programatically in Sitecore:

private Guid CreateContactList()
{
    ContactListModel entity = new ContactListModel();
    Guid guid = Guid.NewGuid();
    entity.Id = guid.ToString();
    entity.Type = ListType.ContactList.ToString();
    entity.Name = "My new contact list";

    IRepository<ContactListModel> contactListRepository = (IRepository<ContactListModel>) ServiceLocator.ServiceProvider.GetService(typeof(IRepository<ContactListModel>));
    contactListRepository.Add(entity);
    return guid;
}

Remember to add references to:

• Sitecore.ListManagement.Services.dll
• Sitecore.Marketing.dll
• Sitecore.Services.Core.dll

Answer 2

For Sitecore 9.x, you need to go through the IDefinitionManager<IContactListDefinition> from Sitecore.Marketing.dll. As an example:

string name = ItemUtil.ProposeValidItemName("name");
var listId = Guid.NewGuid();
string alias = ItemUtil.ProposeValidItemName(FormattableString.Invariant($"{name}-{listId}"));; //alias must be unique for each language variant
CultureInfo cultureInfo = Context.Language.CultureInfo;
string createdBy = Sitecore.Context.User.Name;

var definitionManager = ServiceLocator.ServiceProvider.GetService<IDefinitionManager<IContactListDefinition>>();
definitionManager.SaveAsync(new ContactListDefinition(listId, alias, cultureInfo, name, DateTime.UtcNow, createdBy), true);

A few notes:

The alias must be unique, which is why List Manager by default appends the item ID. It's not required to append the ID though, as long as the alias is unique.

In List Manager you will see lists created in the context language of the user, so you'll want to make sure you're setting creating the list using the corresponding CultureInfo.