Tracker.Current is NULL inside email in EXM

Question

I currently have a Sitecore form that has only one field, an email field. When submitted it sends an automated email to the email address inputted by the user. In the email body, I have a controller rendering that calls a view. The controller rendering has some logic in code behind that requires the current contact. I should be able get the contact through the use of an identifier as stated in this documentation The Identifier I've used is the Tracker.Current.ContactId, I need to get this contactId in the controller but my biggest hurdle is that the Tracker.Current is NULL when the email is being sent resulting to the logic being skipped.

I expect that I would be able to get the GUID when I called the Tracker.Current.ContactId from the controller. It was stated in an answer as well here that the Tracker.Current should be accessible. How come I am unable to access this?

I'm using Sitecore 9 update 1

Answer 1

You can fetch the Contact Id information from the query parameters in the request URL for the EXM message when it's being generated.

The available query parameters include:

• ec_contact_id
• ec_id
• ec_recipient
• ec_subscr
• ec_message_id

Example Code for fetching Contact from EXM Query String

        using (var client = SitecoreXConnectClientConfiguration.GetClient())
        {
            try
            {
                var contactId = new ContactReference(Guid.Parse(HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString["ec_contact_id"]));

                var expandOptions = new ContactExpandOptions(
                    CollectionModel.FacetKeys.PersonalInformation,
                    CollectionModel.FacetKeys.EmailAddressList);

                //Get the Contact
                var contact = client.Get(contactId, expandOptions);

            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Logger.LogError(ex.Message, ex);
                return false;
            }
        }
    }