[SalesForce] How to pass data to an email via a triggered send

I'm trying to send a triggered send as is explained here: https://code.exacttarget.com/apis-sdks/fuel-sdks/triggered-sends/triggered-send-send.html#phpsend

I'm trying to display content from the web service in the email via AMPscript as is explained here: http://help.exacttarget.com/en/documentation/exacttarget/content/ampscript/using_ampscript_with_the_web_service_api/passing_content_to_a_triggered_send_message_at_send_time/

It's not working though. How do I access the attribute values from the triggered send web service in the actual email within the AMPscript? Here is my web service call:

require('ET_Client.php');
$myclient = new ET_Client();
$triggeredsend = new ET_TriggeredSend();
$triggeredsend->authStub = $myclient;
$triggeredsend->props = array('CustomerKey' => $customerkey);
$triggeredsend->subscribers = array(array(
    'EmailAddress' => $email, 
    'SubscriberKey' => $email, 
    'Attributes' => array('Name' => 'maxTransport', 'Value' => $maxTransport)
));

$results = $triggeredsend->send();

And here is how I'm trying to display the variable in my email:

Max Transport = %%maxTransport%%

But the variable is not showing up, and I get a validation error for my email that says:

Errors found in the email HTML Body. Category : Substitution String
Personalization error:%%maxtransport%% To fix the problem, please try
the following: Make sure that there is not a space or typo within the
personalization string in your email. For example, check and correct
any spaces between percent signs (%%)

Best Answer

Welcome to SFSE!

Do you have a maxTransport column in the target Data Extension configured in your Triggered Send Definition? If not, you'll need one.

It's a good practice to wrap personalization strings with the AttributeValue() function in your email. Make sure to include the double-quotes around the attribute name. For example: 

%%[

var @maxTransport
set @maxTransport = AttributeValue("maxTransport")

]%%
<br>maxTransport: %%=v(@maxTransport)=%%

If you use the AttributeValue() function, you can check if it's undefined or empty using the empty() function, e.g:

%%[

if not empty (@maxTransport) then 
  outputLine(concat("maxTransport: ",@maxTransport))
else
  outputLine(concat("maxTransport is empty"))
endif

]%%
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