AuthenticatedEmployeeID
Returns the numeric employee ID of the Marketing Cloud user tied to the current context. Runtime-proven on a live Marketing Cloud Engagement CloudPage — a public, anonymous request still gets a non-empty ID back, so a non-empty result proves nothing about who is visiting.
Syntax
AuthenticatedEmployeeID() → stringParameters
This function takes no parameters.
Example
%%[
VAR @employeeId
SET @employeeId = AuthenticatedEmployeeID()
]%%
User: %%=v(@employeeId)=%%
Renders a nine-digit numeric ID — on the business unit tested, the same value on every request, including anonymous ones.
The value is an ordinary string, so it composes normally:
%%[
VAR @employeeId, @label
SET @employeeId = AuthenticatedEmployeeID()
SET @label = Concat("employee-", @employeeId)
]%%
%%=v(@label)=%%
What it does not support is a sign-in check — see below.
Return value
string — a numeric employee ID.
The value domain is open: an ID is an account-scoped number, so there is no closed set of sentinel values to test for. In particular there is no “not signed in” sentinel — an unauthenticated request gets an ordinary ID back.
Behaviour
A public CloudPage request gets a value, not an empty result. An anonymous request to the published URL, carrying no Marketing Cloud session at all, rendered a nine-digit ID at HTTP 200. Empty() on the same value answered false and Length() gave nine.
The result is a value, not a page-terminating call. It compared against the empty string, rendered inline without a variable, and rendered unchanged nested inside a Concat between two surrounding characters. Every line after the call still rendered.
The value is stable inside one render. Three separate calls in the same request — an assignment, an inline call and a nested call — produced identical digits.
Do not use it as an authentication check
Because a value always comes back, a page cannot infer from a non-empty result that its visitor is a signed-in Marketing Cloud user. Content gated on that check would be open to everyone. Use a real authentication mechanism for the gate and treat this function as context information only.
Show test script
%%[
VAR @b, @aeid
SET @b = RequestParameter("b")
/* known-good control: renders on every request, so a run of HTTP 422s
can be told apart from a deploy that failed to compile */
OutputLine(Concat("CTRL=[", Uppercase("ok"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("--- AEID start ---"))
/* a plain anonymous request still produces a value */
SET @aeid = AuthenticatedEmployeeID()
OutputLine(Concat("AEID=[", @aeid, "]"))
/* confirmed with a second function rather than read off empty brackets */
OutputLine(Concat("AEID_EMPTY=[", IIf(Empty(@aeid), "empty", "not-empty"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("AEID_LEN=[", Length(Concat(@aeid, "")), "]"))
/* the value is usable inline, nested and in a comparison */
OutputLine(Concat("AEID_DIRECT=[", AuthenticatedEmployeeID(), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("AEID_IN_CONCAT=[", Concat("<", AuthenticatedEmployeeID(), ">"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("AEID_CMP=[", IIf(@aeid == "", "eq-emptystring", "ne-emptystring"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("--- AEID done ---"))
/* argument counts the signature does not allow: each aborts its branch */
IF @b == "ar1" THEN
OutputLine(Concat("--- ar1 start ---"))
OutputLine(Concat("AEID1=[", AuthenticatedEmployeeID("x"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("--- ar1 done ---"))
ENDIF
IF @b == "ar2" THEN
OutputLine(Concat("--- ar2 start ---"))
OutputLine(Concat("AEID2=[", AuthenticatedEmployeeID("x", "y"), "]"))
OutputLine(Concat("--- ar2 done ---"))
ENDIF
]%%
Every marker and label in the test script goes through Concat(...), including single-argument ones. A bare string literal passed to OutputLine renders an empty line while the page still returns HTTP 200, so the marker silently vanishes.
Availability
| Platform | Available |
|---|---|
| Marketing Cloud Engagement | Yes |
| Marketing Cloud Next | No |
The official reference scopes this function to microsites using sender authenticated redirection and states it is not for CloudPages. That authenticated path was not exercised here — a public CloudPage cannot supply such a session — so everything on this page describes the unauthenticated CloudPage context only, and no claim is made about whose identity the returned ID represents.