Configure RSS feeds
Introduction
Before users can begin posting RSS feed content using Communicate, the RSS feed feature must be set up. This document will walk you through the process of setting up the feature.
Create RSS content categories
The first step to setting up your RSS feed is to establish RSS content categories. These categories will be used to label the type of content a message contains and will be used later to set up one or more content specific RSS feeds.
Set up RSS content categories
Navigate to the Admin tab, then to the Settings sub-tab, and click Feed Categories.
You will now be in the Edit Feed Category section. Here, you will find templates for creating categories.
If there are already exiting feeds, scroll to the bottom of the page to find the New Feed Category.
Enter a category Name for the category. You can also enter a Description if you wish.
For the Feed Type(s) check the RSS option.
Click Add New Category.
Repeat this process to add as many categories as you wish to set up.
Once you have set up all the categories you desire, click Save.
Create an initial RRS post for troubleshooting (optional)
After creating the RSS content categories, you are now ready to ‘broadcast’ to an RSS feed. However, at this point, the feed is not visible anywhere and must be set up.
Although this is completely optional, before creating an RSS Feed URL or RSS Feed Display Widget, it may be beneficial to post an RSS message so that when it is set up, you can see the post to verify whether or not it is working according to your setup.
Essentially, you will begin a new broadcast, and on Step 2: Message Content, choose Social, then check the box for Feed/Desktop/Push. Enter the text of the RSS Feed message choose an applicable RSS content category, and save the message, then send the broadcast.
You will have to send at least one other type of message, so it is recommended that you choose yourself only for the recipients and create a basic email or phone call as the other message. See the Posting RSS help documentation for advanced instructions.
Create an RSS Feed URL & RSS Feed Display Widget
Now that the RSS content categories are set up, you are ready to generate your RSS Feed URL or your RSS Feed Display Widget.
Generate a URL
The URL for your RSS feed will allow people to subscribe to the feed with their choice of RSS reader software.
Go to the Broadcasts tab, then to the Posts sub-tab.
Click Generate Feed URL/Widget. If you had chosen to create an RSS feed post to test, you’ll see it in the My Posts section.
Select which RSS content categories that this feed should include and configure the display options.
The Items to Display value allows you to configure the maximum number of RSS feed posts display in this feed at any given time.
The Max Age (days) value allows you to configure the maximum number of days that the oldest RSS feed posts will display in the RSS feed.
For example, if you set the Max Age to 30, and you have 5 posts that are 30 days old and 5 posts that are 10 days old as of today, then the 5 posts that are 30 days old will disappear after today ends and the 5 posts that are 10 days old will disappear after 20 more days.
Click the Next button, and you will be presented with the URL for your RSS feed. This URL can be copied and distributed to potential subscribers as needed. You can stop here by clicking Cancel after copying the URL, or you can continue to the next set of steps to generate a Display Widget for your website if desired.
Generating a Display Widget for Your Website
The RSS Feed display widget is a small JavaScript snippet that can be copied and pasted into your website, where it will display feed content as you post to your RSS feed.
Follow the steps above in the Generating a URL section.
On the last step, instead of canceling, click Next to advance to the next screen.
You will be in the Feed Widget screen. On the left side of the screen, you will see various style settings for the Container, Header, and Item (which is the RSS post text itself) portions of the RSS post that will show via the widget. For the color values, click the next to the field for a color selection table. Otherwise, you can type the or select the values from a drop-down menu.
To the right, you will see a Feed Widget preview pane. If you made a test RSS post earlier, you will see it in the preview pane if it was made to one of your selected categories.
After configuring your desired settings, click Generate Preview.
Click the Next button to generate the JavaScript widget code for your website.
You will see the URL and the JavaScript snippet to paste into your web page. This information is not saved anywhere in Communicate, so make sure you copy and paste it into another document for future reference if needed.
Otherwise, you can come back and regenerate the URL and code at any time, as many times as you like.