Configuring Your RSS Feed

Before users can begin posting RSS feed content, the RSS feed feature must be set up. Configuration is very simple to do. You can have an RSS Feed up and running in no time!

Before You Begin

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.

Setting up Categories:

1. 1.    Navigate to Admin > Settings > Feed Categories. You'll find Feed Categories in the Features section of the page.

   2.    Enter a category name and description, for example "Sports" and "Sports news for Springfield HS".

   3.    Click the Add New Category button for any additional categories.

   Click Save when you are done.

    

Create a Post

From the Dashboard, click on New Broadcast to send yourself a message containing RSS feed content. The system currently must send messages which include an email or phone component so you will need to include one of these as well. The RSS Feed component will become the first post in the RSS Feed, so keep that in mind when creating the content. When asked to assign a category to your RSS feed content, make sure to select a category that will be used in the RSS Feed you'll generate in the next section. You will be able to use this message while configuring the appearance of the RSS Feed display widget.

Creating an RSS Feed URL & Widget

This section will cover generating a URL and creating an RSS display widget for your web site.

Generating a URL

The URL for your RSS feed will allow people to subscribe to the feed with their favorite RSS reader software.

1. 1. Navigate to Broadcasts > Posts and click on the Generate Feed URL/Widget button at the top of the My Posts window.

   2. Select which categories this feed should include and configure the display options.

   3. Click the Next button. You will see the URL for your RSS Feed. This URL should be copied and distributed to potential subscribers. You can stop here or continue to generate a widget that can be pasted into your web site.

Generating a Display Widget for your Web Site

The RSS Feed display widget is a small JavaScript snippet that can be copied and pasted into your web page where it will display feed content as it is published.

1. 1. Continuing from the instructions in the previous section, you should click the Next button to configure the Display Widget.

   2. Simply configure the appearance of the widget and click the Generate Preview button to get a feel for how it looks along the right side of the screen. The RSS Feed post that you sent earlier will be displayed in the preview, assuming your feed covers the same category as your post.

   3. Click the Next button to generate the JavaScript code for your web page, as shown below. You will see the URL and the JavaScript snippet to paste into your web page. It's not saved anywhere so make sure you copy and paste it into another document. Otherwise, you can come back and regenerate the URL and code at any time.