PeopleSoft and RSS feeds
Since PeopleSoft is an Internet architecture one suspects that it should support the commonly used RSS feeds that are available through internet. And guess what: it does!
Let me show you by adding the RSS feed of my favorite soccer club (http://rssfeeds.headliner.nl/rssfeeds/az/feed.xml).
Go to PeopleTools > Portal > Pagelet Wizard and add a new value. In the first step, specify a title and a meaningful description (might be the hardest part):
In the next step, specify URL as the data type of the pagelet and enter the URL to the RSS feed:
Step 3 lets you configure some specific parameters; take a look at PeopleBooks to see if there’s anything useful for your situation. For this example I’ll take the default settings:
Next specify Custom, so we can change the look and feel a bit:
In Step 5, select the XSL template of the RSS feed and press Generate:
If everything went well, you’ll see that the RSS feed appears! If you want to, you can additionally specify a header, footer and additional text. You can add your own images via PeopleTools > Portal > Pagelet Wizard > Define Headers / Define Footers.
I had some issues getting this part to work. One issue was to find the correct XSL template. I found it by putting the RSS feed URL in a browser and examining the XSD file that appears:
You can also do a little trail and error, since there’s not much choice in templates ;-).
Another issue I had is that I could not get through our proxy. Since we are using WebLogic 8.1, I changed the proxy settings in the setenv.cmd and after that it worked fine.
Back to our wizard. Step 6 let’s you decide how the pagelet can be accessed. For now, I’ll make it a homepage pagelet with public access:
Now press save and it’s finished!
To actually show the result, go to the homepage (home in the taskbar at the top) and select the link Personalize Content:
Select the new AZ RSS Feed and save. Select the Personalize Layout link and move it to the correct position:
And here’s the result!
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Posted by: 12 Responses (last comment shown first)
Hi
I get following error when choosing the custom option.
An error has occurred while trying to perform the XSL transformation. This is because either (1) the DataSource did not return valid XML or (2) the XSL for transformation is invalid.
Correct the problem before continuing. If you continue to have trouble, contact your system administrator. This problem was detected by Pagelet Wizard.
Any help with this would be appreciated.
Hi Frank
I tried the above example with the exact same RSS Feed URL(http://rssfeeds.headliner.nl/rssfeeds/az/feed.xml)
But when I get to step 5 I see that the XML remains blank and I get the error “Integration Gateway is not able to contact the external system”
Do you know what I could be missing here ?
Frank Kortekaas Reply:
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Hi Sam,
looks like you cannot reach the site. What happens when you access the URL with Internet Explorer?
Regards,
Frank
Thanks for the Article
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PeopleSoft Questions and Answers
Frank,
Have you been able to use the pagelet wizard to post a rss 2.0 feed? I get an error that the Integration Gateway is not able to contact the external system. Works fine with your RSS 1.0 example.
Frank Kortekaas Reply:
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 am
Hi Danielle,
I also have this problem. Which tools version do you use? I found article E-PORTAL: When will PeopleSoft support RSS 2.0? (Doc ID 640852.1) on Metalink with the following info:
In version 8.9 of the Enterprise Portal, RSS 2.0 is supported via the Pagelet Wizard using the URL datatype with the proper transformation. However, the news pagelet/external news providers are still limited and only list 0.91 in the drop down source options. The preferred method is to use the Pagelet Wizard.
There are several custom XSL templates that are delivered with Pagelet Wizard in EP 8.9 – ATOM 0.3, RSS 0.91 – 0.93, RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0. For instance, select the URL data source and then a “Custom” display format. On Step 5 (Specify Display Options), the new delivered XSL templates are listed in the XSL Template dropdown.
Current PeopleBooks documentation doesn’t mention this change and only lists 0.91 version as available. This documentation issue is currently being addressed.
NOTES: BUG:1345427000 was opened to address this concern and it has been determined that the Pagelet Wizard will continue to support RSS 2.0, while the the news pagelet/external news will not be updated to include this standard.
In order to create an RSS 2.0 (or other style) pagelet, follow these steps:
1) Navigate to Pagelet Wizard and Add a new Pagelet
2) Give it a name and define it as data type “URL”
3) Provide the RSS news feed web address
4) use a custom XSL template
5) Select the template type (RSS 2.0 for example) from the drop down. Generate the XSL and preview the pagelet.
6) Publish pagelet.
Let me know if this helps.
Regards,
Frank
Hi Frank,
I had this particular discussion also in HEUG Website with Chris Kennedy. I got a positive response from Chris. Now, i am able to minimize to any number of feeds.
If you would like to know how that works, please check the following forum to get more specifics:
http://www.heug.org/p/fo/st/topic=17&post=120910#p120910
Please try to create one account if you are not able to access that link. This is very useful site for all sorts of PeopleSoft related questions.
Thanks,
Kayal
Frank Kortekaas Reply:
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:59 am
For People who cannot access the link here’s the solution of Chris:
Chris Kennedy, MBA from Baltimore suggested the following:
“I was able to limit the number of items listed in the feed by adding an if condition to the XSL code”
()
Hi Frank,
Thanks a lot for your timely response. I am able to make it open in a new window by modifying the XSL code. But unable to minimize to a number of feeds to display. I also opened a case with the Metalink Support.
Please let me know if you found something about that.
Thanks,
Kayal
Hi,
That was very useful. But i have couple of questions on how you would personalize to a minumum number of feeds that it can display? Currently in your example, it shows more than 15 feed links. Please let me know how to customize that to a minimum number of feeds, also how to make those links to open a new window when we click on one of those links?
Thanks,
Kayal
kasokan@luc.edu
Frank Kortekaas Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Hello Kayal,
Since this was done using a wizard in PeopleSoft there aren’t many options available unfortunately.
But I will have a look and let you know if I found something.
Regards,
Frank
Thanks, Frank. The information you provided here was enough to get me started on a traffic / weather – reading pagelet for my college’s home page. However, I’ve been tasked with improving its appearance, and I’m at a loss at the moment as to how to get a background image to appear. Can you provide any advice on how to customize a pagelet that was created using the Wizard? I just don’t seem to have much flexibility this way.
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