RSS HELP TOPICS

The following information has been provided by Information Technology Services (ITS) and it is important to note that these steps should be done on your "My CBU" portal homepage.

The RSS Portlet is a special type of news feed portlet. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Many websites, and perhaps many of your own favorite sites, have RSS feeds. These feeds provide updates on when new content has been added to the website.

CBU even has RSS feeds for campus, department, and athletics news. This is available under the CBU RSS feeds section of the CBU News site. Feeds such as these can be added to your RSS portlet to allow you to see from your myCBU Portal page if new content is available on your favorite sites.

• To add an RSS Portlet, follow the same procedures as you would for adding a regular portlet until you reach the CBU Portlet Repository. The RSS Portlet is not available under the CBU Portlets folder, but instead is listed under Portal Content Tools. Click this folder and then click the RSS Newsfeeds portlet to add it to your page.
• Once you have added the portlet and returned to your myCBU Portal page, you should see the RSS Portlet but the content simply says it still needs to be customized.
• Click the small Customize link located on the RSS Portlet top border.
• Now you'll be on a page that will ask you for the URL (web address) of the RSS feed you want to use. This URL can be found on the site you are wishing to get the RSS feed from. Sites such as CNN have a link near the bottom of their page labeled RSS where you can find the links to their RSS feeds. You'll know you may have an RSS feed if the link ends with .rss or .xml
• Once you have the RSS feed link, copy and paste the link into the box that says you should Fill in the URL to an RSS Newsfeed.
• Before you click OK, you may want to set your other options as well. The number of headlines is defaulted to 5, but you may wish to see more or less. These headlines are the most recent updates to the site for your RSS feed.
• The Display Description for each Headline option, which is defaulted to No, will show a text description underneath the headline if you choose Yes.
• Once completed, you may alter the title of the Portlet that will be displaying the RSS newsfeed. It's defaulted to RSS Newsfeeds and Blogs, but you may wish a more descriptive title. If you're creating an RSS newsfeed for CBU Baseball, you may wish to change this to say CBU Baseball News!
• Finally, click OK. Your Portal page will refresh and, if set up successfully, will immediately begin pulling in your newsfeed.

Tip: You may add as many instances of this portlet as you want for multiple RSS feeds!