PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1 PeopleBook: Using Portal Features

Working With Feeds and Alerts

This chapter discusses how to:

Publish PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal content as a feed.
View and subscribe to feeds.
Maintain alert subscriptions.

Publishing PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal Content as a Feed

This section provides an overview of which PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal items can be published as a feed and discusses how to publish that content as a feed.

Understanding Which PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal Items Can Be Published as a Feed

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal provides the capability to publish many types of PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal content as feeds. Typically, a feed for one of these items can be published through a Publish as Feed link directly from the administration pages for that item without having to specify any advanced feed options. In PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, you can publish the following types of content as feeds:

Blogs.

Advanced feed options do not need to be defined when publishing a blog as a feed.
Content management folders including managed content folders, categorized content folders, and news publications.

You can determine which subfolders are to be excluded from the feed through the advanced feed options for the content management folder.
Discussion forums.

Advanced feed options do not need to be defined when publishing a discussion forum as a feed.
Workspaces including action item lists, blogs, calendar events, discussion topics, documents, and wiki content from the workspace.

You must determine which modules are to be included in the workspace feed through the advanced feed options for the workspace.

Note. While action items, calendars, and wiki content appear in the list of feed data types delivered with PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, these items can only be published as part of a workspace feed and therefore cannot be published independently from a workspace.

See Setting Advanced Options for Workspace Feeds.
Workspace Blogs modules.

Advanced feed options do not need to be defined when publishing a workspace Blogs module as a feed.
Workspace Discussions modules.

Advanced feed options do not need to be defined when publishing a workspace Discussions module as a feed.
Workspace Documents modules.

You can determine which subfolders are to be excluded from the feed through the advanced feed options for the Documents module.

In addition, PeopleTools delivers the capability to publish several types of feeds including queries, worklists, Integration Broker messages, and lists of feeds. The PeopleTools PeopleBooks cover publishing and managing PeopleTools feed data types.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds.” Defining and Publishing Feeds.

Additional information on specific PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal feed types can be found in the Enterprise Portal PeopleBooks.

See Also

Publishing a Blog as a Feed

Publishing a Discussion Forum as a Feed

Publishing a Folder as a Feed

Publishing Categorized Content Folders

Publishing a News Publication as a Feed

Administering Workspace Feeds

Pages Used to Publish PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal Content as a Feed

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Publish Feed Definition	PTFP_PUB_AS_FEED	Click the Publish as Feed link on the administration page for the item to be published. Click the Edit button on the Publish as Feed page. Click the Add Feed button on the Publish as Feed page.	Define feed security options, enter additional feed properties, and access advanced options.
Advanced Feed Options	PTFP_PUB_AS_ADVOPT	Click the Advanced Options link on the Publish Feed Definition page.	Enter advanced option values that are specific to the feed data type.
Publish as Feed	PTFP_PUB_AS_LIST	When one or more feeds have been defined for this item, click the Publish as Feed link on the administration page for the item. Click the Publish button on the Publish Feed Definition page. Click the Cancel button on the Publish Feed Definition page.	Review, edit, add, or delete feed definitions for this item.
Publish Feed Definition to Sites	PTFP_PUB_AS_SITES	Click the Publish Feed to Other Sites link on the Publish Feed Definition page.	Publish an existing feed to other sites.
Define Feed Data Types	PTFP_DATATYPE	PeopleTools, Feeds, Define Feed Data Types	Define feed data types and publish the list of feeds for that type.

Publishing Feed Content

This section provides a high-level overview of the process to publish PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal items as feeds.

Note. In order to have the privileges to publish an item as a feed, you must be an administrator, manager, or owner of that item.

To publish an item as a feed:

Go to the administration page for that item.

For example, for a blog, go to the Manage Blog page; for a news publication, go to the Folder Properties page; for a workspace, go to the Administration - Feeds page; and so on.
Click the Publish as Feed link.

Depending on whether feed has already been published for this item, one of the following pages is displayed:
- The Publish as Feed page is displayed if a feed has already been published for this item. Continue with step 3.
- The Publish Feed Definition page is displayed if a feed has not been published for this item. Continue with step 4.
Determine whether you want to edit one of the current feeds, or create a new feed.

On the Publish as Feed page, click Edit to edit an existing feed; click Add New to create a new feed.
Set the feed parameters, additional feed parameters, and feed security options on the Publish Feed Definition page.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Defining and Publishing Feeds, Defining Feed Properties.
If you are required to set advanced options for this feed data type or if you wish to define advanced options for this feed, click the Advanced Options link.
1. Set the advanced options for the feed.
2. Click OK on the Advanced Feed Options page.
Click the Publish button on the Publish Feed Definition page to save any new or revised feed definitions.

This section also discusses the following topics:

Publishing feeds to other sites.
Publishing feed lists.

Publishing Feeds to Other Sites

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal feeds can also be published to other sites within the system. You use the Publish Feed Definition to Sites page to do this.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Defining and Publishing Feeds, Publishing Feeds to Additional Sites.

Publishing a List of Feeds

Each of the delivered PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal feed data types can also be published as a list of feeds, which provides a list of published feeds of that type.

To publish a list of feeds for a feed data type:

Select PeopleTools, Feeds, Define Feed Data Types to access the Define Feed Data Types page for the type of feed you wish to publish as a list.
Select the data type for which to produce the list of feeds.

Note. While action items, calendars, and wiki content appear in the list of feed data types delivered with PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, these items can only be published as part of a workspace feed. Therefore, if you publish a list of feeds for one of these types, the feed document will always be empty even though some items have been published as part of a workspace feed.
Click the Publish as Feed link.
Enter the feed definition information.

Note. To distinguish this as a list of feeds, you can change the feed title to include “List of” — for example, “List of Workspace Feeds.”
Publish and save the feed definition.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Publishing Feeds Lists.

Viewing and Subscribing to Feeds

This section discusses how to:

View and search the list of feeds.
Work with the My Feeds pagelet.
Access and view feeds.
Subscribe to feeds.

Pages Used to View and Subscribe to Feeds

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
My Feeds	PTFP_VIEW	My Feeds Click the View All Feeds link in the My Feeds pagelet. Click the search button in the My Feeds pagelet.	Search and view published feeds to which you have access.
Personalize My Feeds	EPPFP_MYFEEDS_PREF	Click the Customize My Feeds button in the My Feeds pagelet.	Customize the display of the My Feeds pagelet.

Viewing and Searching the List of Feeds

Access the My Feeds page (click the My Feeds link).

Use the My Feeds page to search for and view a list of published feeds to which you have access. For example, you must select the All Sites option on the My Feeds page to view published workspace feeds.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Accessing Feeds, Using the My Feeds Page.

Working With the My Feeds Pagelet

This section discusses how to:

Personalize the My Feeds pagelet.
Use the My Feeds pagelet.

Personalizing the My Feeds Pagelet

Access the Personalize My Feeds page (click the Customize My Feeds button in the My Feeds pagelet).

Use the Personalize My Feeds page to customize the display of the My Feeds pagelet.

Max Number of Rows

Enter the maximum number of feeds you want to display in the pagelet. The default value is 10.

Sort Order

Select one of the following:

Created Date - Ascending — Select to sort by feed definition creation date in ascending order—that is, from first to last.
Created Date - Descending — Select to sort by feed definition creation date in descending order—that is, from last to first.
Feed Data Type ID — Select to group feeds by their feed data type.
Feed ID — Select to sort by the feed ID.
Feed Title - Ascending — Select to sort by user-specified feed title in ascending order.
Feed Title - Descending — Select to sort by user-specified feed title in descending order
Modified Date - Ascending — Select to sort by feed definition modification date in ascending order—that is, from first to last.
Modified Date - Descending — Select to sort by feed definition modification date in descending order—that is, from last to first. This is the default sort order.

Using the My Feeds Pagelet

Access the My Feeds pagelet on the portal homepage.

Use the My Feeds pagelet to access and search for the feeds you are authorized to view. The My Feeds pagelet shows feeds from the current site only. To access feeds from a different site—for example, from a workspace—use the My Feeds page, or publish the feed definition to the current site using the Publish to Sites page.

See Viewing and Searching the List of Feeds.

<Feed Title>	Click a feed title link to open and view the feed document in a separate browser window.
View All Feeds	Click to access the My Feeds page to search for and view a list of published feeds to which you have access.
	Click to access the My Feeds page having searched on the text entered in the Search field.

Accessing and Viewing Feeds

In PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, feeds can be accessed and viewed in multiple locations including:

The My Feeds page.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Accessing Feeds, Using the My Feeds Page.
The My Feeds pagelet.

See Using the My Feeds Pagelet.
The Feed Reader pagelet.

See Using the Feed Reader Pagelet.

The feeds hover menu on pages and pagelets used with PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal features including blogs, content management folders, discussion forums, and workspaces.

The feeds hover menu displays a list of feeds that is relevant to your current context. For example, if you are currently viewing a specific blog, then the feeds hover menu displays all feeds for that blog. However, if you are viewing the Blogs pagelet, then the feeds hover menu displays all feeds for all blogs that you have access to view.

Hover over any of these to view the list of feeds published for this context. Click any list item to open that feed document.

Click the Feed button or Feed link to open the first feed document in the list.

Click the Open menu button to toggle the list of feeds between frozen open and closed.

When you click a link to view a feed, the feed document opens in a separate browser window.

See Also

Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Feed Publishing Framework, “Creating and Using Feeds,” Accessing Feeds, Using Related Feeds Hover Menus.

Subscribing to Feeds

You can subscribe to PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal feeds using the Feed Reader pagelet, using your browser, or using a third-party feed aggregator or reader. To subscribe to a feed, obtain the feed URL by:

Copying the URL from an open feed document.
Right-clicking on a feed link and selecting to copy the link from the pop-up menu.

See Also

Using the Feed Reader Pagelet

Maintaining Alert Subscriptions

This section discusses:

Maintaining your alert subscriptions.
Specifying your email address.

Pages Used to Maintain Alert Subscriptions

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
My Alerts	EPPAN_MY_ALERTS	My Content, My Alerts Click the View All My Alert Subscriptions on the Update Alerts Subscription page. Click the View All My Alert Subscriptions on the Add Alert Subscription page.	View and maintain all of your alert subscriptions.
General Profile Information	USER_SELF_SERVICE	Click the Edit link on the My Alerts page. My System Profile	Maintain your system profile including the email address used for alert subscriptions.

Maintaining Your Alert Subscriptions

Access the My Alerts page (My Content, My Alerts).

Use the My Alerts page to view and maintain all of your alert subscriptions. You can subscribe to alerts for:

Discussion forums.
Discussion forum topics.
Collaborative workspace discussions.
Collaborative workspace discussion topics.
Community calendars.
Collaborative workspace calendars.

Display Subscriptions for	Select a scope: All — To display all your calendar and discussion forum subscriptions. Community Calendars— To display all your calendar subscriptions. Discussion Forum— To display all your discussion forum subscriptions.
Title	Click a title to open that item in a new window.
Edit	Click the Edit button to access the Update Alerts Subscription page to edit that alert subscription.
Delete	Click the Delete button to delete the alert subscription. You are prompted to confirm the deletion.
Delete All Subscriptions	Click to delete all alert subscriptions. You are prompted to confirm the deletions.
Edit	Click the Edit link to access the General Profile Information page, on which you can enter the email address at which you want to receive email alerts.
Email Address	Displays the email address to which the email alerts are being sent. This email address is defined on the General Profile Information page.
Email Format	Select the format in which email alerts should be sent to you: Text Only — Select for text-based email alerts. Note. The contents of the email will use any text header and footer definitions defined by the portal administrator on the Define Alerts Email page. HTML — Select for HTML-based email alerts. Note. For this option to be available, the Allow HTML Email option must be selected by the portal administrator on the Define Alerts Email page. The contents of the email will use any HTML header and footer definitions defined by the portal administrator on the Define Alerts Email page.
Content	Select one of the following: Links Only — Select to indicate that the email should contain only links to the items in the alert. Links with Summaries — Select to indicate that the email should contain links to and summaries about the items in the alert.
Include Overview/Outline	Select to have email alerts sent with an overview at the beginning of the email. The overview contains an outline of the email contents.

See Also

Administering the Alerts Framework

Specifying Your Email Address

Access the General Profile Information page (click the Edit link on the My Alerts page).

Use the General Profile Information page to maintain your system profile including the email address used for alert subscriptions.

Primary Email Account	Select to identify the email account for alert subscriptions.
Email Type	Select the type for this email address.
Email Address	Enter your complete email address.

The other fields on this page are documented in PeopleTools PeopleBooks.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 PeopleBook: Using PeopleSoft Applications, “Setting User Preferences,” Setting User Personalizations, Setting Up Your System Profile.