Feed Publishing Framework Overview

Feeds

A web feed, news feed, or feed is a data format that makes rapidly changing content available to users. A feed contains entries, which might be headlines, full-text articles, excerpts, summaries, digital media, and links to content on a web site, along with various metadata. PeopleSoft applications, like news agencies, external web sites, and other content distributors, publish or syndicate web feeds to which users can subscribe. Examples of feeds in PeopleSoft applications include worklists, queries, discussions, and so on.

Web feeds work by using the pull technology model. Typically, when using web feeds, content providers publish feed links on their site, which you register in an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) that runs on your own computer. Feed readers can be independent programs or browser extensions that provide configurable integrated feed reader functionality. Web-based feed readers seldom require additional software installation and make the user's feeds available on any computer with internet access. Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird are two commonly used secure feed readers.

When directed, the aggregator polls all the servers in its feed list to ascertain if new content exists; if so, the aggregator retrieves the new content. You can configure feed readers to check for new or updated content at regular intervals. When you no longer want to receive updated content, you remove the feed from the reader.

Atom and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) are the two primary syndication formats. Atom also provides a standardized way to export an entire blog, or parts of it, for backup or for importing into other blogging systems. Some web sites let people choose between RSS- or Atom-formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom. In particular, many blog and wiki sites offer their web feeds in the Atom format.

Field or Control	Definition
	Most web pages, including PeopleSoft application pages, use this feed icon to indicate that a feed is available in either the RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, or Atom 1.0 format. Note: PeopleSoft applications offer feeds in Atom 1.0 format only.

Feed Publishing Framework

The Feed Publishing Framework provides:

• Feed Publishing Wizard, a simplified guide for content owners and administrative users to create, configure, and maintain feed definitions and feed templates of various types.

• Publish as Feed hidden pages to allow for feed publication directly from the data component.

• Interfaces for end users to search for feeds and to discover related feeds.

• Management of feed definitions, feed categories, feed templates and feed data types as PeopleTools managed objects.

• A set of APIs and code samples to assist application developers in creating new types of feeds and integrating them with existing features.

With the Feed Publishing Framework, you can develop and publish feeds from any PeopleSoft or non-PeopleSoft data. Then, with the delivered user interfaces, users can find and subscribe to your feeds.