RSS Feed Aggregator

Some external sites will have an RSS feed (a list of new items) that your site can use to display. This is more common and useful on sites that post content regularly, such as news outlets.

Feeds are generally in the form of news items that can be listed out on a site using the title and date of the news item. Cal Poly's feed aggregator places a feed into a Block which can then be assigned to the right-side column of a site.

Please Note: Only Site Administrators can configure the Feed Aggregator

Feed Aggregator Configuration

Set Up The RSS Feed

First, you need to set up the RSS feed you want to display.

1. Click Configuration, then Feed Aggregator (under Web Services)
2. Select +Add Feed
3. Fill out the feed information:
   • The Title is what will appear on your website, and will help contextualize the feed for your visitors
   • The URL is from the feed you want to link to
     Ex: http://plusfeed.frosas.net/107511508341278453445
   • The Update Interval determines how often the aggregator will check for new posts from the feed source
   • News Items in Block is the number of recent posts that will be displayed
4. ​Click Save
5. Navigate back to the Feed Aggregator page
   • You can repeat Step 1, or click on Feed Aggregator in the breadcrumb
6. Select Update Items to the right of the feed you just created
   • This will populate the block with recent posts

Configure the Feed Block

After you have set up the RSS feed, you need to configure the block so that it will actually appear on your desired pages.

1. Click Structure, and then Blocks
2. Scroll down to the Disabled section, and find the block for the feed you just configured
   • It will be named "[Title] feed latest items"
3. Use the dropdown next to this block and select the Right Sidebar region
   • You may need to scroll up to the Right Sidebar region and adjust the order in which the block appears (from top to bottom) in the sidebar
     Ex: Menus usually go above the feed aggregator
4. Click Save Blocks at the bottom of the page

Notes and Troubleshooting

Dates are Incorrect

When the feed aggregator is initially configured, all items displayed will be dated the same day the aggregator was configured. Any items added after the aggregator was configured should display the correct date.

No News Items Display

If no news items are displaying, it could mean there are no posts in the RSS feed itself. You can verify this by navigating back to the aggregator configuration and copying the URL (from step 3 above).

Paste the URL into a new window and check to see if there are any news items. If the feed is empty, it may no longer be in service, and you will most likely need to find a new one.