RSS News Feed SharePoint Integration

RSS News Feed data can be integrated codeless with native SharePoint lists using the Layer2 Business Data List Connector. Please take a look here for more supported systems and applications.​​​​ In case you are looking for Online data integration, you will find the right tool here.

Benefits of RSS News Feed Integration in SharePoint

• Very easy to setup in a few minutes: Create a SharePoint list, click "Connect to external data source" in the list settings, select the Layer2 Data Provider for RSS Feeds, enter connection settings and data query as shown below. That's it - no programming, no changes in the external data source, no additional tools.
• Connected data always up-to-date: The connected data updates automatically in background (via SharePoint Timer Job), or alternatively, on-demand (Action Menu / Ribbon Button, URL, via workflow, API).
• One-way and optional two-way connection: You can write-back the changes made in SharePoint to the external data source automatically with full CRUD (Create / Update / Delete) functionality. The SharePoint list can act as a full-featured front-end for external systems. Specifically the RSS data provider is read-only.
• 100+ external systems supported: Layer2 Data Providers included (e.g. for SharePoint/Office 365, Exchange, Dynamics, OData, XML/RSS, SOAP), vendor specific data providers can be used (e.g. SQL Server Oracle, mySQL etc.), 3rd party data providers also supported, e.g. for ERP/CRMs, Facebook or Twitter. See here for supported systems and applications.
• Well-known BCS "external list" issues and limitations are completely solved: ALL list features are to you. Views, sorting and grouping, filters, calculated fields, search, managed metadata. Lookups, additional columns and attachments can be created as normal. All kind of lists can be used, e.g. contacts, tasks, calendar, or custom lists. You can take external data offline via Outlook.
• Workflows and notifications on external data change: List workflows and change notifications per RSS or email can be used to take business actions in SharePoint, when external business data records are changed.
• Application logging, reporting, and notifications: A SharePoint list ist used to store settings and log information. SharePoint item versioning and workflows can be used to manage reporting and notifications. Direct notification per email in case of errors is supported as well.
• Highest Security, best performance, easy to maintain: SharePoint Secure Store can be used to store security relevant configuration information safely in one central place. Users are working with the SharePoint lists as an external data cache with highest security and performance.

RSS News Feed Specific Configuration Settings

​In the Layer2 Business Data List Connector the data source must be configured as follows to connect to a RSS Newsfeed.

Fig.: Sample connection configuration to connect to a RSS Feed via Layer2 Data Provider for RSS Feeds  

​Please note the following about specific settings, features and possible issues.

• Please select the Layer2 Data Provider for RSS Feeds (comes with the BDLC distribution package). If it is not in the list, please install from package.
• As the connection string in most cases the Url parameter is enough. Additional parameters are available for Authentication (anonymous by default) and FeedType (RSS or Atom).
• For verification please use url=http://news.yahoo.com/rss/internet/
• To aggregate several news feeds with one connection, please add several urls: url=url1, url2, url3 ...
• You need a primary key (column with unique values) for the synchronization to work as expected. In many cases the link to the certain news item works for this. Some providers also expose a unique GUID.
• Note that lots of systems and applications offer RSS feeds for data integration, e.g. SharePoint and Office 365.
• Many feeds provide a "source" attribute that could be helpful to separate the data sources in case of aggregations.
• HTML formatted fields, e.g. for description, are fully supported.
• Custom attributes / columns are exposed if provided by the data source (not only title, description, link).
• RSS is supported by many systems to expose data, not limited to specifically news feeds.
• You can enable the no-delete flag in the Layer2 Cloud Connector to aggregate RRS entries in a news archive without delete older entries.

Do you have any issues to connect? Please contact [email protected] for next steps.

RSS News Feed Connection Details

​Provider:
Layer2 Data Provider for RSS Feeds

Connection string sample:
url=http://news.yahoo.com/rss/internet/; FeedType=RSS

Select Statement sample:

No specific data query supported at this time.

RSS News Feed Data Integration Known Issues

• ​Uni-directional sync is supported only because RSS is read-only.

Ready to go next steps?