RSS Feed Importer
Last updated
Last updated
You can use a single RSS feed for your website or multiple feeds for different sections of the site. RSS integration can be faster than integrating with the API as it may not require any development on your side.
BeyondWords supports both XML and JSON feeds out of the box, while providing you great flexibility in defining how the feed's properties are mapped to the corresponding BeyondWords audio.
This feature is available on Pro and Enterprise plans only.
To set up a new feed in your BeyondWords project you can do so via the dashboard (see below) or via the API using the /rss_importer endpoint.
Dashboard:
Go to the Settings section in your project, click on the CMS integrations tab, select RSS Feed Importer, click the Add feed button. The section below describes the various fields in the 'Add feed' dialog:
The feed type dropdown lets you choose whether the feed you are going to add is an XML based RSS feed or a JSON based feed.
The feed URL is the live location of the feed. Please make sure that the Feed URL is a valid address. If accessing your feed requires authentication, you can use the optional Request headers section to set up authentication headers. BeyondWords will use these headers to authenticate the request while fetching your feed.
Once you enter a Feed URL, an additional Test button will appear below the 'Request headers' section.
The 'Test' button is a handy tool to inspect whether BeyondWords is able to fetch your feed or not. Pressing the button will produce either of the two results:
The feed URL input is marked with a red cross indicating that the importer encountered an error while fetching the field. This happens for feeds with invalid type, URL, or response content.
The feed URL input is marked with a green check indicating that the feed was fetched successfully, and that BeyondWords has retrieved possible fields to map from the feed.
On a successful test run of the feed, an additional section titled Mapping will appear. Here, you can change the field names that associate data in the feed to the properties of the BeyondWords audio item.
For your convenience, the mapping section contains a code block that presents the first item extracted from your feed. You can use fields from this block to manually assign mappings in the input boxes below.
You may leave the inputs empty if you wish to use the standard values as shown in the placeholders for the different properties. BeyondWords uses these standards only for new feeds. If you wish to ignore the mapping for a certain property, please set it to null or empty string.
If your feed does not include the full text for an article, you may choose to enable the extractor. If enabled, BeyondWords will fetch the content from the webpage linked in the 'Source url' mapping.
In case your articles also requires authentication for allowing access, you may set up the necessary request headers in the Extractor headers section. BeyondWords will use these headers to authenticate the request while fetching the content from your website.
Once you press Save, the feed will be saved to your project.
By default, a feed is disabled. To enable a feed, you may press the toggle switch at the top right of the feed dialog or in the menu that appears on hovering over the feed in the RSS Feeds table.
You can bypass the default import interval for your feeds by pressing the Run button in the additional menu accessible by pressing ⋮ on hovering over the feed in the RSS Feeds table.
Using the run functionality will import and process content even if your feed is disabled.
BeyondWords will now import content from your RSS feed and convert it into audio, using characters. Processing usually takes a few minutes — you can check the status of your audio in the Content section in your project dashboard and then selecting the Audio tab.
