News - Upload CSV and RSS Feeds

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Last updated: Jun 08, 2018
5 min read

New Feature - Upload CSV and RSS Feeds

New to OurSchoolsApp is the ability to add RSS feeds to your news feed and upload a series of articles in one simple step by using a simple CSV spreadsheet.

What is RSS?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardised, computer-readable format. These feeds can, for example, allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator. Wikipedia

You may find that your own school website has a RSS feed connected to some parts of it (e.g. any blogs you may have or even your own News page).  This will decrease the amount of work that you need to do, to get news articles out to parents. If your website offers RSS capability; you will only need to publish content to your website once, and OurSchoolsApp will pick up the text and send it out to parents without you needing to do anything. If your website does not currently use RSS, you may be able to speak to your website provider to see about adding this functionality.

What is a CSV?

In computing, a comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain text. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas. Wikipedia

Similarly to RSS, CSV uploads will allow you to syndicate multiple articles in one simple process. (Although it should be noted that a CSV upload is not automated in the same way as RSS feeds). You will need to create and upload your CSV document each time you wish to upload new items.

The only thing you may need to do, is add images to your articles if you wish.


Note:

We highly recommend that you do not post anything on OurSchoolsApp that contains private or sensitive information.

As this information is potentially accessible by anyone who chooses to use OurSchoolsApp; we recommend that you only publish information which you would be comfortable publishing on your website.

If in doubt please consult with your organisations appointed Data Protection Officer.

Step-by-Step Guide

Add RSS

In this example we will be using an RSS feed from BBC News. To locate the RSS feed on your website, look for the RSS logo (see above) or speak to your IT Support or Website Provider.

1.Click Upload

Click 'upload' from the central action panel.


2. Add the RSS Feed URL

Find the RSS URL that you wish to use - you can simply browse to this website, and copy and paste the URL into this field. If you are having trouble locating the RSS feed connected to your school website, speak to your website designer or School IT Support, as they may be able to advise you where to find this.


3. Set the Number of News Items to display

You can either type into the field provided or use the number stepper to the right of the field, and click up to increase the number, and down to decrease.


4. Activate Notifications

You may want to send out a notification each time a new news item is added - by checking this box, OurSchoolsApp will automatically send out a push notification for each item added.


5. Click Amend to add the Feed

At this point click the "Amend" button to add the news feed to your News Section


6. Refresh the List

You may notice that once you have added your RSS feed, articles that have appeared in the past will not appear straight away. If you wish for OurSchoolsApp to display historic feed notifications; select the 'upload' button once again.


7. Click Refresh

You may wish to Activate/DeActivate Push Notifications or change the amount of items to display.  If you wish to change this, click 'Amend to finish'. If your aim is just to make OurSchoolsApp display the historic items, click 'Refresh'.


Below is a short video to outline the steps above.

Amend a RSS News Item

You may wish to amend a news item once posted. This can be achieved in the same way as editing any news item (e.g. adding an image if it has not automatically been added already; or your RSS feed does not support images). Or you may want to add or remove some text from the item.

Note:

The admin tool may not display images included within the RSS feed, but this does not mean they are not visible in OurSchoolsApp. We recommend checking news items to see if the images have been included on an Android or iOS device.

1. Item Select Item

Click the item you wish to amend.


2. Click Amend

Click 'amend' in the central action panel


3. Make Changes

Simply make in the same way as adding a new news item (see News - Add a New News Article) 

  1. Upload an image
  2. Change text
  3. Change date and time of post


4. Click Amend to finish

Once you are happy with your changes, click 'amend' to save and publish changes to parents.

Upload a CSV

1. Click Upload

On the news screen, click 'upload' in the Central Action Panel


2. Click CSV Upload Tab

When the Upload dialogue appears, click the 'CSV Upload Tab' to the upper left of the modal window.


3. Download a Template

To get started, you can download a template by clicking the link


4. Open the Template, Add Titles & Text and Save

Open the template you have just downloaded, add a title in the title column (fig. 1) and add your body text in the adjacent column (fig. 2). You may wish to copy and paste your title and body text from another source if you have it already. 

Once you have finished, click "Save" (fig.3) in your spreadsheet application.

Note:

Some spreadsheet applications may save in their own format by default. Please ensure you save as a CSV file type (refer to your application help to find out how).


5. Upload your file 

Click on the 'upload a file' button


6. Select CSV and Click on "Open" button

Choose the document that you have just saved, from your spreadsheet application


7. Click Upload to finish



8. Add Images

If you wish to add images, this can be done really quickly. Select the article that you want to add an image to, and click "Amend". You may now edit any of the fields in the Amend dialogue that appears. For more information on this see Upload an image


Repeat Amending to add all desired images.

Below is a short video outlining the above steps: