Working With Internet News Content

This chapter provides overviews of internet news content, news feed configuration, and internet news content providers. This chapter also discusses how to:

Define internet news content providers.
Set up and use Factiva news feeds.
Define External News pagelets.
Manage external news options.
Schedule a news feed load.
Manage loaded news article content.

Understanding Internet News Content

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal provides External News pagelets and RSS News pagelets that you can configure to provide access to internet news content. You set up these pagelets to display headlines from a variety of news sources in a personalized format. You can create more than one version of each type of pagelet.

External News pagelets are designed to be configured and centrally administered by a portal administrator. The administrator decides which content providers to use, which categories are visible, and which users can see those categories. Run the Schedule External News Feed Application Engine process (EO_PE_EXNEWS) periodically to harvest news headlines and URLs for all categories from the content provider. Your end users can then personalize their External News pagelets by selecting individual news categories from the overall list.

You can configure the External News pagelet to receive free and subscription-based news feeds from the following internet news sources:

Worldwide News (Factiva), which provides topics from several news agencies, including Reuters, collected by Factiva.com.
Other custom news feeds.

Your portal administrator can configure the External News pagelet to receive content from other custom news feeds. The portal administrator can expand existing news pagelets or configure new ones. The configuration includes support for subscription-based news services from content partners; for example, PeopleSoft-delivered internal integration with Factiva, a joint venture of Dow Jones and Reuters.

Rich Site Summary News pagelets are end-user-driven and can be configured to display internet news content provided in RSS format by various sources. There is no central administration. Once end users add the RSS News pagelet to their homepage, they personalize the pagelet and specify RSS news URLs for news sources they want to view. Updated news headlines on the pagelet are harvested from the source website whenever the pagelet is refreshed.

Note. PeopleSoft cannot guarantee that content providers will continue to support the integration of internet content. PeopleSoft supports the integration as long as it has a solid partnership with a vendor. The vendor content descriptions in this chapter are subject to change. Check the vendor's website for the latest content descriptions.

Common Elements Used in This Chapter

Creation Date, Last Update User ID, and Last Update Date/Time

These fields are automatically generated. They are provided for reference.

Understanding News Feed Configuration

The delivered External News pagelet is preconfigured to gather news content from partners. Administrative setup involves running the Schedule External News Feed process to gather the news periodically.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal offers features that assist each organization in customizing news feeds and integrating subscription-based news. For example, you can deactivate news categories that are gathered by the batch process if the news is not appropriate for your users. You can then view the categories and decide which ones to make available to the rest of the organization. With this feature, you can allow users to see only business-related news by deactivating all consumer-related topics.

With additional features, you can:

Create custom news pagelets for specialized news feeds and distribution to selected groups.

For example, you can add customized news feeds about competitors and display them in an existing External News pagelet or in a newly created pagelet.
Focus the audience on a specific news feed or category.

For example, you can enable managers to view competitive intelligence.

Understanding Internet News Content Providers

There are two types of Internet news content providers you can use to supply news on External News pagelets and RSS News pagelets: free and subscription-based.

Free News Content Providers

You can use PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal news-related pagelets with free out-of-the-box solutions from these content providers to access the news feeds they offer. You can select and view these news feeds without additional implementation steps.

Provider	Sample News Sources	Content
Various websites that provide RSS-formatted news.	Motley Fool, Wired, Stockcharts.com, and Salon.com.	Business, Finance, Technology, Reference, Arts, Lifestyles, Recreation, Shopping, and so on.

Subscription-Based News Content Providers

The PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal teamed with content providers to offer subscription-based content. These providers may offer advanced products and services not necessarily available from free sources, such as the following:

Premium content from essential sources such as Reuters.
In-depth services, such as customized news feeds.
Industry-focused topics.
Greater control over "look and feel."

Content can be rendered in a way that is consistent with the rest of your website. In addition, banners and advertisements that are often associated with free news do not display.
Greater control over access.

Your organization may not provide users with Internet access; however, a content provider can allow news to be downloaded to an internal server so that information from the Internet is accessible.

Provider	Sample News Sources	Content
Factiva	Barron's, Business Week, Dow Jones News Service, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, Gannett News Service, Le Monde, New York Times, Newsweek, Reuters World News, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.	News is collected from many international sources, including all Reuters feeds. Preconfigured and custom news folders are available, organized by geography, industry, language, and subject. Financial and stock data, as well as company/business intelligence are also available.

External News Pagelet

RSS News Pagelet

Defining Internet News Content Providers

This section discusses how to define an internet news content provider.

Page Used to Define Internet News Content Providers

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
News Provider Maintenance	EO_PE_PROV_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Providers	Define an internet news content provider in your system. Maintain news content provider data, including a URL used to retrieve the news feed.

Defining an Internet News Content Provider

Access the News Provider Maintenance page.

Note. The term "provider" can refer to both the news feed source (for example, the company), or the specific query URL(s) that the company provides to access the news. For example, a news feed source may provide a single query URL value to which different URL parameters can be appended to access different news categories. Alternatively, a news feed source may supply multiple query URLs, in which case each query URL becomes its own news feed provider.

URL	Enter the URL for the homepage of the source website. This URL is used to display links to the provider source website on the External News pagelet and personalization page.
Query URL	Enter the URL provided by the source website to retrieve data for this news feed.
Image URL	Enter a URL for a logo or image to display for news feeds for the source website.
Newsfeed Format	Select the news feed format. The Schedule External News Feed Application Engine process (EO_PE_EXNEWS ) uses this value to determine how to parse the news feed data. Factiva XML. RSS 0.91 XML.
Content Access Type	Select the type of content access. Selecting any value other than Free enables you to enter values in the User ID and Password fields. For Factiva accounts, Factiva supplies a user ID and password to the administrator. Company Subscription Free Registration required User Subscription.
Default Lifespan (in days)	Enter the number of days during which most articles will be valid in your system. After the specified time, articles may be purged from your portal database. The recommended life span is 30 days. You can override this value for individual articles on the News Article Maintenance page.

Setting Up and Using Factiva News Feeds

This section provides an overview of Factiva news feed setup and discusses how to:

Register for a Factiva account.
Enter Factiva account data.
Load Factiva news category folders and new content.

Understanding Factiva News Feed Setup

To set up and use Factiva news feeds:

Register for a Factiva account.

Access online registration pages by selecting the Factiva link on the News Provider Maintenance page.

See Registering for a Factiva Account.
Enter Factiva account data on the News Provider Maintenance page.

You will have gathered the majority of this data in step 1.

See Entering Factiva Account Data.
Run the Schedule External News Feed process to load new Factiva news category folders as well as new content.

You may choose to schedule this process to run hourly to gather news updates.

See Loading Factiva News Category Folders and New Content.
Personalize the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet to display your desired news categories and content.

See Working With the External News Pagelet.

Pages Used to Work with Factiva News Feeds

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
News Provider Maintenance	EO_PE_PROV_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Providers	Access online Factiva registration pages. Define the Factiva news content provider in your system. Maintain Factiva news content provider data, including a URL used to retrieve the news feed.
Schedule External News Feed	RUN_EO_PE_EXNW	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Run External News Feed	Configure and run the Schedule External News Feed process to load Factiva news categories.
Personalize Worldwide News (Factiva)	EO_PE_EXTNEWS_PREF	Click the Customize button on the title bar of the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet.	Select Factiva news categories that you want to view on the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet and Factiva News Track pagelet. Set the number of headlines that appear for each category.
Personalize Worldwide News (Factiva) - Categories	EO_PE_EXTNEWS_CATG	Select a News Group link on the Personalize Worldwide News (Factiva) page.	Select the Factiva news categories within the selected News Group that you want to appear on the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet and Factiva News Track pagelet.
Personalize Worldwide News (Factiva) - Display Order	EO_PE_EXTNEWS_ORDR	Click the Display Order button on the Personalize Worldwide News (Factiva) page.	Set the display order of the selected Factiva news categories on the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet and Factiva News Track pagelet.

Registering for a Factiva Account

To register for a Factiva Account

Access the News Provider Maintenance page.
Select the Factiva website link to access the Factiva Partner Network: PeopleSoft homepage, where you can register for a Factiva account.
When you register for a Factiva account, they will provide the following information that you'll need to set up and use Factiva as a news feed provider in your PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. You enter this Factiva account data on the News Provider Maintenance page.
- User ID.
- Password.
- Name space.
- News category folders (financial news, sports news, PeopleSoft news, and so forth).
  
  Factiva creates these folders and populates them with relevant content. You schedule the Schedule External News process to run periodically to load new folder content to your PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal.
  
  See Loading Factiva News Category Folders and New Content.

Entering Factiva Account Data

Access the News Provider Maintenance page.

URL	Enter the URL for the Factiva homepage. This URL is used to display links to Factiva source website on the External News pagelet and personalization page.
Query URL	The default value is set to this URL provided by Factiva: http://developer.factiva.com. While you may not have to change this default, we recommend that you confirm this value with Factiva.
Image URL	Enter a URL for a logo or image to display for the Factiva source website.
Newsfeed Format	Select Factiva XML. The Schedule External News Feed process uses this value to determine how to parse the news feed data.
Content Access Type	Select Company Subscription. When you select this value, the User ID, Password, and Name Space fields display.
Default Lifespan (in days)	Enter the number of days during which most Factiva articles will be valid in your system. After the specified time, articles may be purged from your portal database. The recommended life span is 30 days. You can override this value for individual articles on the News Article Maintenance page.
User ID	Enter the user ID you received in your Factiva registration.
Password	Enter the password you received in your Factiva registration.
Name Space	Enter the name space value you received in your Factiva registration. This required Factiva-specific field serves to help uniquely identify your account and user ID.
Maximum sessions	Enter the maximum number of concurrent search sessions you want to be able to run on the Factiva content provider using the available Factiva news pagelets. Factiva recommends setting this value to 1 for every 1,000 users you have accessing your system.

Loading Factiva News Category Folders and New Content

Access the Schedule External News Feed page.

Warning! The Schedule External News Feed Application Engine process (EO_PE_EXNEWS) is not supported for use with Factiva news content when using batch servers running on the OS390 platform. Please use a batch server agent on either a Windows NT/2000 or UNIX platform to run the Schedule External News Feed process to load Factiva news content.

Schedule the Schedule External News process to run periodically to load new Factiva folder content to your PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. We recommend running this process hourly.

Factiva creates news content folders requested in your registration and populates them with relevant news content. Running this process loads the folders and new content to your PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal.

These folders and new content are then available for users to select for display as a part of their personalizations of the WorldWide News (Factiva) pagelet.

See Also

Working With the External News Pagelet

Scheduling a News Feed Load

Defining External News Pagelets

This section provides an overview of defining External News pagelets and discusses how to:

Create an External News pagelet.
Define and maintain External News pagelet news groups.
Define and maintain External News pagelet news categories.

See Also

External News Pagelet

Understanding Defining External News Pagelets

Factiva provides news feeds that you choose to display on External News pagelets. You can also display news feeds from other sources on External News pagelets.

To display these news feeds, you must first create a specific instance of an External News pagelet, which is assigned a unique component ID. Once you have created this pagelet definition, you can create and associate Factiva or news groups and categories from other news providers with the pagelet. These news groups and categories are then available on the new pagelet.

You may choose to create a new pagelet for an existing provider, such as Factiva, to display specific news categories to specific users. In essence, you can split off news to specialized communities.

Note. While you can access news feed article data on the News Article Maintenance page, you do not define article data in your system. News feed article data is loaded into your system when you run the Schedule External News Feed process.

Pages Used to Define External News Pagelets

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
External News Pagelet Publications	EO_PE_NEWSCOM_SET	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Publications	Define an External News pagelet with a unique component ID.
News Group Maintenance	EO_PE_NEWSGROUP_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Groups	Define news groups that you want to use to organize news categories that you want to make available on the External News pagelet you are defining.
News Category Maintenance	EO_PE_CATEG_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Categories	Define a news category within a news group.
News Article Maintenance	EO_PE_ARTICLE_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Articles	View and maintain news feed article data. You can define an article removal date that overrides the default article lifespan set for the article's new provider on the News Provider Maintenance page While you can access news feed article data on this page, you do not define article data in your system. News feed article data is loaded into your system when you run the Schedule External News Feed process.

Defining an External News Pagelet

Access the External News Pagelet Publications page.

Component ID

System-generated value that is used to identify the External News pagelet you are defining. This component ID is used to identify the pagelet when associating it with news groups and categories.

Pagelet Title

Enter a title for the pagelet that is used to populate the title/label field for the component reference. This text becomes the title displayed on the pagelet title bar.

Default News Category

You cannot enter a code until you have defined news categories for this pagelet component ID on the News Category Maintenance page. Once you have completed this definition, return to this page to select the code for the default news category that you want users to see on the External New pagelet when no personalizations have been defined.

For New Categories in NewsFeed

The field in the For New Categories in NewsFeed group box applies to news loaded through the Schedule External News Feed process.

Role Name

Select the default role name to associate with new categories that are loaded by the Schedule External News Feed process.

This enables you to associate a role with news categories that are automatically created by the process. Selecting a value here ensures that you have at least one viewer role assigned to automatically created categories.

Create Homepage Pagelet

The Create Homepage Pagelet group box displays registry information generated upon saving the page. You use this information to register the pagelet in the portal registry.

Pagelet Folders	Displays PAPP_NEWS. The system stores all External News pagelets in this portal registry folder.
Public Access	Select if you want to make access to this External News pagelet available to all users. You can restrict use of the pagelet to specific groups of users using the portal registry. See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.48 PeopleBook: Internet Technology, “Administering Portals”
Registered	Displays as selected once the pagelet has been entered into the portal registry.
Portal Object Name	Displays once the pagelet has been registered and saved.
Create HomePage Pagelet	Click to register the External News pagelet.

Defining a News Group

Access the News Group Maintenance page for the External News pagelet component ID with which you want to associate a news group.

Description

Enter a news group description.

Active for all categories

Clear this option to disable user access to all categories in the selected news group without having to disable each individual category.

Provider ID

Select the providers that you want to associate with the news group. This establishes an association between the content provider query URL and the selected news group.

Maintaining News Categories

Access the News Category Maintenance page for the External News pagelet component ID with which you want to associate a news category.

News Category Title

Enter a news category title. For some news providers, the news category title text must match the news category title the provider uses. The Schedule External News Feed process attempts to match this title with the title string from the provider.

Provider ID

Select the associated news provider. The news provider you select identifies which query URL should be used for the category.

Providers are defined on the News Provider Maintenance page.

News Group ID

Select the news group in which the end user should be able to access this category when personalizing the External News pagelet.

News groups are defined on the News Group Maintenance page.

Newsfeed Type

Select the method to use to load the news category. Delivered categories from Factiva are set to System Maintained as the Schedule External News Feed process is used to download and cache articles in these categories.

SQL Server to XML Load. Reserved for future use.

System Maintained.

URL

Enter a URL that you want to use to override the query URL value you provided on the News Provider page.

URL Parameter

Enter text you want to be appended to the query URL provided by the news provider. For example, enter the name of the custom feed provided by Factiva, which it needs your system to send as a query string parameter.

Language Code

Select the language for the news category.

Viewer Roles

Select

Select for the roles that you want to be able to view and select the news category. Users who do not belong to a selected role cannot access the category when personalizing an External News pagelet or view articles in the category.

For example, you can use this option to restrict access to subscription-based content.

Role Name

This is a subset of all PeopleSoft roles defined by an administrator on the Maintain Viewer Roles page. This is a list of valid viewers for news, rather than a list of all roles in the PeopleTools Roles table.

Managing External News Options

This section discusses how to manage external news options.

Page Used to Manage External News Options

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Manage External News	EO_PE_CATEG_ADMIN	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Manage External News	Set general options for the selected External News pagelet. For example, you can determine whether news articles appear in the current browser window or in a new window. There are typically many news categories available for an External News pagelet; this page provides a central location from which you can administer multiple news categories.

Page Name

Object Name

Navigation

Usage

Manage External News

EO_PE_CATEG_ADMIN

Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Manage External News

Set general options for the selected External News pagelet. For example, you can determine whether news articles appear in the current browser window or in a new window.

There are typically many news categories available for an External News pagelet; this page provides a central location from which you can administer multiple news categories.

Managing External News Options and Categories

Access the Manage External News page.

News Component

Displays the component ID and name of the External News pagelet for which you are managing external news option.

Default Category Status

Specify the default status for new categories automatically loaded into your system. You can change their individual statuses on the News Category Maintenance page.

Categories marked "new" (days)

Enter the number of days for which newly loaded categories are marked as such on the External News pagelet personalization page.

Display Article in New Window

Select to have news articles accessed from the External News pagelet appear in a new browser window. When articles are displayed in a new browser window, they are not wrapped in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. Clear to display them in the same browser window.

The default (and recommended setting) is to have news articles appear in the same browser window.

Scheduling a News Feed Load

This section discusses how to configure and run the Schedule External News Feed process.

This is a batch process you can configure to periodically load current internet news content headlines. This periodic load is necessary as news headlines are cached locally in the database to reduce network traffic.

Page Used to Schedule a News Feed Load

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Schedule External News Feed	RUN_EO_PE_EXNW	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Run External News Feed	Configure and run the Schedule External News Feed process.

Running the Schedule External News Feed Process

Access the Schedule External News Feed page.

Provider

Select the news provider for which you want to load Internet news content using the query URL you defined on the News Provider Maintenance page.

We recommend that you create different run control IDs to schedule news feed loads from different providers. Each provider has its own recommended news feed refresh cycle, such as hourly or twice daily.

Run/Schedule

Click to access the Process Scheduler Request page, where you can specify process parameters, including the server on which the process should be run, as well as how often you want the process to run.

Factiva recommends that you run the process every 30 minutes.

Managing Loaded News Article Content

This section discusses how to maintain loaded news article contents.

Pages Used to Manage Loaded News Article Content

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
News Article Maintenance	EO_PE_ARTICLE_PG	Portal Administration, Pagelets, External News, Articles	Review article information for headlines automatically harvested from a content provider.

View Categories	Select a value you want to use to filter the display of categories. All Inactive New Old
New	Displays an icon if the news category was added to the Personalize Worldwide News − Categories (page name depends on the name of the pagelet you are personalizing) within the number of days specified in the Categories marked "new" (days) field.
Active	Select to make news categories accessible to users. Clear to make them inaccessible. You can also do this individually on the News Category Maintenance page or by news group on the New Group Maintenance page.
News Group ID	Select a value to change the news group that contains the category. You can do this individually on the News Category Maintenance page.

Component ID	System-generated value that is used to identify the External News pagelet you are defining. This component ID is used to identify the pagelet when associating it with news groups and categories.
Pagelet Title	Enter a title for the pagelet that is used to populate the title/label field for the component reference. This text becomes the title displayed on the pagelet title bar.
Default News Category	You cannot enter a code until you have defined news categories for this pagelet component ID on the News Category Maintenance page. Once you have completed this definition, return to this page to select the code for the default news category that you want users to see on the External New pagelet when no personalizations have been defined.

Description	Enter a news group description.
Active for all categories	Clear this option to disable user access to all categories in the selected news group without having to disable each individual category.
Provider ID	Select the providers that you want to associate with the news group. This establishes an association between the content provider query URL and the selected news group.

News Category Title	Enter a news category title. For some news providers, the news category title text must match the news category title the provider uses. The Schedule External News Feed process attempts to match this title with the title string from the provider.
Provider ID	Select the associated news provider. The news provider you select identifies which query URL should be used for the category. Providers are defined on the News Provider Maintenance page.
News Group ID	Select the news group in which the end user should be able to access this category when personalizing the External News pagelet. News groups are defined on the News Group Maintenance page.
Newsfeed Type	Select the method to use to load the news category. Delivered categories from Factiva are set to System Maintained as the Schedule External News Feed process is used to download and cache articles in these categories. SQL Server to XML Load. Reserved for future use. System Maintained.
URL	Enter a URL that you want to use to override the query URL value you provided on the News Provider page.
URL Parameter	Enter text you want to be appended to the query URL provided by the news provider. For example, enter the name of the custom feed provided by Factiva, which it needs your system to send as a query string parameter.
Language Code	Select the language for the news category.

News Component	Displays the component ID and name of the External News pagelet for which you are managing external news option.
Default Category Status	Specify the default status for new categories automatically loaded into your system. You can change their individual statuses on the News Category Maintenance page.
Categories marked "new" (days)	Enter the number of days for which newly loaded categories are marked as such on the External News pagelet personalization page.
Display Article in New Window	Select to have news articles accessed from the External News pagelet appear in a new browser window. When articles are displayed in a new browser window, they are not wrapped in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. Clear to display them in the same browser window. The default (and recommended setting) is to have news articles appear in the same browser window.