RSS

If you want to distribute RSS content to bot users, you should use Feeds instead.

RSS is a service which will allow you to monitor frequently updated information on sites which support the RSS standard: blog entries, news headlines, audio, video. An RSS document (called "feed", "web feed" or "channel") includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author's name.

It's a really simple service (a commonly used name is actually 'Really Simple Syndication'!). There are no actions, and only one trigger, which is:

• New Item

This trigger will allow you to monitor for new posts at a webpage you specify.

Unlike a lot of other Flow XO services, a lot of the set up is done during authorization. You'll be given this screen before you get to choose the 'New Item' method:

Connecting Your Account

Authorization works slightly differently for the RSS trigger you can configure. You'll see that it's still really easy to do - we'll consider it in detail in our example use case, below.

Outputs

It's worth considering the outputs you'll receive using the RSS service. You'll get outputs like:

• Item ID - This is a unique identifier for the item, a lot like the other ID's you might have worked with whilst using Flow XO for other objects.
• Title - The title of the article or item.
• Description - This will normally be the body or main content of the article or item.
• Summary - This is frequently an excerpt of the article content that you get in 'description'.
• Link - A link to the website the feed was generated on (this will normally be the URL you gave when authenticating - Capsule usefully gives a link to the person or other object the RSS item relates to).
• Original Link - This is sometimes populated with a special tracking URL for FeedBurner or Pheedo.
• Permalink - A permanent link to the article or item.
• Date Updated - This is the most recent update date of the article.
• Date Published - The original publish date of the article.
• Author - Typically the site, or a specific author if available. In our example, Capsule populate this output with the User.
• Comments - A link to the articles comments section.
• Image URL - A URL where any associated image is hosted.
• Image Title -  The title of any associated image, hosted at the URL above.
• Category 1 - 5 - Categories are defined by the feed host, and may help you filter contact. We support up five categories in Flow XO.
• Source URL - This is optionally populated with the original source for an article.
• Source Title - If an original source is attributed, this output will contain the title as it appears at the articles source.
• Enclosure 1 - 3 URL - The location of any media object associated with the article - such as a podcast.
• Enclosure 1 - 3 Type - The type of the associated media, if it exists, like "audio/mpeg".