MicroStrategy ONE

Defining RSS Reader widgets

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a data format used to display updated web content when you click a URL. An RSS document is called a feed, and it contains either a summary of the content from an associated website or the full text.

The RSS Reader widget helps provide a 360-degree view of your business by allowing you to compare and contrast data in your Report Services (RS) dashboard with information from external news feed sources.

The RSS Reader widget in the example below retrieves news from an RSS news feed, which can be displayed alongside the other components of your document. The RSS feed is automatically reloaded to display the most up-to-date news about a variety of topics that you specify. When an analyst selects a news item from the list, the beginning of the article is displayed in the details section at the top. Clicking the article's text opens the full article in a new window.

An analyst can refresh the list of news articles by clicking the Refresh icon at the top left of the widget. He can also navigate to and from different pages of news articles by using the arrows at the bottom.

image\ebx_970417859.gif

Analysts can use RSS Reader widgets on a document to view and update their favorite RSS news feeds as they analyze grids, graphs, and other objects in the document. You can also create an RSS Reader widget that displays on a mobile device with MicroStrategy Mobile; for instructions, see the MicroStrategy Mobile Analysis Help.

For example, you are viewing a document with sales figures for some of your local customers. You can configure the RSS Reader widget to display up-to-the-minute news about those customers. This allows you to view both sales data and news information about the same customers in one place. Consider another example. One of your reports provides sales figures for a group of stores in northern California. Using an RSS feed, you can display local industry news for that specific region, which can provide valuable background information about those sales figures.

To extend this relationship between your business data and recent news, you can configure an RSS feed to be connected to specific attributes in your document. For example, you can click a customer's name on a report to view updated RSS news information about that customer. For more information on displaying news related to an attribute on your document, see Viewing news related to a specific attribute, document, or dataset.

You can display the RSS Reader widget as a widget in MicroStrategy Web, or on a mobile device with MicroStrategy Mobile. You can format how the RSS Reader widget is displayed on the mobile device, including how news items are displayed, which URLs are used to provide RSS feeds for the widget, and so on. For a complete list, see the MicroStrategy Mobile Analysis Help.

The RSS widget supports both RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0 formats.

Static vs. dynamic RSS feeds

You can configure an RSS widget to display one of the following types of RSS feeds:

  • Static RSS Feeds: Static feeds display a default set of news about a general topic, such as business or technology. These feeds are considered static because their URLs are pre-configured to display information on a single topic. The following are some examples of static RSS feeds:

    • http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/business

    • http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/world

    • http://www.washingtonpost.com/

    • http://feeds.reuters.com/

    The URLs for these feeds can be modified to display specific information related to data on your document, as discussed below.

  • Dynamic RSS Feeds: Dynamic feeds are URLs that have been modified to display information about a specific topic. You can use these versatile analysis tools in the RSS Reader widget to view:

    • News related to a specific topic. To create a dynamic feed that displays news about a specific topic, you must specify the topic in the RSS feed's URL and modify other parameters. For additional details and an example, see Viewing news related to a specific topic.

    • News related to a specific MicroStrategy attribute, document, or dataset. To create a dynamic feed that displays news about the object, you must specify the object in the RSS feed's URL and adjust other parameters. For details and steps, see Viewing news related to a specific attribute, document, or dataset.

Depending on a feed's RSS provider, you can create a dynamic RSS feed by either modifying a static RSS feed's URL or using a new, dynamic URL. The method to use depends on the provider of the RSS feed. Regardless of the method that you use, you must enter appropriate parameters in the RSS feed's URL to retrieve and display news on a specific topic. These parameters include a query parameter, which defines the topic you are searching for, as well as language and country parameters.

Data requirements for an RSS Reader widget

An RSS Reader widget does not require attributes or metrics on the Grid/Graph that contains the widget, unless the widget is a target of an attribute selector. For more information, see Viewing news related to a specific attribute, document, or dataset.

To create an RSS Reader widget

These instructions create an RSS Reader widget for display in MicroStrategy Web. You can also create an RSS Reader widget that displays on a mobile device with MicroStrategy Mobile; for instructions, see the MicroStrategy Mobile Analysis Help.

  1. Open a document in the Document Editor. (How?)

  2. Insert a Grid/Graph into the document, if one is not already in the document. For a procedure, see Displaying reports in documents: Grid/Graphs.

  3. Right-click the Grid/Graph to turn into a widget, and select Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

  4. Click the Widget tab.

  5. From the Widget drop-down list, point to Flash, and then select RSS Reader. In Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web, the Grid/Graph displays as an RSS Reader widget.

  6. You can change the Alternative Display property, which determines how the widget looks in PDF View in MicroStrategy Developer, in Interactive Mode and View Mode (DHTML) in MicroStrategy Web, and when exported to Excel and PDF. The widget can display as a placeholder or as a Grid/Graph, or can be hidden. For more information, see Determining how a widget is displayed.

  7. Click OK to return to the document.

    • Enable Flash Mode for MicroStrategy Web

    • You must enable Flash Mode in the document so that you and other users can view the widget in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web.

  8. From the Format menu, select Document Properties. The Document Properties dialog box opens.

  9. On the Document tab, in the Available display modes list, select the Flash check box.

  10. You can specify that this document always opens in Flash Mode when it is initially opened in Web. To do this, select the Default radio button next to Flash.

  11. Click OK to return to the document.

  12. Save the document.

    • Specify the RSS feed to display in the widget

    • Specify the RSS feed to which the widget will connect. You can also specify the number of news articles that are displayed, the refresh frequency of the news articles, and other options.

  13. Open the document in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web.

  14. Right-click the widget and select Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

  15. Select the General tab.

  16. To create a title that appears at the top right of the widget, enter the title text in the Feed Title field.

  17. Type a URL, as described below, in the RSS Feed URL field. You can type only one RSS feed.

  18. For static RSS feeds, type the RSS feed's URL. For example, to view news from the Yahoo! Business News RSS feed, enter the following: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/business.

  19. For dynamic RSS feeds, specify the base URL, any language or country parameters, and one of the following:

    • To display news about a specific topic, insert the topic into the URL's query parameter. For example, to display MicroStrategy-related news using the p= query parameter in the Yahoo! RSS feed, enter the following: http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=mstrei=UTF-8fl=0x=wrt.

    • For additional details and an example, see Viewing news related to a specific topic.

    • To display news related to an attribute, document, or dataset, insert an auto code for the object in the URL's query parameter. To display news for an attribute, you must also set the Grid/Graph as the target of the attribute selector. For details, examples, and complete steps, see Viewing news related to a specific attribute, document, or dataset.

  20. Specify the rate at which news items are automatically refreshed. Type this value in minutes in the Default Refresh Frequency field.

  21. Type a number in the Items shown at a time field to specify the maximum number of news items that a user can see at a time. The default value is 10.

  22. Select or clear the Open full article when clicked check box to determine whether a news article is opened in a new window when it is selected in the widget.

  23. If the RSS feed is accessed through a proxy server, select the Use Proxy check box.

  24. Click Save to apply the changes.

To view and interact with the widget, you must open the document in MicroStrategy Web in Flash Mode or Interactive Mode. You can then format and adjust the widget; for more information, see the MicroStrategy Web Help.

You can view and interact with the widget in Flash View in MicroStrategy Developer and in Express Mode in MicroStrategy Web, but changes are not saved.

Related topics