Importing content from an RSS feed

If you want to connect RSS feeds to your platform, you need to follow a few simple steps. You can connect multiple RSS feeds, but each feed requires its own connection.

Only a valid RSS feed with correct metadata tags will import content to Haiilo. The post's title and body are fetched from the title and description tags in the RSS feed source. The post's image is fetched from the image tag in the RSS feed if a source line includes this tag. If it doesn't, the image might be fetched from the link tag.

You can read general information about importing content to the platform in the Importing content to Haiilo overview article.

Connect an RSS feed

  1. Go to Settings > Importing Content
  2. Under the Connect RSS feeds heading, select Add new RSS feed.
  3. Enter the feed URL you want to connect into the corresponding field. The feed must be a validated RSS feed. Read more below.
  4. In Post to, select the channel(s) that you want the content be published to
  5. Check Publish automatically if you want the content to be automatically published on your platform's post feed. If you want it to be Proposed first so that an admin has to approve it, leave the box unchecked.
  6. Select Save to connect your feed

After connecting, new content is fetched after about 30 minutes. An imported post automatically gets the image, title, and post body from the metadata in the RSS feed. The post's other aspects, such as sharing messages, must be configured on the Haiilo platform.

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Requirements for RSS feeds

To ensure successful content retrieval from RSS feeds, the submitted URL should meet specific requirements:

  • The feed has to be a valid RSS feed which validates successfully in https://validator.w3.org/feed/ 

  • A pubDate must be set for each item on the feed. Haiilo fetches content from RSS feeds based on the pubDate parameter, which indicates the article's publication date on the RSS feed.Screenshot_2020-11-04_at_13.03.52.png

    • During each sync cycle, the fetcher checks for new content with a pubDate set after the last time any content was pulled in. If the pubDate has a time set in the past, Haiilo won't fetch it since that time has already passed and been read.

    • The pubDate property should be in any of the following formats:
      • "Mon, _2 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST"
      • "Mon, _2 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700"
      • "Mon Jan _2 15:04:05 2006" (ANSIC)
      • "Mon Jan _2 15:04:05 MST 2006" (UnixDate)
      • "Mon Jan 02 15:04:05 -0700 2006" (RubyDate)
      • "02 Jan 06 15:04 MST" (RFC822)
      • "02 Jan 06 15:04 -0700" (RFC822Z)
      • "Monday, 02-Jan-06 15:04:05 MST" (RFC850)
      • "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST" (RFC1123)
      • "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700" (RFC1123Z)
      • "2006-01-02T15:04:05Z07:00" (RFC3339)
      • "2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00" (RFC3339Nano)
      • "Mon, 2, Jan 2006 15:4"
      • "02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 MST"
      • "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 Z"
      • "Tue, 04 Jun 2019 12:17:00 BST"

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