NYU Wikis Help Center
Child pages
  • Using the RSS Feed Builder
Skip to end of metadata
Go to start of metadata

Using the RSS feed builder, you can create customised RSS feeds to subscribe to changes within Confluence.

Wondering what an RSS feed is? See more information about RSS Feeds.

On this page:

Building an RSS Feed

Follow the steps below to build your feed, choosing the type of content and the time period you want to monitor.

To create a customised RSS feed,

  1. Go to the dashboard and click the 'Feed Builder' link located above the list of spaces. This will display a form as shown below (see Screenshot 1).
  2. Check the boxes to select one or more content types you want to include in your feed:
    • 'Pages' – Check this box if you want to know when a page is added or updated. You can also include the 'Comments' and/or 'Attachments' on pages. Even if you do not select 'Pages', you can still choose to receive page comments or attachments in your feed.
      (tick) Tip: You can build separate feeds, one for pages only and one that includes comments as well. This allows you to monitor only pages if you are short of time, and to read the comments when you have more time.
    • 'Blog Posts' – Check this box if you want to know when a blog post is added or updated. You can also include the 'Comments' and/or 'Attachments' on blog posts. Even if you do not select 'Blog Posts', you can still choose to receive comments or attachments in your feed.
    • 'Mail' – Check this box if you want to know when the email archive is updated. (See the overview of mail archives in Confluence.)
  3. Select one or more spaces from the list. Press Ctrl + left-mouse button to select multiple spaces.
  4. If you want to customise your feed further (e.g. change the feed name, exclude spaces, limit by date/number) click the 'Advanced Options' link to display the Advanced Options (see Screenshot 2). Otherwise, click the 'Create RSS Feed' button to create your RSS feed.
  5. (optional) Configure the 'Advanced Options' for your RSS feed as follows:
    • Enter a name for your RSS feed, such as 'My Confluence feed' or 'Blog posts from the staff space'. By default, your feed will be given a generic name based on the name of your Confluence installation, e.g. 'Extranet RSS Feed'.
    • If you want to filter your RSS feed using a label, enter one or more labels separated by spaces or commas. If you enter more than one label, Confluence will return all content (of the selected types) that matches one or more of the labels.
      Hint: See the hint below about using labels to customise your feeds.
    • Choose whether to sort items in your RSS feed by the date they were originally created or the date they were last updated.
    • Specify the feed size (number of items to return in your feed) and time period (how far back in time you want Confluence to look). The default values are 'Limit to 10 items' and 'Within the last 5 days'.
    • If you have chosen to include pages, specify whether your RSS feed should display the entire page ('Content'), or a comparison between the original and the updated content ('Diff').
  6. Click the 'Create RSS Feed' button to create your feed.
  7. This will take you to a new screen. Drag or copy the link into your RSS reader. The feed URL is linked to the words 'Drag or copy this link to your RSS reader'.

Screenshot 1: The Confluence RSS feed builder

Screenshot 2: The Confluence RSS feed builder — Advanced options

Screenshot 3: Example feed

Removing an RSS Feed

Unknown macro: {hide}

The content of this page is included in other pages.

There is no need to try to delete or remove an RSS feed built by the Confluence RSS feed builder.

Explanation: The feeds generated by the RSS Feed Builder are dynamically generated via the parameters included in the feed URL (address). For example, take a look at the following feed URL:

http://confluence.atlassian.com/createrssfeed.action?types=page&sort=modified&showContent=true...

The above feed URL will generate a list of pages ('types=page'), sorted by the modification date and showing the page content. The feed is generated at the time when the URL is fetched and there is no RSS feed information stored on the database. For that reason, there is no need to remove anything.

Hint: Using Labels to Customise your Feed

You can use the RSS feed builder to track updates to labelled pages and comments on those pages. Here is an idea for customising your RSS feed by using your own personal label(s). This is useful if you want to track updates to specific pages or blog posts, and you do not want to deal with emails. You can use this method as an alternative to watching pages.
  • Build an RSS feed that returns pages, blog posts and comments labelled with a personal label, such as 'my:feed'.
  • Each time you want to 'watch' a page, just label it with 'my:feed'.
  • All updates and comments will automatically come through your RSS feed.

Notes

  • Feed authentication options: Confluence can offer you the option of an anonymous feed or a feed that requires authentication.
    • An anonymous feed will show only the content that is visible to anonymous users. The feed URL does not contain the &os_authType parameter mentioned below. This feed is useful only if your Confluence site allows anonymous access. If a feed is anonymous, you only get anonymously-viewable content in the feed regardless of whether you are a Confluence user or not.
    • An authenticated feed requires you to log in to Confluence before you can retrieve the content. The feed URL contains the following parameter: &os_authType=basic.
    • The option to choose between an anonymous and an authenticated feed is currently not available on the feed builder screen. The feed builder offers only authenticated feeds. See CONF-21601 for details and a workaround.
  • Adding your username and password to the URL for an authenticated feed: To let your newsreader log into Confluence, you can add your username and password to the feed URL. But please note that if you do this, anyone can read your password if they have access to your RSS newsreader configuration or if they see the feed URL. We recommend that you do not add your username and password to the URL, but instead log in each time you need to read the authenticated feed.
RELATED TOPICS

Adding a username and password to Confluence RSS feeds
RSS Feeds FAQ
Tracking Updates to Confluence Pages and Spaces
Working with RSS Feeds

Take me back to Wikis Help Guide

  • No labels