Show your latest posts in signatures

The Social feed element shows your organisation's latest posts in every signature that uses it: up to three pictures, one for each of the newest items on your website's news feed, each showing the item's words, its picture and its date, and each linking to the item. Footer365 reads the feed once a day and draws the pictures on its own server, so they look the same in every mail program, and there is nothing for anyone to update by hand.

Footer365 makes the Integrations page available to organisations gradually, so it may not be in your portal yet. See Early access pages and features.

The posts come from your own website's news feed, an RSS or Atom address, added on Developers > Integrations.

Add your web feed

Adding the feed is for your organisation's own Super Admins only. Everyone else with View developers, and anyone working in your portal through your reseller, sees the card read only, with the line "Only a Super Admin of your organisation can add a web feed, because it lets Footer365 read the feed's posts."

1. Go to Developers > Integrations (open it).
2. On the Web feed card, type the address of your news feed in Feed address, such as https://www.contoso.com/feed.xml. It must be a full https address on the public internet. Most website builders and blog platforms publish one; look for an RSS or Atom link, or ask whoever runs your website.
3. Select Check and add.

Footer365 reads the address straight away and draws the cards. The feed is added only when the read finds at least one item it can show, and the card then shows the cards now in use. If it cannot read the address, or finds nothing it can show, nothing is added and the page says why, for example "The address points to a private network. A source must be on the public internet." or "Footer365 read the address but found no items it can show. Check that it is the address of a news feed."

The name on the cards is the feed's own title, such as "Contoso news".

Which items become cards

At each read Footer365 sorts the feed's items by their own dates, newest first, and keeps the first three that have:

• an https address, which the card links to, and
• words or a picture of their own.

An item's words are its title, or its summary as plain text when it has no title. Each card shows at most about 160 characters of them, cut at a whole word with "..." after it, on up to three lines. The picture is the one the item names for itself, as most feeds do for a featured image, cut to a square. A picture that cannot be fetched is left off that card and tried again at the next read.

The cards are drawn in the Inter typeface, which has the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. Emoji, and words in a script Inter does not have, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Hindi, are left out rather than drawn as empty boxes: an item written only in such a script shows its picture and date. An item with neither drawable words nor a picture is left out, and the next one takes its place.

The card counts the items left out on the way to the three under Left out.

Put the posts in a template

1. Open a template in the editor. In Insert, drag Social feed (in Media and social) onto the canvas.
2. Under What it shows, choose the Source. If nothing is connected yet the canvas says Choose a source, and the hint links to Developers > Integrations: Open Integrations opens in a new tab, so the template you are editing is not lost. You can place the element first and add the feed later.
3. Choose how many Posts to show, from 1 to 3, and whether to Show pictures and Show dates.
4. Under How it looks, set the Width of each card, from 240 to 480 pixels, and the Alignment. A card is never drawn wider than the template itself: in a template 440 pixels wide, a card set to 480 is drawn at 440.

The canvas and the preview show the real cards from the last read, so what you see is what recipients get. Alt text shows the words recipients see in place of each picture, such as "Post 1 of 3 from Contoso news". It names the source and the place, never the post, because the picture follows the feed.

A template may hold more than one Social feed element. When the source is removed, the canvas says "This source no longer exists. Choose another." When the source has nothing to show, the canvas says why the row would be left out, such as "Not sent: the cards are more than 7 days old".

How the cards travel in a message

Each card is a picture linked to its item, at an address that always shows the card now in that place. The pictures are never embedded in the message, whether the mail flow or the Outlook add-in signs it, so they cost the add-in almost nothing of Outlook's size limit and both look alike. This means:

• An email sent earlier shows today's posts when it is opened, and shows nothing for the cards once the feed is removed.
• A recipient whose mail program blocks pictures from the internet sees the alt text until they allow pictures.
• Outlook on the web shows a linked picture as broken in the compose window. It is fine in the sent email.
• A click on a card goes through Footer365, which sends the reader on to the item now in that place. Clicks on cards are not counted.

When none of the source's cards may be shown, the whole row of the element is left out, so there is no gap where the posts would have been.

The Web feed card

The pill on the Web feed card shows where it stands:

• Not added: no feed has been added.
• Connected: the last read worked and its cards are in use.
• Last read failed: the last read did not work, and the card says what the server answered. The cards from the last good read stay in use for up to 7 days, and Footer365 tries again at the next daily read.
• Not shown: no read has worked for 7 days, so the Social feed element is left out of every signature. It comes back by itself at the next good read.
• Nothing to show: the last read worked but found no item it can show, so the element is left out until it does.

The card shows the Feed address, the name on the cards, who added it, when it was last read, and how many templates it is Used in. Below them, Cards in use and Left out count the last good read, and the cards themselves are shown.

• Read now reads the feed straight away and draws new cards when it works.
• Change address opens a box for the new address. Select Check and change: Footer365 reads the new address first and keeps the old one if it cannot. Templates keep showing the same source, so nothing needs changing in them.
• Remove, after Remove the web feed?, stops reading the feed and deletes the cards. The Social feed element is left out of every signature that used it.

When the feed cannot be read for a week

The cards of the last good read stay in signatures for 7 days, so a day's outage on your website costs nothing. After 7 days without a good read the Social feed element is left out of signatures, and Footer365 emails your Technical contact and the person who added the feed, once. Nothing else in the signatures changes, and no mail is held. The next good read brings the posts back, and a later run of failures is emailed afresh.

What Footer365 keeps

For your web feed, Footer365 keeps its address, the name on the cards, when it was last read and how, and who added it. Of the three newest items it keeps only what the cards show: the words as drawn, the date, the item's address and the card pictures, in your organisation's own storage. They are replaced at each read that works, kept as they are when a read fails, and deleted when the feed is removed, or with your account. See Data and privacy.

Adding, changing, reading now and removing the feed are recorded in the audit log with who did it. A daily read that fails is recorded too, with what the server answered, at most once a day, as is every Read now that fails, and so is the element being left out after 7 days. See The audit log.

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