Setting up Related Pages (External URL content) (Part III)

In the first post we introduced the idea of PeopleSoft's new Related Content functionality.
In the second post we created our first Related Content and connected the contents of one PeopleSoft Component to another.

In this example we will bring in outside (non-PeopleSoft) content into the Related Content.

Define the Related Content Service

Setup of the External URL is very similar to that of the PeopleSoft Component. In fact, each of the different types are essentially the same, the devil is in the details.

Here is a screen shot of a Service setup that displays information from a Google Search

Note that the URL Type is now Non-PeopleSoft URL.  This indicates that we are going to supply the URL of a non-peoplesoft entity.

The External URL contains the URL that will be used to create the related content.

You will also note that this time I have entered the parameters name of "q" and "hl".  This is due to the way Google Searches work.  In order to do a search you can use the google URL and append /search and pass the language (hl) and the query (q).  We will want the final URL to look something like this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=LROUX

We will tell what values to populate in the query at execution time in the next step.

NOTE: it is also important to note that I have named and created this particular Related Content Service in a very general fashion.  This is because I may want to attach a Google Search to many different components or pages and so I will want to use this definition over and over for possibly very different purposes.

Attaching the new URL Content to a page

This time we will attach the related content to just one page of the component.

Under manage Related Content Service select the component you want to attach the Related Content to a Page this time.

Now that I have selected "Services at Page level" I can select the individual page or pages that this service should appear under.  You can have services set up under both types: Component and Page, so mixing and matching is A-OK.

Now, select "Map Fields" but this time create one fixed value and one that pulls information from one of the fields on the page:

Select OK, then Save.  Give it a try! 

OK, this example may be pretty silly, but you can easily see how pulling information up on companies or products would work.

In the next blog entry we will incorporate PS Query results as Related Content.