Displaying External XML-Based Content

This section describes how to integrate and display XML-based third-party content in the portal.

Note Note

This section is intended for third-party content providers who want to create business packages of iViews that can display their content in the portal.

End of the note.

Purpose

Third-party content providers supply a variety of information, such as news headlines, weather reports, market data and industry-specific reports. Generally, this content is available on the web in XML format via simple HTTP requests or SOAP messages.

The portal's content provider framework enables you to easily create business packages of iViews, pages and worksets that will display this content in the portal. The framework works with both HTTP requests and SOAP messages, and helps you either create the proper URL or SOAP message for each XML source.

The portal already provides an XML iView template that enables you to specify an XML source URL and a transformer. The XML iView can then render the content. The framework extends this capability by providing:

Portal components that transform and render XML content retrieved via SOAP
Dynamic creation of URLs for content retrieved via HTTP
Administration and personalization of parameters
Linking between content provider iViews
Dynamic authentication parameters, such as user name and password
Basic Drag&Relate

This section describes the following:

Architecture: Provides background information on the content provider framework.
How to Build a Content Provider: Describes how to use the content provider framework API to build a content provider.
Essential Information: The portalapp.xml configuration and the JAR files for working with the content provider framework.

Implementation Considerations

For content providers with simple XML sources retrieved via HTTP requests that do not need to set parameters at runtime, it may be simpler to use XML iViews.

For more information, see the SAP NetWeaver documentation on the Help Portal (http://help.sap.com) → SAP NetWeaver → People Integration → Portal → Administration Guide → Content Administration → iViews → Creating iViews → Creating XML iViews.

Constraints

With the content provider framework, headers cannot be set using HTTP connectivity. Headers can be set with SOAP connectivity.

There is no default mechanism for caching SOAP responses.