Welcome To Scanner
Screenshot of the Edit Feed Information Interface
Scanner is a web-based RSS monitoring service maintained by the WolfTech Webteam. How is this any different from an RSS aggregator? One of the original audiences of this tool was those collecting news articles about their departments -- with an aggregator, you could certainly collect a lot of RSS feeds and see them all in one place, but do you have the time to READ them all? Scanner will look through your RSS feeds (which you'll submit and maintain -- and you can also use feeds others have collected) and then it will look for key phrases which you'll use to build 'search groups'. Any matches will be emailed to you -- and a short history is also available online for your convenience.
Scanner works like this: every two hours on the half hour, all of a user's chosen RSS feeds will be scanned for updates based on the 'search groups' or filters created for them. For example, if a user were to add the ESPN RSS feed and then set up a search group that for the phrase 'NC State', all updates to the ESPN RSS feed that included the keywords 'NC State' would be included in the email sent to you.
Please Note: Any RSS feed set up in Scanner requires a 'search group' or filter in order for any updates to be included in the automated email If you just want everything in an RSS feed to be emailed to you, this isn't the tool for you.
Access to Scanner
Screenshot of the Edit Search Group Interface
Anyone with a UnityID that can WRAP-Authenticate has the ability to use Scanner. Simply WRAP in and start creating feeds and search groups.
Features
Scanner has a multitude of features available for use by its users. These features include:
- Adding and removing any RSS feed you wish to include
- Creating filters for your RSS feeds so you only receive updates you want by email
- Email updates whenever one of your RSS feeds are updated based on the filters or 'Search Groups'
- Quick and easy editing of any feeds and/or filters
- The 'View History' page provides a 30-day listing of all activity of active RSS feeds set-up
- Listing of all the RSS feeds that users are using -- allowing you to add to your RSS feeds more easily.
How To Use Scanner
Using Scanner is very simple and straightforward. All you as a user need is the RSS feed URL to start. Once you have that, go to the 'my feeds' page and in the top right corner of the content area click on the RSS icon with the green circle and white plus sign. A pop-up box will then appear and have three fields, the first being a name for the RSS feed, the second field is where you would paste the RSS feed URL, and the final field is the category field which is chosen from a drop-down list. After filling out those fields, just click the 'Add Feed' button and your new RSS feed is now in the system.
The next step for setting up your RSS feed involves creating your desired search groups. To do this, click on the clipboard icon with the green and white arrow in the newly created grey box associated to your RSS feed. Once you have clicked on the icon, a beige colored box will appear below the grey RSS feed box. In the beige box, click on the clipboard icon with the green white plus sign and another pop-up box will appear. From this pop-up window, you need to choose the middle button called 'New Search Group'.
After doing so, a new pop-up will appear. In the first field, put in your desired filter name. Next, you need to choose between the two 'Search Group Types' and also if you want to search by 'Terms' or 'Search Groups.' In the case of choosing the 'Terms' option, a new field will appear below the 'Terms' option where you enter in the search term you wish to use. You also need to choose whether or not you need the search to be case sensitive and/or if the search needs to match the whole word. Once you have created all of the search terms you wish to use and their respective options, just click the 'Create Search Group' button and your search group will be added to your RSS feed.
Screenshot of the My Feeds Interface
You can also create a search group based on previous search groups. This is helpful if you want to create more advanced logic for RSS Scanner to use when searching. For example, if you wanted to find any time 'NC State' was mentioned in an article that also included the words 'Basketball' or 'Football', you could create one search group with the term 'NC State', and then another with the terms 'Basketball' and 'Football' that is set to match any occurrences of either words. RSS Scanner would allow me to create a third search group that is made up of the previous two, where I could set the logic to say "send me an e-mail when you find the word 'NC State' and also find either 'Basketball' or 'Football'".
Please Note: If you have already created a search group, you can apply it to any RSS feed you wish from the initial pop-up drop-down menu and then clicking the 'Add Search Group.' Also, a search group does not always have to be attached to a feed - they are sometimes used solely for building more complex logic into a larger search group.