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LinkedIn datasource

The LinkedIn datasource displays the posts of a LinkedIn Page — your company or organization page — on your screens. It is an external datasource: it signs in to LinkedIn through a LinkedIn cloud credential, reads the Page's posts, and refreshes them on a schedule.

Replaces the RSS workaround

Before this datasource existed, the usual way to show LinkedIn posts was to turn the Page into an RSS feed with a third-party service. The LinkedIn datasource connects to LinkedIn directly, so that extra service is no longer needed.

Prerequisites​

  • A LinkedIn Page for your company or organization.
  • A LinkedIn account that is an administrator of that Page. Only Pages where the signed-in account is an administrator can be selected.
  • The ability to sign in to LinkedIn while creating the credential.
  • A Wallboard account with permission to create cloud credentials and datasources.

Create the LinkedIn credential​

LinkedIn credentials have their own LinkedIn tab in Cloud Credentials.

  1. Go to Settings > Cloud Credentials and open the LinkedIn tab.
  2. Click to add a credential. The Add LinkedIn credential dialog opens.
  3. Enter a Name, then save.
  4. In the credential's row, click the Authenticate button and confirm. LinkedIn opens: sign in with the account that administers your Page, and allow access.

If the credential stops working — LinkedIn's sign-in doesn't last forever — click its Re-authenticate button and sign in again.

Create the LinkedIn datasource​

  1. Go to Settings > Datasources, open External datasources and click Add new.
  2. Choose LinkedIn as the datasource type.
  3. Fill in the LinkedIn settings:
    • Credentials — select the LinkedIn credential you created.
    • Datasource — select the LinkedIn Page whose posts you want to show. The list contains the Pages the credential's account administers.
  4. Set the refresh interval in the Advanced settings panel if you want a different cadence. Learn more: Refresh and caching
  5. Save the datasource.

Verify your setup​

After saving, the Preview panel fills with the Page's posts. Check that the post text, images and dates match the Page on LinkedIn.

Feed data structure​

The LinkedIn datasource returns the same RSS-style structure as a Facebook page feed: a channel object with an items array, one item per post.

  • items[].title — the beginning of the post's text (up to about 110 characters), for headlines.
  • items[].description — the post's text.
  • items[].publishDate — when the post was published.
  • items[].link — the post's address on LinkedIn, handy for a QR code.
  • items[].media.url and items[].attachments[] — the post's image or video.

LinkedIn posts don't include engagement counts such as likes or followers.

Learn more about the structure: Meta datasource — Feed data structure

Display the feed​

Because the data uses the RSS-style channel → items structure, you can show it with the Media widget the same way as an RSS feed: bind the widget to the datasource, and it cycles through the posts. You can also use data binding to place individual fields — text, image, date, link — into any widget.

Learn more: Media Widget

Datasource auto-deactivation

Like other external datasources, a LinkedIn datasource is deactivated after a period without device usage. Its data and settings are kept. Learn more: Auto-deactivation