Integration Gallery

Integration Gallery

  • AddThis

    AddThis is a popular page sharing service that allows your website visitors to share your web pages with their friends via Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other social services. It features many different button styles, and has analytics features that help you better understand how and why your web pages are being shared. It's completely free to use.

    Setting it up

    1. Go to http://www.addthis.com/web-button-select.
    2. Choose "Website" as the location for your button, select your style, decide if you want analytics, and click the button to get your code.
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the code from step 2. Save the part with default settings.
    4. Place this part on any NetCommunity page or template where you would like to enable page sharing.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

  • Disqus Commenting System

    The Disqus commenting system is a universal commenting system that can be easily integrated into a Blackbaud NetCommunity (or virtually any) website to let your online visitors engage in conversation with you and with each other. It features threaded comments, anonymous commenting, integrated social media features, single sign in with popular sites like Facebook and Twitter, spam filtering, restricted word lists, whitelists and blacklists. It's completely free to use.

    Examples
    Blackbaud Labs - The Blackbaud Labs site has been using Disqus comments for a while, with good success.

    Setting it up

    1. Register for a free account on Disqus.com
    2. Choose the "Universal Code" option when viewing the install instructions.
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the "embed code" from Disqus. Save the part with default settings.
    4. Place this part after a piece of content on any NetCommunity page wherever you would like to enable commenting. You can also place it on a template to enable commenting on any pages derived from that template.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

    • The comments that your users leave become part of the Disqus commenting system, and are hosted there, not on your NetCommunity server. This has some advantages - you have access to a rich moderation panel provided by Disqus.com - but also some disadvantages - you can't report on the comments from NetCommunity or your CRM.
    • The Disqus commenting system does not integrate with NetCommunity logins. This means that online users have to log in to the commenting system separately. Disqus integrates with Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, and a host of other authentication systems so the impact on usability of your site should be minimal.
    • Disqus associates a comment thread with a unique URL. The default behavior should work in almost all circumstances, but if you need to change URLs or otherwise customize how Disqus associates comments with a page, you can read more in the Disqus Knowledge Base.
  • Facebook

    With over 600 million registered users, Facebook is not only the world's most popular social network, but the most popular website of any kind. Facebook offers a great set of freely-available social plugins to socially enable your website. Take a look to see all the different plugins available.

    Setting it up

    1. From the Facebook Social Plugins page, select the plugin you would like to put on your site.
    2. Fill out the prompts on Facebook to customize your selected plugin and hit the "Get Code" button.
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the code from step 2. Save the part with default settings.
    4. Place the part as desired on your NetCommunity site.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

    • Not all Facebook Social Plugins are supported in NetCommunity. While you are technically able to embed plugins such as the "Login Button", it is not a replacement for the NetCommunity Login.
  • Flickr Photo Slideshows

    Flickr is a very popular, free, photo sharing website that lets you upload, organize, and share your photos. Its photo organizational tools are second to none and the system works extremely well for managing large numbers of photos. Flickr also lets you embed photos stored on its service in your own NetCommunity website in an elegant slideshow. The Flickr community has built a number of other ways to embed Flickr photos and galleries, and we mention some of our favorites further down this page, but we will focus here on how to embed Flickr's default slideshow.

    Examples
    You can see what an embedded Flickr slideshow looks like and tinker with available settings (these photos were taken by Steve MacLaughlin, our Director of Internet Solutions here at Blackbaud). With Flickr, you organize your photos into sets, and here we will embed a slideshow of a particular set in your NetCommunity page.

    Setting it up

    1. Navigate to the set you want to embed on Flickr and click the "Slideshow" link near the top right of the screen.
    2. When the slideshow loads, click the "Share" link near the top left. You can grab the embed code from there, or hit the "Customize this HTML" link to change the size of your slideshow and preview it. Copy the embed code for your set.
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the embed code from Flickr. Save the part with default settings.
    4. Place this part on any page wherever you would like this slideshow to appear. You can continue to manage your photos in Flickr and this slideshow will update automatically.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

    This is just one way to embed Flickr photos in your site. Because it's offered by Flickr (which is owned by Yahoo), it is probably the most reliable, however here are some other options that may be worth exploring:

    • PictoBrowser provides a tool to build very customizable and functional Flickr slideshows using their online tool PictoBuilder.
    • Googling "Flickr Slideshow" yields a host of other options. Feel free to explore and share your experiences below in the comments!
  • Vimeo

    The video sharing site Vimeo has staked its reputation on a streamlined video player and support for high quality (even HD) video, making it a favorite of serious filmmakers and amateurs alike. You can easily embed Vimeo videos in your NetCommunity site by following the instructions below.

    Setting it up

    1. On Vimeo, navigate to the video you would like to embed.
    2. Hit the "embed" button that appears on top of the video when you move your mouse over the video player.
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the code from step 2. Save the part with default settings. Note that in Vimeo's embed dialog there a number of custom options to control how the video will appear on your site.
    4. Place the part wherever you would like to embed this video.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

    • Before uploading videos to Vimeo, make sure you agree with their terms of service and that you aren't uploading content for which you don't control the copyright.
    • Note that even if you embed the video on your own website, the video is still hosted by Vimeo and will rely on their servers for playback.
  • YouTube

    The ubiquitous, Google-owned video sharing site YouTube is the most popular and largest collection of user-generated videos online, and a common source of videos you might want to put on your website. Embedding video on your organization's home page is a quick and very effective way to generate engagement online.

    Setting it up

    1. On YouTube, navigate to the video you would like to embed.
    2. Hit the "embed" button below the video and copy the code (the button is highlighted in red in the below screen shot).

      youtube-screen
    3. Create a new Unformatted Text part in NetCommunity and paste in the code from step 2. Save the part with default settings.
    4. Place the part wherever you would like to embed this video.

    Gotchas, Caveats, and More Information

    • Before uploading videos to YouTube, make sure you agree with their terms of serviceand that you aren't uploading content for which you don't control the copyright.
    • Note that even if you embed the video on your own website, the video is still hosted by YouTube and will rely on their servers for playback.