Overview
Twitter bulletins are dynamic bulletins that allows the parsing and display of a number of different feeds from Twitter with a fair amount of control. This integration requires the server to be allowed to reach twitter.com and a twitter account to authenticate with the Twitter API. This dynamic bulletin type only displays Tweets on your digital signage, it does not post them to Twitter.
Where to Start
Because Twitter bulletins use external authentication with Twitter, first log into the Carousel web interface and navigate to Settings (Gear Icon) → Configure → System → External Authentication and ensure that a Twitter account is linked and displayed (if this is not the case, see the Authenticating with Twitter section). If the external authentication is correct and working, attempt to navigate to Twitter.com on the server and ensure it can connect then lastly try to edit or make a new Twitter dynamic bulletin and follow the errors to find the correct section in this article.
Common Issues/Questions
You have no Twitter authentications (click here to create)
A external authentication to Twitter is required for Twitter bulletins, see the Authenticating with Twitter section.
"I don't have access to the Twitter account I want to display for the authentication"
The account used for the external authentication is only used to get to the Twitter API, you are not limited to showing the account you authenticate with. Any Twitter account can be used for the authentication, and from there any other account/handle/feed can be displayed. See the Search Examples section
Your Twitter authentication is invalid (click here to update) / @NotAuthorized is displayed
A previous external Twitter authentication was made, but has since been unauthorized within Twitter. This could have either been done manually by someone with access to that Twitter account, or all authenticated apps were deleted by Twitter (which can happen if you change the password after receiving an email from Twitter that your password might be compromised). Whatever the cause, simply click the "(click here to update)" link, click "Re-link Twitter Account", sign back into your Twitter account and authorize the Carousel app again. If this happens often on a shared account, ensure that all account users know not to remove Carousel from the Apps and devices section in Twitter.
"My Tweets are not showing" / Bulletin says there is no content to display
Due to a limitation with the Twitter API, Carousel can only show recent Tweets that are within about 1-2 weeks old. So be sure to Tweet often! Tweets are pulled into Carousel every 15 minutes so the tweet can take up to 15 minutes to begin showing in Carousel.
Best Practices for multiple twitter bulletins
If you are going to be using more than a handful of separate twitter bulletins in Carousel, you will want to create multiple authentications to use separately to avoid running into Twitter API rate limitations. You should also avoid using personal accounts if possible in case of future turnover etc. Depending on your organization, instead consider using separate accounts per department and making separate authentications for each.
Authenticating with Twitter
Twitter requires applications to authenticate in order to use some aspects of their API. Carousel will need a Twitter account to authenticate with to make queries to obtain data. Before a Twitter bulletin can be made, an authentication must be made.
Step 1: Log into the Carousel Web Interface and navigate to Settings (Gear) → Configure → System → External Authentication and press the button for a new authentication.
Step 2: Change the type from RSS to Twitter and click "Link Twitter Account":
Step 3: Log into Twitter with any account you want to authenticate with. If you are already logged into Twitter you'll see the Authorize App confirmation automatically. The account you authenticate with is only used to get data from Twitter, you can still display Tweets from any other Twitter account as log as that account is not muted, protected or blocked. Click "Authorize App." If you get a blank white page with a log error, see the Other Errors section of this KB for help to resolve that error.
Step 4: After the authorization is finished, you will be redirected to the authentications list. The Twitter account will be listed in the authentication. Ensure this is correct then head over to the zone you want to make a Twitter bulletin in.
Step 5: To create a Twitter bulletin, first go to the zone you wish to display one in. Click New Bulletin, click the Dynamic option, then click Twitter. Your account will automatically populate in the authentication section, change the "Search" section to your desired search parameters, the most commonly used search is "from:handle" where handle is replaced with the handle you want to display. To display our tweet we would use "from:trms" - see Search Examples for more options. Just press Publish and your Twitter bulletin is all set, it will automatically poll Twitter, find new content and update the bulletin every 15 minutes.
Search Examples
You can tailor what data is displayed by changing the search parameters in your Twitter bulletin as shown here:
Here are a few examples. We will use trms where a twitter handle would go, simply replace trms with any handle when shown:
from:trms
Display all tweets, replies and retweets made from a specific account.
from:trms, or from:trms2
Display all tweets, replies and retweets made from multiple specific accounts.
from:trms exclude:retweets
Display tweets and replies but not retweets made from a specific account.
from:trms exclude:replies
Display tweets and retweets but not replies made from a specific account.
from:trms lang:en
Display all tweets, replies and retweets made from a specific account in which the language is English. This is helpful if you want to display an account that posts in multiple languages. For example you can have two separate twitter bulletins, one with lang:en and the other with lang:es to group all English tweets together followed by all Spanish tweets together.
#hashtag
Display the newest instances of a #hashtag - you can filter out profanity or specific words by editing your zone and adding a list of words you wish not to be displayed in the Default Excluded Words section.
#hashtag near:"Minneapolis"
Display the newest instances of a #hashtag made around a geographical location - you can filter out profanity or specific words by editing your zone and adding a list of words you wish not to be displayed in the Default Excluded Words section.
trms
Displays all instances of trms, including not only tweets, replies and retweets, but also responses and mentions from other users. We do not suggest using this search, even with Default Excluded Words set for the zone.
You can find more examples and explanations of Twitter Advanced Search here and a GUI to help craft more specific searches here.
Displaying Images
Image data is already pulled in by the Twitter bulletin, but it is not displayed unless there is a web picture block that uses the correct tag. To display images, create a new Twitter bulletin to work with. Click the Layout tab, click Blocks, create a new block. Change the type to "Web Picture", click the Picture section and change the URL to #ItemImageURL# - arrange the blocks to fit in the layout and publish the bulletin. If there is an image in the tweet, it will display in the web picture block. For more help on layouts and dynamic fields, please see into our training offerings.
Excluded Words
The excluded words field can be used to do just that, exclude specific words or hashtags that you do not wish to display in Carousel. You can create a comma separated list in the settings of your twitter bulletins.