The purpose of an External item

Use an External item to link to a webpage or web content that is held outside of Typecase. An External item can be pinned to these content types that support the Pinned item component:

Topics
Landing page
Case studies
Project

You should create an External item when you want to pin a link to:

a page on another website, such as a story on The Conversation or guidance from gov.uk
a blog post on blogs.bath.ac.uk or another website
a downloadable document that doesn't exist as a Publication in Typecase
a gallery of images on another website, such as Flickr
a podcast hosted on another website, such as SoundCloud
a filtered list of Bath pages in Typecase
a video on another website, such as Vimeo

Don't create an External item for:

a page that is already in Typecase
an event hosted on another website such as Eventbrite - instead, create an Event in Typecase and select the option 'This event has an external page' in the Link only component.

Appearance

An External item can be pinned to select pages to link users to a page on another website. It will display the same as pinned items which link to Typecase pages, with a Title, Summary and an optional pinned item image.

Creating content

Subtype

You should choose from one of the Subtypes listed on the template to tell Typecase which type of External item you are creating. Some external URLs are restricted depending on the Subtype you choose.

Core components

The External item must have a User need, Title, Summary, Navigation and Owning organisation. Read more about these in our Core components guide.

The Title and Summary of your External item don't have to be the same as on the page you're linking to if there is a clearer or more informative way of naming it.

You can choose to add a Featured image to your External item that will appear when it is pinned to a landing page.

Labels

You can create an External item without using Labels. If you do need Labels, find out more about how they work.

Adding the External URL

Paste the full URL of the external page into the External link component.

Typecase will only accept certain URLs for each of the subtypes listed. You need to make sure you have selected the correct Subtype in order to save your External item. For example, if you select External site, you will not be able to paste a bath.ac.uk URL into the External link component, as Typecase will know that it is a Bath-owned site.

If you need to use a bath.ac.uk URL with a subtype that doesn't accept this type of URL, contact web-support@bath.ac.uk to let us know why, and we may be able to create the External item for you.

Previewing External items

External items are only displayed on the Topic or Landing page to which they are pinned. This means that, while you can save a draft of an External item, if you would like to see how it will display, you must publish it first. Once you have published the External item, you can pin it to its destination Topic or Landing page and preview it as part of the whole page.

Creating an External item in Typecase

How to create an External item to link to web content from the University website. Part of the Typecase manual.