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Embed RSS news feed web part into SharePoint or Viva Connections (Updated 2025)

January 8, 2024

Despite first being released in 1999 (yeah, a quarter of a century ago) RSS feeds are still a go-to format to syndicate news from different sources. This makes it also an ideal tool to show local news, weather, traffic updates, and more to users of your intranet.

SharePoint used to offer a built-in RSS reader web part, but it was broken for many years until it was removed in 2024 alongside other SharePoint Connectors.

The built-in RSS feeds web part was broken and visually bland

From the SharePoint store: RSS feeds web part

Luckily there is an easy replacement available directly on Microsoft AppSource: RSS feed web part for SharePoint. It’s free to try, and offers a modern clean look for your news feeds.

Simply add the RSS web part to your page, enter your feed URL, select a layout and click Continue. (Detailed installation instructions are available here.) Your feed will then automatically appear in the web part. If the feed is too long you can also limit how many articles are being imported from the feed.

Various feed layouts offer a large degree of customizability

In Viva Connections dashboard (or the Dashboard web part) the process is very similar. Simply add the “RSS feeds” Card (which comes as part of the same SharePoint app installation) to your dashboard.

The only difference is that, since the Dashboard is built with simpler Adaptive Cards, the only available layout is a list. Once your feed is connected, you will get a little summary view in your Dashboard Card, and then the full feed when you click on it.

What feeds can I use for my web part?

Here’s a few ideas what kind of feed URLs you could use for your intranet RSS web part.

1. Your own company blog

Simply go to your company’s website or blog and either search for the RSS feed or use a RSS feed finder website, like https://feedsearch.dev/. For example, if you use WordPress you can even get category-specific feeds by appending /feed to any page on your blog (learn more).

2. Podcasts

If your organization produces or recommends a podcast, simply use a tool like https://castos.com/tools/find-podcast-rss-feed/ to find it’s RSS feed URL. But there is actually a dedicated podcast web part that offers an in-line player, which you could check out.

3. Google News RSS feed

Another popular option, especially to create industry news feeds or just local news for your SharePoint web part, is to use search parameters for Google News. For example using this tutorial you could create:

Free RSS web part

Embed a RSS feed into your SharePoint pages (as a web part or Adaptive Card) in just 5 minutes with the free RSS feed app from Microsoft AppSource

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