Disclaimer: Some content in this article outlines how to use functionalities that may not be available on all plans. Get in touch with your account manager (if your plan includes this option) or reach out to Docebo using your platform's Help center if you wish to upgrade your plan.
Introduction
External link pages are used to open links from external websites. These pages can be opened either directly in your desktop platform or in your mobile app, or in a new tab or in a new window of the user’s browser, according to the browser configuration.
External link pages are available both for desktop and for mobile.
Please note: You can create up to 1,000 pages and 200 menus, including built-in pages and the default menu.
Creating External Link Pages
To create an external link page:
- Select Admin menu > Settings > Manage pages. Then click the plus button in the top right corner.
- In the New Custom Page panel, select the External link option and click Next.
- In the Details tab, enter the Page name and the external link URL (note that at this time, you cannot add a mailto: address as a URL).
Remember, it is strongly recommended not to create iframe external link pages for internal platform pages. - You can also optionally add a Description of the page, and Code that can serve as a unique identifier for your page.
→ Do not use codes beginning with DOC_ or doc_ as these prefixes are reserved for use by the platform.
Press Create and edit to proceed to the page configuration. You will be redirected to the General Settings page, where you can customize various elements and settings of the page.
Begin by flagging whether you want to publish the page or not. By default, all new pages are published. By unpublishing the page, it will no longer visible in the menus to which it is assigned, and users will not be able to access it. You can always change the publication status of the page using the publishing bar. Please note that once you change a page from Published to Unpublished, users will not be able to access that page, even if it is in a menu to which they have visibility. The page will be hidden from the user’s menu until it is Published again.
Open the General Settings section area. Here, you can edit any of the page details that you configured in the slide-out panel when creating the page. Then, in the External Link Properties section, flag whether you want to open the page as a new page, or as an iframe in the platform. If you’ve flagged the option to open the page as an iframe within the platform, you can also determine the height of the page.
Note for the mobile app:
When navigating to an external page, the mobile app will open the page corresponding to the URL you have entered. If you selected the In Page (iframe) option, the external page will open inside the app as an iframe, while if you selected the As a New Page option, the external page will be opened in a new tab of the device’s browser (Safari, Chrome, or others).
Some sources of external content may have security mechanisms in place. If this is the case, you may be required to utilize an OAuth client that you have set up in a previous step. You can switch the Advanced Settings toggle to add a Salt Secret and Repeat Secret for the iframe.
Then, select the OAuth Client from the dropdown menu, if necessary. By providing the salt secret, you are adding a checksum to the data, ensuring that the credentials for this access are maintained securely. If you do not add the salt secret, the external content will be launched from your platform without any additional parameters that may be required by the provider of the content. More information on salt secrets (opens in a new tab).
Select an icon to identify your page by clicking on the existing icon and selecting another one in the right panel. You can optionally look for the icon name, but remember that the search only works in English. Move to the Additional Page Buttons section, flag whether you want to display the Share Content button and the Ask the Expert button in the top right corner of your page. When these buttons are displayed, users will be able to upload assets and/or ask questions to experts directly from this page by using the corresponding buttons. Please note that these options are available only when the Discover, Coach & Share module is active in your platform.
Once you’ve finished, press Save Changes to complete the page creation.
Please Note: It is not possible to add HTML to iframe an internal platform page.
Tips and Tricks
Before embedding an External Link page, be sure to check that Content-Security-Policy and x-frame-options of the site you are embedding to make sure that the site is set to allow iframe embedding. There are free tools available on the Internet that can help you in checking this configuration, or you can use your web browser development tools to check the response header when navigating to the URL of the remote site.