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

The platform comes with a number of preconfigured pages that cover its principal functionalities. For example, My courses and learning plans, Course catalog, My dashboard, and so on. These are called “built-in pages” and cannot be modified. 

In addition to these, you have the option to configure your own “custom pages” to meet your particular requirements. There are two types of custom pages: 

• Widget pages, where you compose a layout using a number of provided widgets. For these, see the article Creating and managing widget pages.
• External link pages, where you either embed or link to the content of an external website. These are the topic of this article. 

For more background information see the article Introduction to pages and menus.

Types of external link pages 

When you set up an external link page, you can choose what happens when a learner selects that page from their user menu:

i) As a new page: with this setting, users are redirected to the target website, which will open in a new browser tab or window 

ii) In page (iFrame):  with this setting, users remain within the platform, and view the external content embedded inside a platform page

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.

Create a new external link page

To create an external link page: 

1. Select Admin menu > Settings > Manage pages. Then click the plus button in the top right corner.
2. In the New Custom Page panel, select the External link option and click Next.
3. 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).
4. 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.

General settings of an external link page 

The general settings of an external link page are opened automatically whenever you create a new page of this type. You can also access this screen for an existing page: From Admin menu > Settings > Manage pages, click the name of an external link page (the Type column shows which ones are external link pages).

Code, name and description

 In these fields you can edit the details entered when the page was created: 

• Remember that Code may not begin  with DOC_ or doc_ as these are reserved prefixes

You can click Select fields language to add translations of the Page name and Description: Turn off the toggle Assign same content to all languages, then select each language in turn to add a translation.

External link properties

Here you can set or change the URL of the external web content that you want to show, and also set in Opens whether you want to link to or embed the external web content: 

• As a new page: This option will link to the external website. When learners select this page in their platform menu, they will be redirected to the targeted URL, which will open in a separate browser tab or window (depending on browser settings).
• In page (iframe): This option will embed the external website content within a platform page. For details of how to set it up, see the chapter Set up an external link that opens In page (iframe)

Finally, in the Page icon field, you can change the icon that will appear alongside this page in the user menu. In the panel to select an icon, you can also search for the icon name, but only in English.
For platforms with Discover, Coach & Share, in Additional page buttons you can set which buttons should appear on this page. 

Set up an external link that opens “In page (iframe)” 

This option allows you to embed the content of an external website within a platform page, so users can consult it without leaving their learning platform. 

Please note: You cannot use this option to iframe the URLs of internal platform pages. When iframing external content, you also need to check whether the URL you are targeting allows iframe embedding, or requires authentication. 

To set it up, from the General settings of the external link page, under External link properties > Opens select the option In page (iframe). Then set the following fields:

Height (px): You can optionally specify how many pixels tall you want the iframe to be inside the platform page. Leave this field blank to automatically calculate the height.  

To help users with assistive technologies, in the Iframe title field add a descriptive title for use by screen readers.

Authentication settings for embedded pages

If the external website you want to embed requires authentication, turn on Advanced settings, where you can configure the following fields to securely pass credentials:

Salt secret: This is a shared secret used to generate secure tokens between the learning platform and the external website. This ensures that any authentication requests are tamper-proof. 
→ The value you enter here must match the value expected by the external system. Repeat the same value in the Repeat secret field.

OAuth client: If the external website supports OAuth, you can select a previously configured OAuth client here. This will allow learners to be signed in automatically without needing to enter their platform credentials again.

Check that a site allows iframe embedding

When configuring an external URL to open inside an iframe, make sure the website allows embedding. This depends on the site’s Content Security Policy (CSP) and X-Frame-Options settings. If these headers block iframes, the page will not load inside your platform.

You can check this using free online tools, or by opening your browser’s developer tools and inspecting the response headers when visiting the external site’s URL.

External link pages and the mobile app

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). 

Finishing steps

When you have completed the configuration of the page, make sure to click Save changes at the bottom of the screen. 

There you will also see an indication of the Published / Unpublished status of your page. Newly created pages are published by default. Learners will only be able to access pages that are published, and also included in their user menu.

So to make the newly configured page visible to learners you need to publish it, and also add it to the appropriate user menus. For more information see the article: Making pages and menus visible to users > Make a page visible in your users’ navigation menu.