Publishing Data to Your Own Website
You maintain a list of your team, your partners, your portfolio companies. It probably lives in a spreadsheet and gets pasted onto your website once a year. This module lets you keep that list in one place and have your own website read it automatically - so updating it once updates it everywhere.
What you will learn
- What this module is actually for, in plain terms
- How to set up a list and decide what information it holds
- The twelve kinds of information a field can hold
- How your website gets the data, and what to tell your web developer
- What the three statuses do and how to retire a list safely
The problem this solves#
Most centres keep the same information in two places. Your team page lives on your website, maintained by whoever has access to the website. The actual list of who works there lives in a spreadsheet. Someone joins, the spreadsheet gets updated, the website does not, and eighteen months later your site still lists a person who left. This module gives you one list, kept here, that your website reads directly.
Good to know
This is not your website. It is the information your website can pull from. You still need a website; what changes is that you stop maintaining the same list twice.
What people use it for#
Anything that is a list of similar things you want shown publicly.
Team members
Names, roles, photographs, short bios. The list most likely to go stale on a website.
Partners and sponsors
Logos and links. Useful when a sponsor asks to see their logo on your site the week they sign.
Portfolio companies
Your startups, with sector and stage. A showcase page that maintains itself as cohorts come through.
Success stories
Case studies with an image and a link, presented consistently rather than as ad-hoc page edits.
Mentors and advisors
The people backing your centre - good for credibility, tedious to maintain by hand.
Events and programs
Upcoming intakes or events, published from the same place you already track them.
Your lists#
Website in the left-hand menu shows every list you have set up, with three figures across the top: how many lists exist, how many are live, and how many individual entries you have in total.
- Each list shows how many entries it holds, how many fields its structure defines, its status and when it was created.
- Search by name and filter by status.
- An API Key column appears for each list - that is the credential your website uses to read it. Treat it like a password.
Setting up a list#
Two parts: name it, then define what information each entry holds. That second part is the bit worth thinking about before you start clicking, because changing it later means revisiting entries you have already created.
- 1
Name it after what it contains
'Team Members', 'Partners', 'Portfolio Projects'. The description is for your own team - say what belongs in here and, if it matters, what does not.
- 2
Add a field for each piece of information
A field is one piece of information every entry will have. For a team member: name, role, photo, bio. Add Field creates a row where you give the field a name and pick what kind of information it holds.
- Field names work best in lowercase with underscores - full_name, job_title, photo_url. Your web developer will thank you.
- The Required toggle means an entry cannot be saved without that field filled in. Use it for the things that would look broken if missing - a name, a photo.
- Fields have a drag handle, so you can reorder them to match how the information reads.
Tip: Sketch your fields on paper first. Adding a field later is easy; realising halfway through forty entries that you needed one is not.
- 3
Create it, then add your entries
Once the list exists you add entries one at a time, or in bulk if you are migrating an existing spreadsheet. Entries can be edited and deleted individually.
The twelve kinds of field#
Picking the right kind matters because it decides how the information is checked when someone types it in, and how your website can use it.
| Field type | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Text (Short) | Names, job titles, one-line labels. |
| Text (Long) | Biographies, descriptions, case study text. |
| Number | Founding year, headcount, amounts. |
| Boolean | A yes/no flag - 'featured on homepage', for instance. |
| Date | Joined date, event date, cohort start. |
| Image URL | Photographs and logos. |
| Document URL | A PDF - a case study, a report, a brochure. |
| URL | A website or profile link. |
| Contact addresses. Checked for a valid format. | |
| Phone | Contact numbers. |
| Select | One choice from a fixed set - a sector, a stage. |
| Multi Select | Several choices from a fixed set - multiple sectors. |
Tip
Use Select rather than short text wherever the answer comes from a fixed list. Typed-in sectors turn into 'Fintech', 'FinTech' and 'fin-tech' within a month, and your website cannot group them.
Good to know
Image URL and Document URL hold a link to a file rather than the file itself. Upload your photo or PDF wherever you normally do, then paste the address here.
How your website gets the data#
Each list has an API key - a long string that acts as a read password. Your web developer uses it to fetch the list, and your website then displays it however it likes. You do not need to understand the mechanics; you need to know three things about the key.
- Give the key to whoever builds your website, and nobody else.
- Send it the way you would send a password - not in a public channel or a shared document.
- If it is ever exposed, regenerate it. The old key stops working immediately, so tell your developer before you do.
Only publish what you would put on a poster
Everything in these lists is intended to be public. Do not put a startup's confidential figures, a mentor's personal phone number or anything a founder shared in confidence into a repository - even if the list is currently inactive. Treat every field as though it is already on your homepage.
Tip
There is usage information available - how many times the data has been fetched and by whom. If a list is never being read, your website is probably not actually using it, which is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon updating it.
The three statuses#
Status controls whether your website can read a list, without you having to delete anything.
| Status | What it means | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Live. Your website can read it. | Normal state for anything in use. |
| Inactive | Paused. The data is kept but not served. | Mid-rewrite, or a partner list you are between agreements on. |
| Archived | Retired. Kept for the record. | Last year's cohort showcase you no longer display. |
Important
Setting a list to Inactive will make whatever it feeds disappear from your website. If your team page goes blank, check the status of the list behind it before assuming the website is broken.
Common questions#
No. It holds the information your website can read. You still have a website built and hosted wherever it is now; this stops you maintaining the same lists twice.
It is a read password for one list. Give it to whoever builds or maintains your website and nobody else. If it leaks, regenerate it - but warn your developer first, because the old key stops working straight away.
Not into the field. Image URL and Document URL hold a link, so upload the file wherever you normally host images and paste the address in.
Check the status of the list behind it. Inactive and Archived both stop the data being served, and that is the most common cause.
Yes, but existing entries will have it empty until you go back and fill them in. Worth planning your fields before you add forty entries.
Select, every time, if the options are known. Free text produces three spellings of the same sector within a month and your website cannot group or filter them.
Public Repository is one of the nineteen permission areas. It usually sits with whoever handles communications, since the content is public-facing.
