How integrations work

An integration connects one external source to one mix and creates a card for every new item it finds. Set it up once, then let the feed fill itself.

Twelve sources can be connected without a developer:

• Social: X, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn company pages, LinkedIn user profiles

• Audio and video: YouTube, Apple Podcasts

• Web and news: RSS, Web scraping, Google News

Each has its own page with the exact source format and the quirks specific to that platform. This page covers what is true for all of them.

Anything beyond that list, from SharePoint to an internal CMS to a partner API, is still possible through the tchop API or a workflow tool such as n8n. That is a project, not a self-service setting.

The basic idea

One integration is a pairing of one source and one mix. That pairing is the whole model, and it gives you a lot of room:

• Connect five sources to the same mix to build a combined feed.

• Connect one source to two mixes in different channels to serve two audiences.

• Keep each source in its own mix when the formats do not belong side by side.

Integrations are configured per channel. A source connected in Channel A does not appear in Channel B. Either add it there as well, or connect it once and distribute the mix with a read-only or sync mix. See Syncing mixes.

Settings every integration has

You will find them in the dashboard under Integrations. Pick a source type, then Add integration.

Mix. The mix that receives the cards. Chosen once at creation and fixed after that. To move a source to a different mix, delete the integration and create it again.

Name. An internal label, shown only in the integrations list. Use something you will recognise in six months: "Corporate channel", "CEO posts", "Partner: Bosch".

Source. What to watch. For most types that is the URL of the account itself, not a single post: a channel, a profile, a company page, a show. Three work differently. RSS takes a feed URL, web scraping takes the section page of a website, and Google News takes the URL of a search you ran. Each platform accepts a specific format and rejects the rest, which is why every type has its own page.

Fetch last cards. How many existing items to import on the first run: 0, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 50. Set once at creation and not editable afterwards.

• 0 for a clean start. Nothing historic, only what appears from now on.

• 2 or 5 when you want the feed to look alive on day one.

• Higher numbers when you are building an archive mix. How many actually arrive depends on how far back the source lets us read, which differs per platform.

Auto-publish. On means new cards go live in the mix as soon as they are created. Off means they arrive unpublished and an editor publishes them by hand.

• Own account, trusted output: on.

• Third-party or partner sources: off. You want a look before it reaches your audience.

• Regulated or works-council-sensitive environments: off, and note the review step in your editorial guidelines.

Some types add their own settings on top. YouTube and Google News let you choose the teaser image style. X lets you decide whether reposts and replies come in as well. Web scraping adds the choice between article cards and long posts, plus a source name override.

Everyday operations

How fast new content shows up. Every source is checked roughly every 30 minutes, the same for all types. Something published on the source appears in your mix within about half an hour, not within seconds. For anything time-critical, create the card by hand and let the integration catch the rest.

Pause instead of delete. Every integration has a pause control. A paused integration keeps its configuration and stops creating cards. Use it during a campaign freeze, a holiday period or while you sort out a problem on the source side.

Deleting keeps your content. Removing an integration stops the sync. The cards it already created stay in the mix and behave like normal cards. Nothing disappears from the feed.

Read the status. The list shows Active, Paused or Error per integration, plus the source URL, the target mix and who created it. Filter by status to see the ones that need attention.

One source per mix. Adding the same source to the same mix twice is rejected. That is deliberate, it prevents double cards.

Editing. Name, URL, auto-publish and the type-specific settings stay editable after creation. Mix and backfill do not.

Limits worth knowing before you start

The source is not yours to control. Every automated source belongs to someone else. Accounts get renamed, made private, rate-limited or deleted. When that happens the integration switches to Error and records the reason. Check your list after any rebrand on the source side.

Errors are silent by default. Nothing pings you when an integration fails. Someone has to open the integrations page and look, so put it on a weekly routine. For sources you genuinely depend on, we can set up an email alert on request. Keep that for the few that matter, otherwise the alerts become noise nobody reads.

Metadata comes as it is. Titles, text and images are taken from the source. A weak headline on the source becomes a weak card title. You can edit any card after it is created, but the fix is per card, not per integration.

Backfill is a one-time event. Fetch last cards runs at creation only. Setting it too low and noticing later means adding the cards by hand or rebuilding the integration.

Deleted items leave dead cards. Something removed on the source side leaves a card in tchop pointing at nothing. Worth a spot check now and then, especially on sources you do not own.

Not every format survives the trip. Each platform has content types that do not translate into a rich card, and some that cannot be brought in at all. The per-type pages say which.

Auto-publish is a decision, not a default to ignore. Left on for a source you do not control, it publishes whatever that source publishes, straight to your audience.

Good to know

• Cards created by an integration behave like any other card. Pin them, tag them, push them, sync them, edit them.

• Integrations create cards. They do not remove or reorder anything you curated by hand.

• Rights and licensing are yours to sort out. Automating the transport of someone else's content does not automate permission to republish it. Before you connect a source you do not own, make sure you are allowed to reproduce what it publishes.

Summary

An integration is one source feeding one mix, checked every 30 minutes. Choose the mix, paste the source URL, decide on backfill and whether items publish themselves. After that the job is a weekly glance at the status list, because sources break quietly and nobody gets told.

Pick your source to see the setup details: X, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, RSS, Web scraping, Google News.