How to embed Youtube videos and Playlists into your Launchpad

With in my organisation we had a requirement to create training content for staff you do not have access to the corporate network.  The way we decided to get around this was to create Unlisted Youtube videos, inside an Unlisted Youtube Playlist.  Then embed this in to our fiori launchpad.

Unlisted v Private Videos

When uploading your videos to Youtube I recommend putting setting them as unlisted if you do not want them to be viewable to the general public.  This is because Unlisted videos are only viewable with the URL.  If you set your videos to Private anyone you want to see them will need a Youtube account.

Then in order to view multiple videos in a playlist you need to exactly the same and set the playlist to unlisted too.

Sharing the Playlist

Now you have unlisted videos inside your unlisted playlist you need to get the url your launchpad tile is going to point to.

Note:  A lot of websites including google and youtube do not allow you to view them inside an iFrame, which is essentially what you application frame is. Follow the next bit carefully for how to get around this.

Firstly, make sure all of your videos are set to allow embedding (you’ll see why in a bit.  You don’t have to copy all the settings shown below, just the embedding bit.

Next, you need to get the url for your playlist.  You get this buy going to your playlist and clicking on SHARE, then EMBED. But look closely as you don’t want the entire iframe html script.  You only need the SRC value inside (not including the speech marks).

This is because your fiori app frame is already an iFrame, so you just need to enter the SRC value.  Also by clicking the embed options the videos will play automatically inside your fiori window.

Setting Up LPD_CUST

Now that you have everything you need to set up your tile.  Go in to your gateway system and transaction LPD_CUST, go in to your launchpad instance and create a New Application of type URL.

Then in the URL section paste the SRC value you collected from Youtube.   If you look carefully you will see this SRC value has the word embed in it.

Then in the advanced settings make you have set an application alias value, as this will be used later on.  That’s all you need to set, everything else can be left as it is.

Setting up the tile

Now all the Gateway settings are in place it’s time to move on the the launchpad and the tile values.

First we are going to set up a semantic object, this will link to the values you just set in Gateway.  On the left hand side choose your semantic object values, I gave these a name closest to what i was trying to achieve but this is up to you.

Then on the right hand side put in all the details that match to config you just did in your Gateway system.

Then click save.

Now we can create the tile!

For this I chose a static tile.

Here I gave my tile a Title, Subtitle and an Icon that looked like a play button, but you can set these as you so wish.

On the right hand side you’ll see the parameter match the semantic object values I set earlier, you will need to do this also.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!  YOU SHOULD BE ALL READY TO GO!

THANKS FOR READING I HOPE YOU FIND IT USEFUL