Our Rochdale Search Widget

The Our Rochdale Search Widget allows you to embed a search facility for the Our Rochdale Directory directly into your website. This will give your customers the ability to find relevant services without ever leaving your website. All information is pulled directly from the directory website which means it is always up to date.

Request access

Before you are able to proceed with the process of embedding the Search Widget, you must fulfill the following criteria:

You must have a valid license, called an API Key

Without it, the Search Widget will not return results and an error message will be displayed.

The domain/IP address of your website must be included in an ‘Allow’ list

Without this inclusion, the Search Widget will not return results and an error message will be displayed.

Contact us

In order to enable the Search Widget please contact us or email us at family.info@rochdale.gov.uk with the subject line ‘Search Widget Request’. Please provide us with the following information:

  1. Your Name, email address and telephone number.
  2. The name and address (URL) of your website.
  3. The purpose/theme of your website so we can ascertain the suitability of providing the search widget. For example: “Our site provides information and advice to local volunteers and charities.”

If your request to embed the Search Widget is granted, we will supply an API key by email.

Add the search widget to your site

Location

Before you add the Search Widget to your site, decide which page, and where on that page, you would like it to appear. This may be your Homepage, or another page within your site.

Once you have chosen the page for the Widget to appear on, you then need to consider its position within that page. This will usually be a column, or sidebar, at least half the width of the page (for a page width of 960 pixels), or a quarter of the width (if the page is wider). We recommend you do not make the Widget narrower than 300 pixels.

We also recommend the Widget be at least 700 pixels in height, so search results are displayed with minimal scrolling for the user.

Code

Once you have decided on the location for the Widget, you can proceed to adding the code into your web page.

This code consists of the following:

  • <div id="oo-widget-placeholder"> - This is the start of the Widget. Please ensure there are no other elements on your page with the same ID name.
  • <script type="text/javascript" src="//widgets.openobjects.com/2/app.js"></script> - This is the script for the Widget to function.
  • loadWidget("#oo-widget-placeholder",{ apiKey: "your api key" }); - Replace the code “your api key” with the actual API key supplied by us.

Please note the double quotation marks must be around the actual key itself.

Once you have inserted this code, including your API Key, into your web page, refresh the website. The Search Widget should now appear.