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Issues Integrating External Menu Website Data into SysAid Self-Service Portal

  • December 29, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 10 views
J

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a small integration project where I’m trying to connect data from a custom-built Texas Roadhouse menu website into our SysAid self-service portal. The goal is to display selected menu items and promotional content dynamically within a knowledge base or service catalog view, but I’m running into a few technical challenges along the way.

The website itself is built using a custom CMS structure with structured menu data (categories, prices, and descriptions). I attempted to pull this data into SysAid using an embedded iframe and later through API-based approaches, but I’m facing issues with inconsistent rendering, caching, and limited support for dynamic content inside the SysAid portal environment. Some menu sections load fine, while others fail or break formatting entirely.

Additionally, SysAid’s security restrictions seem to block certain external scripts and styles, which makes it difficult to maintain visual consistency with the original menu layout. I’ve tried simplifying the markup and using static JSON-based rendering, but that reduces flexibility and requires frequent manual updates whenever the menu changes.

Has anyone here successfully integrated an external content-driven website (like a restaurant menu or product catalog) into SysAid? I’d really appreciate guidance on best practices, supported integration methods, or whether this should be handled via a different SysAid feature altogether.

Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations!

2 replies

SysAid Copilot
SysAider
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Hi there,

SysAid Copilot is here with our AI Magic!
Here is the response we thought might assist you:

copilot-1.png
## Short answer

SysAid does **not** support fully embedding and running an external, script‑driven site (like your custom menu CMS) inside the Self-Service Portal with its own JS/CSS as-is. You’ll need to treat SysAid as the **consumer of data**, not as a host for external layouts/scripts.

Below are the main options and what’s realistically supported.

---

## 1. What doesn’t work well (and why)

**1. iframes with your external site**

- Often blocked/limited by:
- Your site’s `X-Frame-Options` / CSP headers
- SysAid’s own security/sanitizing
- External JS/CSS won’t reliably run inside SysAid.
- Result: exactly what you describe – partial load, broken formatting, caching weirdness.

**2. Full “smart embedding” of external KB / apps**

- As in the related answer: SysAid does **not** allow true external KB embedding.
- You can link out, but not host another app’s dynamic UI inside SysAid with its JS/CSS.

---

## 2. Supported patterns that usually work

### Option A – Use SysAid as a **viewer of your data**, not your layout

**Flow: your CMS → API → SysAid content (text/HTML)**

1. Expose your menu data via **API** from your CMS in a clean, presentation-agnostic format (JSON / HTML fragment without scripts).
2. Use an **external process/script** (not SysAid itself) to:
- Pull the latest menu from your CMS.
- Transform it into “safe” HTML (no `
J
  • joepop
  • Author
  • New SysMate
  • December 31, 2025

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a small integration project where I’m trying to connect data from a custom-built Texas Roadhouse menu with prices website into our SysAid self-service portal. The goal is to display selected menu items and promotional content dynamically within a knowledge base or service catalog view, but I’m running into a few technical challenges along the way.

The website itself is built using a custom CMS structure with structured menu data (categories, prices, and descriptions). I attempted to pull this data into SysAid using an embedded iframe and later through API-based approaches, but I’m facing issues with inconsistent rendering, caching, and limited support for dynamic content inside the SysAid portal environment. Some menu sections load fine, while others fail or break formatting entirely.

Additionally, SysAid’s security restrictions seem to block certain external scripts and styles, which makes it difficult to maintain visual consistency with the original menu layout. I’ve tried simplifying the markup and using static JSON-based rendering, but that reduces flexibility and requires frequent manual updates whenever the menu changes.

Has anyone here successfully integrated an external content-driven website (like a restaurant menu or product catalog) into SysAid? I’d really appreciate guidance on best practices, supported integration methods, or whether this should be handled via a different SysAid feature altogether.

Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations!

It makes sense now that SysAid really isn’t designed to host or render a full external UI, and that trying to treat it like a container for a dynamic web app is what’s causing most of the instability. Framing it as “SysAid consumes structured data, not layouts” helps re-align my approach.

The API → transform → inject-as-safe-HTML pattern you described sounds like the most realistic path forward. I can see how keeping the rendering logic outside of SysAid and only feeding it sanitized, static output would avoid most of the script and caching issues I’ve been fighting. I’ll look into setting up a small service to preprocess the menu data and push simplified HTML into SysAid instead of trying to mirror the full site experience.

Also appreciate the clarity on iframes  that explains a lot of the inconsistent behavior I was seeing.

If you have any recommendations on:

  • best practices for structuring the “safe HTML” SysAid handles well, or

  • limits around styling (e.g., inline CSS vs minimal classes),

I’d love to hear them. Otherwise, this gives me a solid direction to refactor the integration properly. Thanks again for the thorough and practical guidance.

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