I've got incoming messages working via webhook, but what I cannot understand is how I make this available to other users.
I run a SaaS that's used by many different organisations, so I want to be able to give those organisations (who each have a subdomain on my domain) the ability to 'connect to facebook messenger', so that all of the messages to their facebook page (whatever that may be), come into their portal view on my platform.
The only way I can see this working, is by getting each user to register as a developer, and go through all the set up that I did to get my test example working.
But I must be missing something? What's the workflow to enable this, simply, so that users can connect in this way?
You can have multiple Facebook pages connected to your single Facebook app. But you would require permissions from Facebook for that. You can read about permissions here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/permissions/
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So we've developed a Facebook App (and similar apps on Twitter and Instagram) that allow users to post and read content using an external system. We'll sell this integration directly to our clients, so it's a private application.
Basically the user will see a very simple page with a button "Log in to Facebook" and a disclaimer regarding the authorization (we'll use some query params fixed in the url, depending on the client). The client authorize us and we capture the access tokens.
To submit the app review, though, we have to explicitly give a test user to the reviewers, but that's not really possible because the real "action" happens within the integrated systems, NOT within the app itself. And those systems are not public (they shouldn't be).
So just to be clear: our app is basically a very simple "Facebook login" that we use to get tokens, generated by specific clients authorization. It's not going to be published anywhere.
Until we have around 5 to 10 clients we can add the specific users in our app as Testers/Admins/etc, but what if we scale up? Say we have 20 clients. How are we supposed to get our app to be "live"?
To follow the app review steps we would have to create some users in our local systems (we have some dev environments), open them to the internet so the reviewers can log in and see how it actually works? Is that it?
(btw I'm asking this because our app review was rejected twice and I want to make sure I'm submitting everything they ask this time).
Thanks :)
I think the Login Review FAQ answers most of your questions. The key point:
Our review team will actually test how your app uses each permission on every platform you have listed in the settings section of your app.... You'll need to explain exactly how to test each permission or feature in your app so that we can make sure it works and follows our policies. We can't approve your app if we can't fully test how it integrates with Facebook.
In other words, it's not enough to just allow them to log in to your app, you have to expose all Facebook-related features to the reviewer.
To follow the app review steps we would have to create some users in our local systems (we have some dev environments), open them to the internet so the reviewers can log in and see how it actually works? Is that it?
Yes, though I'm not sure what you mean by "open them to the internet". You should be able to create a test user on your local system and link that account to a test Facebook user. Then you can have the Facebook reviewer use that test account for their review. (From the FAQ: "In the Items in Review section, you'll see a Test User (optional) section that allows you to type the name of the user you wish to be used in your review.")
I have more than few clients that would like to add facebook connect to their landing pages (managed by me). They are too many and not enough tech-savvy to manually create ad appid for each of them.
So my only solution is to usa my own appid to add facebook connect to all my clients websites, but as far as I know, Facebook doesn't allow to simply use the same appid on any domain.
How can I solve this? I can't find any documentation to solve my issue. Does anyone have a direction for me?
This has been discussed a couple o’ times before already – but I mostly commented on earlier questions, so let me write the whole thing up as a proper answer, for future reference.
[paraphrased] Multiple-client Facebook login via one single app id
Does anyone have a direction for me?
You probably rather don’t want to do that.
It is not really possible to run one simple app one multiple different domains.
As a workaround for only a few domains, people used to specify different domains for the different platforms – Website, Page Tab or Canvas App, plus Mobile alternative for Canvas – without actually using any of those platforms besides Website, which made the app usable on multiple domains as a website app. But since Facebook introduced their login/permission review process¹, you can’t do that any more – they expect you to present actual functionality on all platforms you have configured in your app.
You can kind-off use one single app for login on multiple domains – if you are willing to use only the server-side login flow, and to redirect users to one “main” domain (that gets specified as the app domain in the app settings) to login, and then from there back to the origin domain.
But this has several drawbacks:
It’s not what you’d call a “white label” solution. If your clients expect it to look as if users where logging in via “their” app, it should stay on their domain. Individual branding, in regard to stuff such as app name, app logo that shows in the login dialog, etc., would also not be possible. Additionally, app attribution – the link that shows up under content shared/posted via the app – would only link users back to the main domain, and not to your customer’s.
You would not be able to use the JS SDK for client-side API requests, or even just to embed it to render any of the FB social plugins that require an app id – the SDK checks what domain it is “running on”, and can not be tricked to accept a domain that is not specified in the app settings.
There could be privacy issues. An over-exaggerated example: Just because I as the app user decided to share my photos or videos I have on Facebook with your customer Our-Holy-Mother-of-Christ-Bakery.com, does not necessarily mean I want to share them with your other customer, amateurs-doing-all-kinds-of-nasty-stuff.xxx as well – but if they shared an app id for login purposes, I automatically would. Have fun writin’ the Privacy Policy (which is mandatory if you use FB login functionality, and FB also automatically checks if your app has got one) for that scenario ;-)
Finally, and most importantly: All your customers would be “sitting in the same boat.” If one of them, or in turn their website users, would publish spam via your app id, so that Facebook blocks it, login would not work any more for all of your customer’s websites. And if you decide only then, that setting up an individual app for each of your customers would be the better way to go, they would not be able to recognize their existing users any more, because of user ids being app-scoped since API v2.0 was introduced – so if users logged into this new app, that app would see a totally different user id. (And to rely on an email address as an identifier is risky, too, because you will not get one from the API for every user; for example if they registered using their mobile device.)
Edit: Plus, app/domain insights, as luschn mentioned in his answer.
¹ Yes, the review process has made it more laborious to set up multiple apps for multiple clients. But for apps that do the same stuff/use the same permissions in the same manner, you can refer to an earlier successfully reviewed app id to speed up the process a little. Also, screenshots of how f.e. posts made via the app look on timeline, and what UI components are used, as well as screencasts that you include in your submission could probably be used with little to no alteration.
Apps are not meant be used on several different domains, you will have to create a new App for each domain, i´m afraid. You can use the different platforms in the App settings to use different domains, but there are only a few so it´s pointless. Just create some screenshots and a tutorial for your clients, that´s how it is usually done.
Btw, it would be weird to authorize an App on a website, and the same App would allow you to be authorized on all other client websites. Also, insights are per App, so your clients may want to see their own insights and not the global insights of all domains together.
Many is not defined but i think for being a smart developer you need to create new app_ids for every project you need to use facebook connect. Just my opinion. It also allows you to monitor alot of stuff.
I'm sure this is something blindingly obvious, but I can't work it out.
I've added an admin and a tester user to my app (and I mean they're real people as opposed to the generated random named user that FB offers) but after a couple of weeks they're still listed as '(pending)' and they're unable to login to the web page that I've written using their Facebook account. OAuth responds with an error:
Sorry, this feature isn't available right now: An error occurred while processing this request. Please try again later.
I appear to be able to login just fine and can test the [currently] limited functions.
Our web page is right at the beginning of development but it's now at the stage where I'd like real people to mess around on the page and give me feedback.
The two users haven't received any messages - I sort of expected they'd get something in their inbox asking to confirm their role with the app.
So how do I go about getting real people to be test users? Have I missed the point of the test user role?
As of this writing (things change), have the Facebook user go to https://developers.facebook.com/requests/
They will need to be logged in to Facebook.
There should be listed one or more pending requests that they will need to confirm. If the Confirm button(s) is disabled, they may need to register as a Facebook Developer before the Confirm buttons are enabled.
I freelance now and I am wanting to set up a Facebook account so I can create multiple apps for different clients under this account, then become admin and roll out the app totheir page.
Does anyone else do this and if so how best is it to set up from the outset as I will need to test without the public seeing etc.
Yes - I do this frequently...
Placing your application in sandbox_mode will ensure that only the people who are allowed to see the application have access to it.
You can also add your applications to your own un-published Facebook page, that way no one will be able to search for your page or application either.
A mixture of sandbox_mode and an un-published page should be the safe way to go. Check out the Application Security page in Facebook's documentation for exact explanations of sandbox_mode and the roles you can give users in your application.
I know about test accounts, but during beta I'd like to allow access only to my friends, and then later friends-of-friends, and then only eventually Kevin Bacon and his friends.
That would probably suck, wouldn't it? The app would be listed (is there a way to prevent listing?) and someone I don't know might try it and get a "sorry, this is in development message." I imagine they'd be irritated and not come back.
From what I've read, only a few apps take off, but when they take off, they REALLY take off. Do developers just release these things fully baked?
Anyone start out with OpenSocial or other smaller-than-Facebook networks?
Any ideas for a soft, gradual, restricted roll-out?
Once you've set up your application, there is a setting in the Developer application control panel for your app: Your app -> Advanced -> Sandbox Mode.
Sandbox mode lets you restrict access to only those people listed as developers (under the Basic section).
In terms of expanding the app, Facebook doesn't provide much more flexibility that the Sandbox mode. Unfortunately, adding everyone as Developers of the app doesn't work very well for a beta, as people can access the application control panel once they are a developer. I ended up putting a whitelist of Facebook Ids into the front controller of my application for a previous beta, and it worked fairly well.
The apps are only listed in the App Directory if you submit them and they are accepted. There's no issue about preventing listing, it's something you have to apply for.
As for restricting users, you can accomplish it with a script in the application that checks whether the currently logged-in user is within your restricted user set. For example, if you only want friends of yourself, check whether the current user is friends with your user id. If not, simply display an error/message page or redirect them to the Facebook home page (or wherever). Add this check to the rest of the start-up logic run each page (such as connecting to your DB and authenticating with Facebook).
What I have done in some cases is keep a database table with the user id's of users who are allowed access, essentially a "whitelist". If the user isn't in the table, redirect them.