/me/events - Events API - facebook

So, I've read conflicting information about this bit. But we've received complaints that users are unable to import their events in our application, although we have an approved App that has the "user_events" permission.
In short, the response when querying me/events using a user access token of the mentioned app is empty:
Edge: me/events
{
"data": []
}
Now, the funny part is, if you are a developer of the application in question, the endpoint will happily send you your own events over the API.
Is this intended behavior according to https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/user/events/?
This edge is only available to a limited number of approved apps. Unapproved apps querying this edge will receive an empty data set in response. You cannot request access to this edge at this time.
Was there any communication about this? We have updated our application after they restricted the public access in May to use the user_events permission, but it looks like this access is now disabled as well, and even in a very sneaky way that makes it very hard to detect? Also, I did not read anything about this in any breaking change logs?
I'm just searching for clarification, because there is no way to properly contact Facebook regarding this issue.

Related

Create MS Teams chats with MS Graph (or PowerShell)

I'm currently trying to use Microsoft Graph to send a Microsoft Teams Chat message to a specific employee.
The idea behind that is that I want to be able to send chat messages using PowerShell, but for now, I'd be happy to get it done in Microsoft Graph first and build a PowerShell script afterward.
Important: I don't want to post a message to a Channel, only in a 1:1 chat.
What I've tried:
I'm able to get the current chats for my own user by using:
https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/users/{myid}/chats
If, however, I try that with a different user's id, I get a 401 (permission denied) error. I can't even see their current chats even though I have all available permissions.
In the error message, it says the following:
"User Id must match the API caller when called in delegated mode"
... but I don't want to use delegated mode since that'd mean I'm executing the commands as if I would be that user, and therefore couldn't create the chat message which I want in the first place.
It might sound rather confusing, so I hope you get what I mean.
To my knowledge, there's no way to send a message directly to the user without some kind of context. The problem becomes, for instance, where would the message appear, and who would it be from?
If you could deal with it being inside a Channel instead, then PowerShell is fine as you can set up a webhook to do this. I've done the same, from PS -> Teams a few years ago, so I assume it should still work. This article should help.
Alternatively, if you really want a "1-1" conversation, so to speak, you need to create and register a Bot, so that the message comes "from someone" to the user. This concept is called Pro-active Messaging and I've posted more about it here. However, coming purely from PowerShell it's going to be a LOT of work:
Create a Bot in Azure to get the App ID and Password. Technically this would be a non-existent Bot as there's no implementation, which means if the user were to reply it would go nowhere. This might be ok? You could possibly try build an Azure Function Bot in PowerShell, but not something I've done myself so can't advise (I've only used C# for Bots thus far)
Create a Conversation ID, and save it for later - again, a bunch of work.
Convert the code (e.g. from my post above) into PowerShell, referencing the relevant NuGet packages.
So, I'd recommend trying to find an approach using a Teams Channel rather, and messaging the user there, if you can manage that in your use case?
Unless all of this is irrelevant if you're trying to send on behalf of another user?
The term "Delegated" in this context refers to the type of permissions claims included in the OAuth token. There are two types; Application and Delegated.
There are two key rules when it comes to Application vs. Delegated scopes:
A single token may only contain a single type of scope. In other words, the token itself is either an Application or Delegated token, never a combination of the two.
The type of scopes applied to a Token is determined by the OAuth Grant you used to obtain it:
Authorization Code: Delegated
Implicit: Delegated
Client Credentials: Application
With regard to the List Chats (/chats) endpoint, only Delegated permissions are supported:
Delegated (work or school account): Chat.Read, Chat.ReadWrite
Delegated (personal Microsoft account): Not supported.
Application: Not supported.
There is a general rule of thumb when it comes to permissions in Microsoft Graph (I use 'general' here since there are a couple of exceptions in older endpoints): Delegated scopes that only apply to the current user end in Read or ReadWrite while those that apply to any user end in .All.
Since these two scopes (Chat.Read and Chat.ReadWrite) do not end in .All, and only Delegated scopes are supported, this tells you that the only Chats you are able to access are those owned by the currently authenticated User. In other words, you cannot read another User's chat messages via the API.
If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. If you didn't have an authenticated User, who would the Chat message you sent be "from"? A chat message requires both a Sender and a Recipient.
For your scenario, there are a couple of possible workarounds from a Teams ChatBot to simply setting up a new User that you authenticate as and send messages to other Users from.

Developer Access to User Data in Dropbox Datastore

I use the Dropbox Datastore in an app that uses both the iOS and JavaScript SDKs. Aside from the 10MB datastore limit, it works pretty well.
But nearly every support request I get makes me wish I could have access to the user's data for debugging. Being able to see exactly what the user sees helps me to find and fix bugs very quickly.
Is there any way for me to access a user's data without logging into their account? Can I maybe store their access token and gain access to just their Dropbox Datastore data?
This is one of the attractive things about Parse: you can see all user data. While there is a lot of wisdom in sharding user data across Dropbox user accounts, it makes app debugging crazy-hard.
Any ideas? What do you do to get around this?
Dropbox datastores, like files, are considered the user's private data, and as such there isn't a way for an arbitrary party to gain access to said data without some sort of authorization (e.g., access to the account, having the data explicitly shared with them, etc.) Likewise, even the developer of an API app that a user happens to be using doesn't automatically get access to the data.
That said, if, as the developer of the app, you want to troubleshoot using your user's data, the most straightforward method would probably be to get an access token for that app/user pair from the user. That would replicate their setup most accurately. (Unfortunately, the Sync/Datastore SDK doesn't make it easy to extract/insert arbitrary access tokens like that though. So, in that case, this would be a bit of work to build some flow to get an access token, e.g., a small web app, and then some work to read data directly from the API.)
Alternatively, you may want to make it possible for the user to share the datastore with your own account.
In any case, it's very important that the user not be misled or confused as to what is happening or what the developer is requesting. That means being clear with user with regards to what the developer is requesting and what will be done with the data. In addition, apps should provide privacy policies in general.

Graph api /inbox has missing data

I have an application that goes and gets a users messages from their facebook account, but I've hit an error.
The user in question has a thread between him and me in his inbox, however it doesn't show up in his API call to /me/inbox with his specific access_token.
I do have a valid token (it works for all other calls), and I know it should be working fine (I am opening it in my browser directly to debug, and the data just does not exist).
There is no second page to view, no limit or timestamp imposed upon it, just missing data.
For testing, we do have every single API permission offered, so I know it is not a permissions problem.
Does anyone have any idea why this could be happening, and how to fix it?
I was struggling with the same problem. I found that using the `/me/threads' endpoint delivers much more complete data.
Update:
However I found out that this endpoint is not available to non-developers for the time being:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/thread/

How to use the same facebook application for different websites

I'm developing a small CMS in PHP and we're putting on social integration.
The content is changed by a single administrator who as right for publishing news, events and so on...
I'd to add this feature, when the admin publishes something it's already posted on facebook wall. I'm not very familiar with facebook php SDK, and i'm a little bit confused about it.
If (make it an example) 10 different sites are using my CMS, do I have to create 10 different facebook application? (let's assume the 10 websites are all in different domains and servers)
2nd, is there a way for authenticating with just PHP (something like sending username&password directly) so that the user does not need to be logged on facebook?
thanks
You might want to break up your question in to smaller understandable units. Its very difficult to understand what you are driving at.
My understanding of your problem could be minimal, but here goes...
1_ No you do not create 10 different facebook application. Create a single facebook application and make it a service entry point. So that all your cms sites could talk to this one site to interact with facebook. ( A REST service layer).
2_ Facebook api does not support username and password authentication. They only support oauth2.0. Although Oauth is not trivial, but since they have provided library for that, implementing authentication is pretty trivial.
Please read up on http://developers.facebook.com/docs/.
Its really easy and straight forward and well explained.
Your question is so vague and extensive that it cannot be answered well here.
If you experience any specific implementation problems, this is the right place.
However to answer atleast a part of your question:
The most powerful tool when working with facebook applications is the Graph API.
Its principle is very simple. You can do almonst any action on behalf of any user or application. You have to generate a token first that identifies the user and the proper permissions. Those tokens can be made "permanent" so you can do background tasks. Usually they are only active a very short time so you can perform actions while interacting with the user. The process of generating tokens involves the user so that he/she has to confirm the privileges you are asking for.
For websites that publish something automatically you would probably generate a permanent token one time that is active as long as you remove the app in your privacy settings.
Basically yuo can work with any application on any website. There is no limitation. However there are two ways of generating tokens. One involves on an additional request and one is done client side, which is bound to one domain oyu specifiedin your apps settings.
Addendum:
#ArtoAle
you are right about every app beeing assighend to exactly one domain. however once you obtained a valid token it doesnt matter from where or who you use it within the graph api.
let me expalin this a little bit:
it would make no sense since it is you doing the request. there is no such thing as "where the request is coming from". of course there is the "referer" header information, but it can be freely specified and is not used in any context of this.
the domain you enter in your apps settings only restricts where facebook redirects the user to.
why?
this ensures that some bad guy cannot set up a website on any domain and let the user authorize an app and get an access token with YOUR application.
so this setting ensures that the user and the access token are redirected back to YOUR site and not to another bad site.
but there is an alternative. if you use the control flow for desktop applications you don't get an access token right after the user has been redirected back. you get a temporary SESSION-TOKEN that you can EXCCHANGE for an access token. this exchange is done server side over the REST api and requires your application secret. So at this point it is ensured that it is YOU who gets the token.
This method can be done on any domain or in case of desktop applications on no domain at all.
This is a quote from the faceboo docs:
To convert sessions, send a POST
request to
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/exchange_sessions
with a comma-separated list of
sessions you want to convert:
curl client_id=your_app_id \
-F client_secret=your_app_secret \
-F sessions=2.DbavCpzL6Yc_XGEI0Ip9GA__.3600.1271649600-12345,2.aBdC...
\
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/exchange_sessions
The response from the request is a
JSON array of OAuth access tokens in
the same order as the sessions given:
[ {
"access_token": "...",
"expires": 1271649600, }, ... ]
However you don't need this method as its a bit more complex. For your use case i would suggest using a central point of authorization.
So you would specify your ONE domain as a redirect url. This domain is than SHARED between your websites. there you can obtain the fully valid access token and seamlessly redirect the user back to your specific project website and pass along the access token.
This way you can use the traditional easy authentication flow that is probably also more future proof.
The fact remains. Once the access token is generated you can perform any action from any domain, there is no difference as ther is literally no "domain" where the request is coming from (see above).
apart from that, if you want some nice javascript features to work - like the comments box or like button, you need to setup up open graph tags correctly.
if you have some implementation problems or as you said "domain errors" please describe them more clearly, include the steps you made and if possible an error message.

How to disable "Publish content to your Wall" when using Facebook's new Oauth2?

Right now when I use Facebook's new OAuth2 system, it tells the user that my app is requesting to "Publish content to your Wall". How do I disable this (for fear of scaring off users), as I don't need this enabled. Possible?
Getting the user to authorize one of the extended permissions for your app is kind of the point behind authenticating. You may want to see if the data you need is exposed without authenticating (if you in fact need data). If you can get the uid you can see what is exposed to everyone, and per the privacy changes, I mean everyone. Until the privacy "fire", there was quite a bit exposed to everyone, now 'everyone' means the least restrictive tier among multiple privacy tiers rather than the happy-go-lucky default.
So really the question is, what permission are you trying to get?
There are a few unknown variables here such as what type of app you are making etc.
Check your code for one of the extended permissions, you are probably sending one of them such as offline_access in your auth call.