I wonder if anyone can offer any advice - If a user likes my page on Facebook, can I somehow trigger a notification to them to prompt them to download my app on iOS/Android? The information I'm finding doesn't seem conclusive.
Thanks!
Just to update people - this can be done under the right conditions. AirBnB do it for example.
If your iOS/Android app uses Facebook Authentication you can harness the Notification API but only if your app has Facebook Canvas enabled.
Also, to send the Notification to a particular user (authed to your app) you must use an 'app token' rather than a 'user token' as you are performing an action on behalf of the app, not one particular user (like when you publish to their feed).
Because of this and the fact to obtain this token you must expose your app ID and secret it is advisable to carry out the notification push using server-side code - not client side or in an app that can be decompiled.
The docs aren't 100% up to date as they contradict themselves a little but you can find more info here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/games/notifications
Related
We have a simple app that summarizes the total number of mentions your instagram account gets using the IG-User/tags endpoint on the graph api (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/reference/user/tags/)
The pre-requisite of the app is the user has their fb account linked to their IG - Business or IG - Creator account.
Unfortunately every time we've submitted it for review so far it has come back with the same comment from FB:
"Although we were able to login to your app using the Facebook Login authentication, we were unable to test the steps to connect an Instagram business account. As a result, you'll need to implement an integration flow for an end user to connect their Instagram business account(s)"
Now as I understand it there is no way I can get the user to link their IG account to FB or to a FB page using the API. The "link account" action is purely handled using the Instagram app. Or am I missing something here.
Well after 3 weeks of back and forth with multiple seemingly segmented facebook support teams I have been able to get this permission from them.
Turns out that there's an unexplained flow here:
This is verbatim from the information I received from their chat support (but is not found anywhere in the documentation)
"You have needed to provide Test Users on your App Dashboard, grant the test user the Instagram_manage_comments permission and then provide us with the login details. We would then link that to an internal Instagram Business Account."(sic)
The part where they link an internal business account to the test user happens on their end and outside the scope of the app. I confirmed this and even then I failed the review multiple times because apparently the steps to approve IG business permissions have not been standardized yet and sometimes the approver simply doesn't know what needs to be done. It's a strange state of affairs and the answer it seems is to just keep pushing.
I'm having the same problem and looking forward to see some comments to your post since the first day. But I started to think it will never come.
I believe they want a new user to start with minimum permissions (which is the email permission) and add other permission only as they are needed. This requires a mechanism in your app that guide a new user logged in with only email permission to give other permissions (e.g. taping a button that opens up user’s IG business account needs instagram_basic and manage_pages permissions. Or taping “post comment” button needs manage_comments permission.) So your app should open up a window that the user can give permissions when any of these events fires. (or when user decides to take permission(s) back)
This is what I understand from “steps to connect an Instagram business account”.
But I am not sure if my understanding is correct. I would definitely like to hear if you found any solutions.
I'm also having the same problem as you as I'm developing similar service to IGBlade (https://igblade.com) & Social Blade (https://socialblade.com).
I'm beginning the wonder if I should change my app review request so that I would inform Facebook that the permissions my app is requesting work serverside and therefore there's no need to implement an integration flow for an end user to connect their Instagram business account(s) to my app.
Any thoughts?
Here is what I have done to get the approval
Create a Facebook test user with correct permissions
Log in with this user
Create a Facebook Page
Edit settings on Facebook Page and add Instagram Business account (personal one)
Submit Facebook review with both credentials (Facebook test user + personal Instagram user).
Wait for review and do not forget to change your personal Instagram user password after the review.
Everything I have read (e.g. https://api.slack.com/docs/oauth) makes it seem as though I can only build an app that integrates with a Slack team I manage. E.g. I have to create my Slack Client ID .. etc ... and then I can oAuth users for my team.
What I want to do is allow my app's users to login to my app using their Slack login (for their Slack team I do not control or have access to.) I don't want to force my users to generate a Client ID to use my app. I want them to login the same way Google Login or Facebook Login works.
The closest thing I have found is a "login with slack" HTML button, but I'd like to do it in iOS using Swift.
Is that possible?
Sadly, that's not possible. For google or facebook, the way authentication works is that they provide you a mobile API which handles the communication between your app and their web service. So you task is simply adopt that API, make simple function call and retrieve information for user from the API. For example, the facebook button is provided by the API.
However from a look at slack site, they only have RESTful API documented. So in this case, you have to handle the passing and storing of parameters by yourself, and send HTTP request manually. You can have a look at Alamofire framework, which is the best choice for making HTTP request. Basically, you have to send needed parameter with the specific url though HTTP request to perform a log in action, and you have to parse the respond data and then see if the login is successful or not, etc
Thanks to some help from friends it looks like the answer is yes.
You must first make sure you "Distribute App"
Then set up the permissions you require and "install app" (which is a bit not "smart" since you can accidentally add conflicting permissions and get an error when trying to install).
Once that is done you will get an Auth Token and can make requests for any user to login using oAuth.
You can also trigger a sign in request like so:
https://slack.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=[client id]&scope=identity.basic
Edit: For future Googlers, Slack now also provides a specific documentation page for this type of OAuth grant/login: Sign in with Slack
I have created a Facebook App and published it today with Canvas Web platform.
The users can authorize the application and I can send notifications to them using the Facebook API that appear on their Facebook account on the Web.
However, it works with the developer user but not with regular users. For regular users the API call to send notifications returns this error response:
{"error":{"message":"(#200) Your app is not approved for content update notification at this time", "type":"OAuthException","code":200,"fbtrace_id":"GPVF+lOxzgp"}}
The application is published and is live. It is for publishing landing pages with videos, when when the user signs up using Facebook, he will get a notification when a new page with a video is published, so he can watch the video inside the Facebook canvas iframe.
What do I need to do to have new content notification approved? I just asked for email and profile permissions and the documentation says it does not need additional permissions to send notifications. So I have not items to submit for review.
I am using this API call described here:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/games/services/appnotifications
It seems I was doing a mistake which as to pass a type parameter set to the content_update value. Removing that parameter solved the problem.
I want to create a Facebook app to be used in live events (ie: concerts, conferences, etc).
So the guests would enroll to the event connecting with Facebook Login and asking the publish_actions permission.
The guest will have an Access Card (RFID chip) that identifies himself and links in our database to his Facebook Access token.
Then, during the event, I would like that some actions made by the guests in the event to trigger some actions on Facebook, this actions will be triggered by different applications that communicate with our servers, our servers will comunicate with Facebook API to trigger actions on Facebook.
So when the guest does check in at the event, his Access Card is scanned by the event staff, and then should automatically post a message on his timeline indicating that he is at that event, sharing a link with more details about that event.
We also want to have a physical Photo Booth where the guest has his Access Card scanned, and then takes a picture that should be automatically posted on his timeline too.
So this is not the typical Facebook app flow, as the content is posted automatically by actions made by the user, but managed by our software instead of actions directly triggered by the user himself.
I'm not sure if this kind of application is allowed on Facebook and if it's allowed, how would the review process be done, as this can't be tested using a website or phone app.
Did someone make something similar or knows the best approach in getting this approved on Facebook?
Thank you!
The user MUST login with Facebook and authorize your App. People have tried those things with a specific device where people could login, but Facebook detects multiple logins on one device and may block your App. So the only way is to let people use their own device/smartphone to authorize your App. For example, you could offer them a QR tag with a link to the login flow.
The problem with authorizing before the event and storing a Token is that an Extended User Token is valid for 60 days. So if a user enrolls and the event is 61 days later, the Access Token will not work anymore - unless the User refreshes the Token by visiting your App. So before letting him do this before the event, you can just as well let him authorize the App at the event date.
A specific App for the event is surely the safest way, of course.
The existing website uses Facebook OAuth for login. The plan is that soon that certain events on the site will be posted to the user's timeline. The "userA watched xxx" kind of thing.
We're also at the stage of starting an iPhone app to connect to the website's data API. If the user has authenticated to the website with the mobile app using the facebook login:
would the mobile app need access to the Facebook oauth keys? I'm guess not, as the user would do something, and the website would have the credentials stored to post to facebook, but I'm not sure.
would there in fact be 2 apps, one that is facebook based and one that is not?
Apologies if this is really basic information I'm asking, but I've not developed Facebook apps previously and the information I look at isn't always clear.
In my apps, I code two authentication flows, one for facebook users, and one for users without facebook (this is the typical, create your account, and subsequently login with your username and password). So one app, two login flows.
Regarding the app accessing the Facebook oauth keys, if you are coding with the Facebook iOS SDK, you won't even need to worry about the oauth key itself, as it's totally encapsulated by the SDK. You'll simply invoke methods to trigger authentication, and then once the user is authenticated, you can call other methods to invoke certain aspects of SDK/API.
The Facebook iOS SDK supports all the functionality you'll need to make the posts directly from the app itself. You won't need to make an API call to your server, to then make a second call to the Facebook API. Just handle all that from the app directly. So if your app does depend on a successful API call to your server, prior to posting to Facebook, make that API call, wait for the response (that either includes additional data, or a success:true flag), and then make the post to the Facebook via the Facebook iOS SDK.
The Facebook iOS SDK docs are AWESOME these days, and the code samples are even better. Check them out at:
http://developers.facebook.com/ios/