A team of some friends and I have come up with an app/product idea that we have been working on. I have to be vague on exactly what the details are, but hopefully I can explain it well enough to have the questions we have answered.
First, we have a web server with a database - we have developed all of the code for that in PHP. Each user will have a device which when an action is performed on the device, it sends a message to our server, and the PHP code on our server handles the message and stores the sent data in the appropriate fields in our database.
We want to run this through Facebook - we have an app and a Facebook page created for this. The idea is that when a user performs an action on his or her device and the message is sent to the server, the PHP code will automatically make a post on the Facebook page on the user’s behalf (not on the Page’s behalf).
Between all of us on working on this project, we have spent many days and many hours trying to figure out how to make the automatic post to the page. It’s extremely difficult googling this topic since all of the various examples are using different versions of the Facebook SDK (we are using the latest). There are lots of somewhat similar type questions/examples, but we can't find one that answers specifically what we are asking. In fact, we aren’t even sure that anybody but an ‘admin’ can post on a Facebook page with the new SDK, any longer. I do see this link in the Facebook developer section, https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/v2.5/page/feed, where it says under the Publishing section:
Permissions
A user access token with publish_actions permission can be used to publish new posts on behalf of that person. Posts will appear in the voice of the user.
So, it sounds as if a user can post to the Facebook page if it is given an access token with publish_actions permission, yet we can’t find any example of code of this actually being done. Could anybody explain how to do the automatic posting to the page on a user’s behalf (hopefully, using PHP, since that is the language we are using on the server side), or at least point us to a good example? We are all experienced developers, but this is the first time any of us has done anything with Facebook development. So we certainly aren’t amateurs, but with Facebook development, we are. We may be overlooking something obvious, but after seeing so many links, my mind is jello.
A summary of our questions:
1. Can it even be done with the latest Facebook SDK that a post can be made to a Facebook Page for our product on the user’s behalf? (to be clear, we are talking about the Facebook Page we created for our app, not a user's page)
2. If so, what specific permissions do we need to give the user, just the publish_actions one? We don’t want to give the user too much permission to be able to screw up our page, of course.
3. Can this be done automatically with PHP from the server?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Related
I have searched the Internet and SO for over a week, but have not managed to find anything yet so allow me to ask a question which has already been asked loads of time on SO, but for which none of the answers seem to be working for me.
I have a website and a Facebook page. On my website I have the usual Facebook "Like me" box. As I want to show some extra content to my fans when they visit the website - and encourage non-fans to become a fan - I would like to know if it is possible, via PHP, to:
1. Understand if the user is a fan
2. Understand if the user is logged into Facebook
What I would like to be able to do is send a PHP request to Facebook and receive one of the following three answers: "is a fan", "not a fan", "not logged-in/not a Facebook user".
In the first case I would show the fan-only content, in the secon case I would try to encourage the user to become a fan, while in the third case I would not do anything as I'm not sure the user is a Facebook user.
Please note:
1. I do not need any further identifying information
2. There is no app involved here, as users are fans of my page, although I could build one if necessary
Some answers on SO seem to point to this tutorial, but as my page is not an app, I cannot really use this solution:
http://www.masteringapi.com/tutorials/facebook-api-check-if-a-user-is-fan-of-a-facebook-page/20/
Unfortunately Facebook's APIs won't tell you if the user's logged in or if is a fan of your page until you make the user install your Facebook app (and for the likes you will need user_likes permission too).
The only kind of exception is that when you are running a page tab. At the time facebook embeds your content via an <iframe>, the signed_request POST parameter that comes with it will tell you if the user is a fan or not. You can read about the signed request's here..
For several years i have managed to sort things out without posting my own question, but by readings others instead. However, after reading over 200 useless posts, i've decided it's time i get some help.
I'm building a facebook app, and what i wan't to do is extremelly simple to explain. I wan't to notify a certain user about some event in real-time. For example, "the tv show you want to watch starts in an hour". Unfortunately, facebook doesn't allow apps to send private messages to users (which was my first choice). The standard way of publishing on a users wall on HIS BEHALF is not good either, because no notification is triggered. Therefore, my idea is to post on his wall on behalf of the app (or any similar action that will trigger a notification).
I know about app requests, but they are not what i'm looking for either, as you can see, they do not match what i want to do.
Also please note that the event may be particular for each user, so making a post or something for EVERYBODY to see is not an option ("Peter, you have dinner with stacy in an hour").
Firstly, i want to know if posting on the apps behalf (or facebook page, or any other idea) is possible.
If it isn't, i would like to see any other ideas to sort this out. Remember, it's extremelly important to trigger the notification.
Thanks for your time reading this, but i have one last request.
Although what i want to do is pretty simple, there are plenty of similar issues being disscused, which may lead to confusion, so please be SURE that you fully understood what i am asking before answering.
Thanks again
What about opening an event and auto inviting the specific user to the event?
Events invites trigger a notification and the only thing you need is the user's email address which you can easily get.
I am not 100% sure if an app posting on your wall initiates a notification*. Although posting to a users wall on behalf of an app is certainly possible.
You can follow the instructions on this link, under the "App Login" title, and with that retrieve the correct access token you need to make calls as your app.
In order to have the functionality you specified, you'll have to request the offline_access permission from your users - this will allow you to post to your users wall even when he/she is not currently in or using your app. (or even logged into facebook)
*
Usually these posts on behalf of an app are user initiated - ie the user pressed "post to my wall."
I've been building a web app that uses facebook integration for easier registration/login and notifications for the users. However, for the notifications I want to be able to post to a users facebook wall when something happens on our site.
Really I see two possible problems with doing this. First being that the user will most likely not be logged in to our website when the notification needs to happen. Second I have not found a way to post to the feed using any identity other than the current logged in user.
So to reiterate exactly what I'm trying to do. When some action takes place on my site involving Bob, I want the websites application to post on Bobs wall notifying him of the action as if the application is one of Bobs friends. From some of the things I've seen while researching this, it seems as if facebook might not treat applications like users and I might have to go through a page to accomplish what I want. But really I'm ok with that.
What you need to do is to ask for the offline_access permission. Then you can store their graph id property after they login/authorize to your site's database. Then you just post to that graph id instead of instead of /me. In your case you would then POST a request to the "$user_graph_id/feed" endpoint with whatever parameters you usually have.
I'm using the server-side SDK to access Facebook Authentication.
After authorizing my app - even with the included example.php, I can go to App Privacy in settings then click on the app, then See Details in the Last data access section
And the dialog shows:
My App accessed the following information on your behalf:
Basic Information - Today
Likes, Music, TV, Movies, Books, Quotes, About Me, Hometown, Current City, Education History and Work History - Today
My Friends' Current Cities - Today
All I really need from the authentication is the userid and possibly name... I don't care about any other personal info. And yet even the example.php which is really basic seems to be requesting a lot.
Is there another way to authenticate without Facebook thinking I pulled all this data? I don't want users to be concerned about excessive data pulling when I'm not even pulling it.
The Stack Exchange authentication does not have this issue. It might be an issue in the PHP SDK?
The additional entries in the app access log are created for requests to the /me-object without a fields-parameter. So instead of accessing /me?access_token=xxx use /me?fields=id,name,...&access_token=...
Please note that the access log is not deleted when you remove an application. This may be quite confusing during testing because you will see old entries.
When posting to the page wall (feed) through my application, under the post contents facebook adds '20 minutes ago *via my_app*'. This is a problem for my company, since they don't want the fans knowing the posting is done through an application, thus losing the personal touch.
Is there any way to lose the '*via my_ap*p' part of the post? These are some of the things I have tried:
I have given every possible permission on the page admin user, including 'manage_pages'
Have tried with the token returned from graph api me/accounts for that page / Impersonating pages
Please tell me, short of making a bot to do the whole thing, is there any way to do this through the facebook api.
Thank you for any help you can provide.
If you don't want the people to see which company you are, then Facebook is the wrong platform for you!
I'm pretty sure, you also would violate the terms of Facebook (Developer).
See what your competitors are doing. The largest company in this business has named their app "Publisher". When users click on this a page will open up that doesn't say anything about who created the app - actually it doesn't say anything at all. You could also use the name "Publisher" for your Facebook publishing app - in Facebook app names don't have to be unique.