Facebook Service

Overview

Facebook service provides automation for monitoring and creating posts on your personal timeline. Monitor your posting activity and automatically create posts based on triggers.

Connection Setup

1. Navigate to /api/connections/facebook or use the frontend connection interface
2. Authorize AREA to access your Facebook account
3. OAuth scopes granted:
   • email - User’s email address
   • public_profile - Basic profile information
   • user_posts - Read and create posts on your timeline

Service Details

• Service Name: facebook
• Display Name: Facebook
• Description: Personal timeline post monitoring
• Requires OAuth: Yes
• Actions: 2
• Reactions: 1

Actions

1. New Post Created

Name: new_post_created

Description: Triggers when you create a new post on your Facebook timeline.

Configuration:

{}

Parameters: None

Example Workflow:

{
  "name": "Log My Posts",
  "action_id": <new_post_created_id>,
  "reaction_id": <log_message_id>,
  "action_config": {},
  "reaction_config": {
    "message": "You just posted on Facebook!"
  }
}

Use Cases:

• Track your posting frequency
• Get notifications when you post
• Create backups of your posts
• Log posting activity to external services

2. Post Contains Keyword

Name: post_contains_keyword

Description: Triggers when you create a Facebook post that contains a specific keyword.

Configuration:

{
  "keyword": "vacation"
}

Parameters:

Example Workflow:

{
  "name": "Track Work Posts",
  "action_id": <post_contains_keyword_id>,
  "reaction_id": <send_email_id>,
  "action_config": {
    "keyword": "work"
  },
  "reaction_config": {
    "to": "manager@company.com",
    "subject": "Work-related Facebook post",
    "body": "You posted about work on Facebook"
  }
}

Use Cases:

• Monitor posts about specific topics
• Track mentions of certain keywords
• Alert on sensitive content
• Create topic-based archives

Reactions

1. Create Post

Name: create_post

Description: Creates a new post on your Facebook timeline.

Configuration:

{
  "message": "Hello from AREA automation!"
}

Parameters:

Example Workflow:

{
  "name": "Daily Motivational Post",
  "action_id": <time_matches_id>,
  "reaction_id": <create_post_id>,
  "action_config": {
    "time": "08:00"
  },
  "reaction_config": {
    "message": "Good morning! Have a great day!"
  }
}

Use Cases:

• Schedule automated posts
• Cross-post from other platforms
• Share daily updates automatically
• Post reminders or announcements

Common Use Cases

1. Daily Automated Posts

• Trigger: Time matches (e.g., 9:00 AM)
• Reaction: Create post with motivational quote

2. Cross-Platform Posting

• Trigger: New file uploaded to Drive
• Reaction: Create Facebook post announcing the upload

3. Post Activity Tracking

• Trigger: New post created
• Reaction: Log message to workflow logs for analytics

4. Keyword-Based Workflows

• Trigger: Post contains “event”
• Reaction: Create Drive file with event details

5. Scheduled Announcements

• Trigger: Date matches (specific date)
• Reaction: Create post with announcement

API Endpoints

See OAuth Connections for connection endpoints.

Limitations

• Post Monitoring: Only detects your own posts, not friends’ posts
• Rate Limiting: Facebook Graph API has rate limits - excessive posting may be throttled
• Permissions: Requires user_posts permission during OAuth authorization
• Content: Posts are text-only (no images/videos through this API)
• Timeline: Can only post to your own timeline, not to pages or groups

Troubleshooting

Posts Not Being Detected:

• Verify OAuth connection is active at /api/connections
• Check that user_posts permission was granted during authorization
• Scheduler runs every 1 minute - there may be a delay
• Ensure you’re checking your own posts, not others’

Create Post Fails:

• Check message content doesn’t exceed 5000 characters
• Verify Facebook OAuth connection is valid
• Check for Facebook API rate limiting
• Ensure message is not empty

Keyword Detection Not Working:

• Keyword search is case-insensitive but must be exact match
• Check for typos in keyword configuration
• Special characters may affect matching

Future Enhancements

See Issue #73 for planned optional features:

• Post comment on own posts
• Like/react to posts
• Trigger on post reactions/likes received
• Trigger on post comments received