You know the problem… “We’d like users to be able to authenticate using Facebook so they don’t have to create an account on our system.”

Here at Secret Source Ltd we do lots and lots of WordPress development and lately, nearly every project has required some sort of Facebook integration, the ability to log in with your Facebook account in particular. Fortunately there are multiple plugins to help you with that. We’re quite fond of the Nextend Facebook Connect plugin as it is very easy to configure and includes clear instructions on how to create a Facebook app and get everything working like a charm.

For me, though, there has always been one particular point of pain that none of these plugins have figured out how to work around: unless you want to be responsible for a Facebook app for your client’s logins, your client needs to give you THEIR Facebook credentials so you can login AS THEM to create and configure the Facebook login app.

However, I recently figured out a way around this. I know I may be late to the party but I’ve been unable to find this approach documented anywhere, or maybe I just didn’t search hard enough.

The approach is as follows:

1. Log in to the Facebook Developer portal as yourself.
2. Create a new app and configure it for your client, using their logo, domain, and everything.
3. Go to Roles -> Administrators -> Add Administrators and add your client as an administrator. Note that you and your client do not need to be friends in order for you to add them, but you will need to know either their Facebook ID or Facebook “username”.

Once your client accepts your invitation to be an administrator, they can then go to the Roles tab and remove YOU from the list of administrators. The app is now THEIRS and your job is done! Note that if needed, the client can always add you back as an administrator.

This, to me, seems like a very reasonable way to have set this up and I can, for once, say I am quite happy with Facebook’s developer tools.