JanRain’s Engage Service (formerly RPX)

From KickApps Documentation

Overview

We have integrated the Basic Engage Web Service from JanRain. When you enable this feature, users will be able to join and log into your site using their credentials from Facebook, MySpace, OpenID, Yahoo!, Google and AOL. Users who join via this method will automatically "import" their username from Facebook, AOL, Google, etc. and will need to log via this same method on all subsequent visits (otherwise they will create unique accounts for each service that they log in through).

Enabling and Disabling JanRain’s Engage Service

The Engage Service from JanRain can be enabled or disabled in Affiliate Center on the Configure > Settings > Add/Remove Apps page. (You can get to the Affiliate Center by clicking the “manage your site” link near the top of all your site’s pages.) When you enable this application, your site’s members will be able to enter into public chat rooms with each other, where they can instantly communicate by submitting messages.

Here’s what the interface looks like for users:

Upgrading Your Janrain Engage Account

On January 24, 2011, we enhanced our support for third party logins via Janrain's Engage (formerly RPX) service. As of this date, all KickApps customers that were previously using the RPX service have the ability to upgrade the Janrain Engage account, for free. This upgrade is not reversible. Once you create your own unique Engage account you cannot downgrade back to a shared account.

This upgrade contains a number of enhancements that we think you will really enjoy:

1. You will have your own unique Janrain Engage account, which you can administer and configure to your liking.
2. You will be able to determine which login options you want to offer your site visitors, including which providers you want to display on the login form, and the order in which they appear.
3. You will get statistics on how many users are joining your site via each of the login providers that you decide to enable.
4. You will now collect unique usernames and email addresses from all users who join your site via third party logins.
5. You will be able to benefit from the "email verification" and "community privacy" features of our platform.
6. Members will be able to sign into your site via multiple different providers at different times (Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc.) and still be the same single user in our system.
7. It will be very easy for you to upgrade your Janrain Engage account to take advantage of additional features offered by Janrain.

Configuring Your Janrain Engage Account

It is important to note that when you enable or upgrade your Janrain Engage account that is tied to your KickApps-powered site, you will have to click over to the Janrain website and configure your Engage account with the login providers that make sense for you.

In most cases, this means that you will have to manually enable the Facebook option, otherwise members of your site who had previously logged into your site via the Facebook option on the old RPX account will not be able to log into your site. Janrain provides instructions on how to enable the Facebook option for your account, and the process only takes a few minutes to complete.

Any members of your site who had previously joined your site via the old RPX method might be prompted to verify their previous account, or create a new account with a unique username and email address.

You can access your Janrain Engage account by clicking the link to "Configure your Engage Settings" on the Add/Remove Apps page in the Affiliate Center, after you have opted into the upgrade.

Also, you will receive a "welcome email" from Janrain that contains a link and instructions for configuring your Engage account.