How To Use the Service Accounts Page Under Gaggle Settings

Content feeds and integrations. Both can be quite powerful when powering content for your employee advocacy program but also a lot to wrangle in when you’re not sure who connected what and why. Service Accounts can help with that by providing a level of transparency previously not controllable by the Gaggle Manage account — but now it is.

What Information Does the Service Accounts Page Hold?

The Service Accounts page documents all of the Manager-side authentication records. When our API connects with a social media platform, the details of that interaction are captured here as a service account. These service accounts document what is in use for each platform and its purpose. 

These records are really helpful for Gaggle Managers. First, it gives the Gaggle Manager a better understanding of how the Gaggle functions. Second, it details what service connections power what backend processes, thereby providing a better understanding of what information is coming from where and when (and when an authentication has been disabled). Lastly, it makes it easy to identify who was the original authenticator and what account they authenticated. This way, you know who to talk to if you have questions.

Accessing Your Service Accounts Page

Select the image in the upper right corner from the Gaggle Manager dashboard, then choose Gaggle Settings.

Next, select Service Accounts.

Here you will see a collection of Service Accounts that require authentication to a social network to power parts of GaggleAMP. Service Accounts are required for:

• Content Feeds
• Integrations
• ReShare
• Social Publishing

With access to the Service Accounts, Gaggle Managers will now be able to:

• Understand and control how their Gaggle functions.
• Independently troubleshoot and resolve authentication-related issues with their Gaggle.
• Make workflow changes to avoid errors with self-correcting actions.
• Remove all instances of their platform account(s) from being used to power their Gaggle instance.

What is Captured on the Service Accounts Page?

Now that we better understand what you can do with the Service Accounts page, let’s take a deeper look at the information captured here.

1. Service Type: Displays the Gaggle Service for which the authentication record is used. Here you can determine if the service account powers a content feed, integration, a ReShare activity, or functionality in the Social Publishing platform.
   Note: The service type ‘Social Publishing’ is tied to our Social Publishing module. If you have not purchased Social Publishing seats, you will not see any Service Accounts for ‘Social Publishing.’ If you are interested in learning more about our Social Publishing platform, contact your Customer Success Manager. 
2. Platform: Contains the icon for the third-party platform with which the Gaggle established the authenticated session.
3. Feed Source(s): When the Service Type is ‘Content Feed,’ the Feed Source(s) will display here.
   So for example, you can see the Twitter handle @GaggleAMP is the Feed Source that powers the content feed from which we can grab Twitter posts from the GaggleAMP handle. This corresponds with the Content Feed you see in Manage Feeds, as seen here.
   
   
   Every content feed will have a corresponding mention of it on this Service Account page, regardless if the feed is enabled or disabled. Also, if you hover over the Feed Source(s), you’ll be able to identify if that specific feed source is active or disabled.
   
   If the Service Type is not a Content Feed, the Feed Source will remain blank.
4. Re-Share: Displays the company page name the record authenticates for when creating Re-Share activities.
5. Auth Creator: Indicates the name of the Gaggle Manager that originally supplied the credentials to establish the authentication record.
   Note: When a Gaggle Manager is removed from the Gaggle, the authentication connection originally created does not alter the Service Account record. The Authentication Status remains active.
   However, if the Gaggle Manager's social media account has admin privileges revoked, that will impact the service account. When admin privileges over a Feed Source have been removed, the Service Account record will be set to ‘Expired’ and the Content Feed set to ‘Failed Auth.’ The next time the content feed tries to authenticate to check for new content (usually within the hour), these settings will be applied.
6. Authenticating Account Name: Indicates the user name tied to the email address or login ID used for authentication.
7. Auth Status: Displays either Active or Expired. If the Auth Status is ‘Expired,’ the Gaggle Manager should research if that is intentional or if it needs to be reconnected.
   Pro-Tip: If the Auth Status is Expired and you have recently made updates to your social media administrative access, that is quite likely the culprit.
8. Unlabeled Column: This final column helps you manage your Service Accounts. There are three combinations of information that will be displayed in the drop-down, depending on the Auth Status and if you, the logged-in Member, are the original creator of the Service Account.
   

   Auth Status	Record Created by Logged-In User?	Action Options
   Expired	Yes	Reauthenticate Remove
   Expired	No	Authenticate using my account Remove
   Active	Yes	Remove
   Active	No	Authenticate using my account Remove

   GaggleAMP will automatically detect the Authentication Status and if the original record was created by you, the logged-in user, displaying the actions based on the table above.
   
   Auth Status - Expired or Active; Logged-in User = No
   
   Auth Status - Active; Logged-in User = Yes
   
   Auth Status - Expired; Logged-in User = Yes
   

How Do the Service Account Pages Affect the Current Authentication Workflow?

In short, the Service Account pages simplify some authentication-related workflows, resulting in fewer authentication-related errors. 

The system will cycle through available authentication records on both the Member-side and via the Service Accounts before redirecting the user to the platforms login page.
When a new content feed is created for LinkedIn or Facebook, or an existing one is re-authenticated, the below workflow occurs automatically to both create or declare a Service Account for the content feed.
Note: RSS and Twitter content feeds are slightly different. Neither Twitter nor RSS feeds require any sort of administrative authentication so neither of these content feed types follows this process.

What is the New Authentication Workflow?

1. GaggleAMP checks to see if an existing Service Account is in the logged-in Members name with admin privileges over the targeted page. If the logged-in Member does have admin privileges on the targeted page, this workflow stops and will use that Service Account for the Content Feed. If the logged-in Member does not have admin privileges, the workflow checks step 2. 
2. GaggleAMP then checks to see if the logged-in user has Member-side authentication records for an account that has admin privileges over the target page. If they do, it will create a new Service Account in the logged-in Member name that replicates the Member-side authentication record as a Service Account. If they do not, the workflow will move to step 3.
3. GaggleAMP checks to see if there are any existing Service Account records that have admin privileges over the target page. If there are none, step 4 is initiated.
4. A prompt will be displayed to have the Member authenticate via the platform’s standard authentication process. A new Service Account record will be created for any account authenticated in this fashion.

How Do the Service Accounts Work With Social Publishing?

Note: Social publishing is an add-on product meaning not all accounts have access to our social publishing module. If you do not have social publishing and you are interested in purchasing seats, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

The GaggleAMP Social Publishing module allows customers to create content on business pages connected to the Gaggle as Service Accounts. When using a Gaggle to create business page content, it also allows for the immediate creation of additional activities for your employee advocates to engage with that content at the time of publishing. It's a powerful way to drive additional social media engagement.

With Social Publishing, as a Gaggle Manager, you may have access to multiple business pages. In the Social Publishing module, the ‘Publish Content to’ dropdown holds one option for each unique business page any active Service Account has admin privileges over.

From here you will be able to indicate what post goes to what account and also define follow-up employee advocacy activities.

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