Facebook Login

Benefits of Facebook Login 

• Deliver a better Wi-Fi user experience - Wi-Fi login experience is ‘social’, friends can share their location and tag other friends, add photos

• Connect more with your end-users - Increase traffic on your Facebook page, share offers and announcements, make it easier for your customers to check-in and like your business

• Increase visibility of your business on Facebook - Facebook Login promotes check-ins, meaning your business can increase the number of people you reach, and the number of stories generated about your brand in the News Feed

• Deepen social media analytics - gain insight into aggregate demographics data from check-ins, reach customers who check-in with Facebook ads

Facebook Login Sign-on Flow 

1. User connects to merchant's wireless network
2. User's device automatically launches Captive Network Assistant (Apple) or prompts the user to sign into the WiFi network (Windows, Android), which opens the Facebook splash page in a browser once the notification prompt is selected.
3. User can check-in on Facebook (optional to skip, or use a Wi-Fi code instead)

Note: Apple CNA with Facebook WiFi is not currently supported on macOS 10.12.x. Users will need to manually open a web browser to be redirected to the Facebook WiFi splash. 

Configuring Meraki Wi-Fi with Facebook Login

After creating a Facebook page, Facebook Login is configured on the Configure > Access control page by taking the following steps:

1. Select ‘Sign-on with Facebook Wi-Fi’ under the ‘Splash page’ section and press the ‘Save’ button:

 

  

2. You will now see a link under the ‘Sign-on with Facebook Wi-Fi’ tab - ‘Configure Facebook settings here’. Clicking on this link will take you to your Facebook Wi-Fi settings page.

 

 

3. If you are not logged into Facebook, you will be prompted to log into Facebook. Once you have logged in, you will see the following settings that will let you pair your Meraki network with your Facebook Page:

4. Here, you can select which Facebook Page you want to pair your Meraki network with. You must log in with the same admin credentials that are used to manage your Facebook Page (information on how to create a Facebook Page for your location or business is available here). You can also select for your users to require a check-in with their Facebook credentials, or allow them to use Wi-Fi codes that can be issued from your Facebook admin panel (more info on that available here).

 

5. Once your Facebook page has been successfully paired with your SSID, the Access Control page will update the Splash page section with information about the paired page, along with an option to Unpair.

 

 

5. Now when users sign onto this SSID, they will be redirected to your Facebook Page and asked to check-in.

 

Structuring Parent-Child Facebook Pages 

If you want to configure a unique Facebook Page per location (and you have configured multiple Meraki networks with one per location), you'll need to set up a Facebook 'Parent-child' structure for your main Facebook Page if you haven't already done that. There are more details in the Facebook Wi-Fi FAQ on how to get this set up easily. Configuring each individual location to have its own Facebook Page is the recommended model as people can check-in at these specific locations, and you can drive visibility into each of your individual locations.

If you want to configure all locations to point to a single Facebook Page, all of those locations will need to be within a single Meraki network - you cannot point multiple different Meraki networks to the same Facebook page. The recommended model is for you to have each location within a separate Meraki network so that you can receive reports and presence analytics information, as well as run comparisons, on a per-location basis.

To get started immediately, you can read this 1-pager on Facebook Parent-Child pages, download a sample template spreadsheet for filling out information on the children pages and send the completed spreadsheet along with the following info to fbwifisupport@fb.com:

• Name

• Parent Page name

• Link to Parent Page

Advertising Facebook Wi-Fi 

An optional 'Free Internet' Facebook banner ad is available for you to display in your store window or business entrance to help attract users. Click here to download this ad: Facebook Wi-Fi Sticker.png.

Age and Country Restrictions Causing Issues

When configuring a Sign-on Splash page with Facebook Wi-Fi, any age and/or country restrictions configured on the Facebook page will prevent successful pairing with the SSID. When this happens the following message will appear on the Configure > Access control page:
 

 

The Facebook page should not have any countries listed in its “Country Restrictions” settings. Additional information regarding Facebook Wi-Fi integration with Cisco's Meraki is available on our web site. The Facebook Wi-Fi FAQ is available on the Facebook website.

Walled Garden Considerations

Typically, admins will choose to prevent users from accessing the network prior to signing on. Admins can then choose to configure a "walled garden" of allowed sites that users can visit. Typically when configuring an externally-hosted splash page, that page will have to be added to this walled garden, or users will be prevented from signing in at all.

For Facebook Wi-Fi, "facebook.com" is added automatically to this walled garden, specifically so users can be redirected to the authentication page.

Additional Resources

Facebook also hosts more information about Facebook Wi-Fi on their site.