Facebook App Review not needed?

Nick,
You're absolutely right. It's confusing as can be right now for everyone, even us.

Until a few months ago, I would have (and have plenty of times in these forums) said you don't need to go through the review process. If you're a Facebook admin, you can get any permissions you need, always, without going through the app review. App review was only if want to get permissions from your general users. Easy peasy.

However, Facebook has been less than clear with all of the recent changes as to what will happen on August 1st. In some places, like you mention, they show that app review isn't necessary if you're just getting permissions for admins. Other places, they state that app review is required for all permissions, whether you as an admin are using them or everyone. Some permissions have even been restricted to need app review before you can even test them.. which is pretty ridiculous since you need to show how you use them before you can go through app review.. so it's a chicken and egg with those few.

Our recommendation now is to submit whatever you can as a precaution. If you're ok with your stream possibly not showing after August 1st, you can not try to go through the review process now and see what happens. We'll agree that going through the app review process with how you're using the app right now would be difficult, but if you want to at least explain how you're using it, it can't hurt.

After August 1st, we'll know more based on what happens. It's very opaque right now though and Facebook's documentation is all over the place as they're moving very quickly to implement a lot of updates.

Sorry I can't give you a definitive 'do this', but hopefully the above explains the situation better.

Thanks,
Alex

No problem. Definitely let us know how it goes. We have submissions in for a few sites right now... it's not speedy, but the way Facebook has communicated, if you have a submission in by August 1st, you're good while waiting, even if it takes a while for them to go through your application.

Alex

Nick,
From our understand and from what we're seeing now that the August 1st deadline has passed is that if you're site doesn't allow normal people to register or login with Facebook, you should simply leave your app in Development mode. In that state, you (the admin) will still be able to grant whatever permissions you want to yourself without any Facebook Review process. JFBConnect can use those permissions just fine.

If you need other users to register (that aren't admins of your app), then it gets more tricky, but even then, you can always flip to development mode (quickly) to grant your admin permissions and then flip back.

At least with the above, you can get around the App Review process (legitimately) while you figure out if you actually need to submit or while you're going through the submission process.

Thanks,
Alex