GDI-SF Social Media Scheduler (for Twitter)

What it does

• Reads the spreadhseet
• Gets information only from upcoming workshops
• Gets photos
• Randomly picks a message and a photo
• Posts message to Twitter every X seconds

Running locally

First, get it ready to run locally:

• Install required dependencies: $ pip install -r requirements.txt

• Export the needed credentials as variables:

export TWITTER_CKEY='your_twitter_consumer_key'

export TWITTER_CSECRET='your_twitter_consumer_secret'

export TWITTER_ATOKEN='your_twitter_app_token'

export TWITTER_ASECRET='your_twitter_app_secret'

export SPREADSHEET_ID='id_of_the_google_spreadsheet'

export SPREADSHEET_CREDENTIALS='json_credentials_from_google_apps'

• Add your photos to /photos

• Define your time interval (to post) in seconds. Ex: 3600 for 1 hour.

export INTERVAL=3600

• Run: $ python app.py

Deploying it to Heroku

• First, create a Heroku account: https://signup.heroku.com/

• Create a new app on Heroku: New >> Create new app

• Install the Heroku Toolbelt: https://toolbelt.heroku.com/

• Login to Heroku on Terminal:

$ heroku login
Enter your Heroku credentials.
Email: your@email.com
Password:
Authentication successful.

• Add Heroku's remote git repo

$ heroku git:remote -a name_of_your_heroku_app

• Export the needed credentials as variables:

$ heroku config:set TWITTER_CKEY='your_twitter_consumer_key'

$ heroku config:set TWITTER_CSECRET='your_twitter_consumer_secret'

$ heroku config:set TWITTER_ATOKEN='your_twitter_app_token'

$ heroku config:set TWITTER_ASECRET='your_twitter_app_secret'

$ heroku config:set SPREADSHEET_ID='id_of_the_google_spreadsheet'

$ heroku config:set SPREADSHEET_CREDENTIALS='json_credentials_from_google_apps'

• Define your time interval (to post) in seconds. Ex: 3600 for 1 hour.

$ heroku config:set INTERVAL=3600

• To deploy, push the code via Git:

$ git push heroku

• When the deploy is done, you will see something like this:

remote:
remote: -----> Discovering process types
remote:        Procfile declares types -> worker
remote:
remote: -----> Compressing...
remote:        Done: 50.1M
remote: -----> Launching...
remote:        Released v7
remote:        https://name_of_your_heroku_app.herokuapp.com/ deployed to Heroku
remote:
remote: Verifying deploy... done.

• Back to Heroku's web dashboard, click on Resources.

• On Free Dynos, on the right hand side, click on the little pencil icon

• Click on the toggle to turn it on, then click on Confirm.

• Check if it's working

$ git heroku logs

• It should look like this:

2017-06-22T21:18:40.816181+00:00 heroku[worker.1]: Starting process with command `python app.py --log-file=-`
2017-06-22T21:18:41.379091+00:00 heroku[worker.1]: State changed from starting to up
2017-06-22T21:19:16.556033+00:00 app[worker.1]:
2017-06-22T21:19:16.555956+00:00 app[worker.1]: SUCCESS: Thu Jun 22 21:19:15 2017 - Event Date Event message Event link
2017-06-22T21:19:46.386584+00:00 app[worker.1]: SUCCESS: Thu Jun 22 21:19:45 2017 - Event Date Event message Event link
2017-06-22T21:19:46.388149+00:00 app[worker.1]:
2017-06-22T21:20:16.592266+00:00 app[worker.1]: SUCCESS: Thu Jun 22 21:20:15 2017 - Event Date Event message Event link

Logs - What you will see printed on Terminal or on Heroku Logs

• Successful tweet log:

LOG_TIME_DATE app[worker.1]: SUCCESS: DATE_POSTED - EVENT_DATE EVENT_MESSAGE EVENT_LINK

• Failed tweet log:

DATE app[worker.1]: ERROR: [{u'code': ERROR_CODE, u'message': u'ERROR_MESSAGE'}] - LOG_TIME_DATE - DATE_POSTED - EVENT_DATE EVENT_MESSAGE EVENT_LINK

Troubleshooting common problems

• Variables are not exported. Check them with $ printenv if you're running it locally. If it's on Heroku, you can check them going to Settings > Reveal Config Vars.

• The SPREADSHEET_CREDENTIALS is the most likely to give you a headache, so make sure you validade your json before exporting it. You can always commit the json file and point to it on the code. It's simpler, but not very safe.

Credentials

Google

• Go to https://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials/

• Click Create credentials >> Service account key

• On Service account, select New service account

• Add Service account name and Service account ID

• JSON should be selected

• Click Create

• JSON will be downloaded. The contents of this JSON is your SPREADSHEET_CREDENTIALS

• Go to your spreadsheet

• On your JSON there's a key "client_email"

• Share your spreadhseet with that email. It looks like 0123456789-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com

• Your spreadsheet URL look like this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/edit#gid=0. Copy what's between https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ and /edit#gid=0. That's your SPREADSHEET_ID

Twitter

• Go to https://apps.twitter.com/
• Click Create new app
• Fill out the required fields
• Click on Create your Twitter application
• Click on Keys and Access tokens
• Click on Create my access token
• On this screen: Consumer Key (API Key) is your TWITTER_CKEY Consumer Secret (API Secret) is your TWITTER_CSECRET Access Token is your TWITTER_ATOKEN Access Token Secret is yout TWITTER_ASECRET

About the spreadsheet format:

• You can make a copy of this spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/GDIpostscheduler
• To use it exactly as is is, add your event information to the green columns
• Always use URL shortner
• Make sure the Count is less than 140 chars

IMPORTANT

• Don't change the number of columns or rearrange them. Gspread goes off the index of the columns, so if you change it, you will have to change the indexes getTweets()
• You can get edit the Final message formula to create the message you want.
• Year, Date and Final Message are mandatory. The Date needs to be in the future, otherwise the message won't be tweeted.

Based on:

• https://github.com/lagleki/schedule-post-to-twitter
• http://jennielees.github.io/full-stack/spread-the-love/

What is GDI SF? Girl Develop It, San Francisco Chapter

Girl Develop It is a nonprofit organization that exists to provide affordable and judgment-free opportunities for women interested in learning web and software development. Through in-person classes and community support, Girl Develop It helps women of diverse backgrounds achieve their technology goals and build confidence in their careers and their everyday lives.

Come code with us! http://meetup.com/Girl-Develop-It-San-Francisco/