Renren is a Chinese social networking service used primarily by college students. Renren has approximately 31 million active users each month.

Before you begin

Although not detailed in this configuration guide, you can create a Renren app that enables users to log on to your web site by using their Renren account. To create a Renren developer account, you must have a Chinese phone number:

Although you can fill out the application forms on the Renren site, the required verification text message can only be sent to a Chinese phone number.

If you already have a Renren developer account, you can create a social login app from the Renren developer’s site .

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Web pages on the Renren Developers site are written in Chinese. If you do not speak Chinese, you might want to use a web browser than can translate the Renren web pages. For this configuration guide, we used Google Chrome and its Translate to English option.

Configure Renren as a social login provider

To configure Renren as a social login provider, make sure you have your Renren app key and app secret, and then complete the following procedure:

Log on to your Social Login Dashboard (https://dashboard.janrain.com).
From the Dashboard home page, click the Manage Engage Dashboard icon.
From the Engage Dashboard home page, in the Widgets and SDKs section, click Sign-Ins.
From the Sign-in page, verify that Widget is selected and then expand Providers.
From the list of Providers, click Renren.
In the Renren dialog box, click Next until you reach the screen requesting the app key and app secret:
Paste your Renren app key in the App Key field, paste your Renren app secret in the App Secret field, and then click Save. Renren appears in your social login widget.
When you are finished, select Save and Publish and then click Publish. It might take as long as one hour before Renren appears as a social login option on your web site.

Test Renren social login

To test Renren social login, complete the following procedure:

Do one of the following:
- If you have just published your widget settings, click the Test your widget link that appears after the widget has been saved.
- If you previously published your widget settings then, from the Engage Dashboard Sign-in page, click Launch a test widget.
From the Test page, click the Renren icon:
In the Connect with everyone window, logon using a valid Renren account:
If login succeeds, information returned from the Renren profile is displayed in the API response preview field.

The returned profile information will vary depending on the Renren account used in the test.

You can verify Renren profile fields by completing the following procedure:

From the Engage Dashboard home page, click the Manage Providers icon:
From the Configure Providers page, click Renren.
Profile information returned from Renren is displayed onscreen. For example:

Assign a different Renren app for social login

If you want to use a different Renren app or if you need to change your existing app, you must update the Renren provider configuration settings. To do that, complete the following procedure:

From the Engage Dashboard home page, click the Manage Providers icon:
From the Configure Providers page, click Renren.
Click the green Configured button to display the Renren is currently enabled dialog box:
To change the Renren configuration, click Modify these settings.
In the Renren dialog box, change the App Key and/or App Secret as needed, and then click Save:

Although you can modify your Renren settings, you cannot delete those settings. If you delete the settings and then try to save your changes, you’ll see the error message Please enter your Consumer Key and Secret exactly as Renren shows them.

This means that you cannot “unconfigure” the provider: once configured, the Renren icon will always be shown as green (i.e., configured) in the Social Login Dashboard.

Remove Renren as a social login provider

You can remove Renren as a social login provider by completing the following procedure:

Log on to your Social Login Dashboard (https://dashboard.janrain.com).
From the Dashboard home page, click the Manage Engage Dashboard icon.
From the Engage Dashboard home page, in the Widgets and SDKs section, click Sign-Ins.
From the Sign-in page, verify that Widget is selected and then expand Providers.
In the widget, click the X in the upper right corner of the Renren icon.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, select Save and Publish, and then click Publish. Renren no longer appears in the sign-on widget.

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You must always have at least one social login provider in the widget. If you delete all the providers and then click Publish, you’ll see the error message Couldn’t save configuration: No providers.