question How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user? in ServiceNow AI Platform forum

How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

JayD1 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 07:39:55 GMT

Hi Experts,

As i am working in service portal and there is an intermittent issue occurring, explained below:

when I am testing widgets in portal some of the widgets is not visible to the intended users(we have used user criteria to restrict access)

once I am cleaning the browser cache I am able to see the widgets which I am supposed to see.

why this issue is happening and do we have any way to clean the browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user.

any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

joe

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Alberto Consonn — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 07:42:00 GMT

Hi Joe,

it might be useful the following blog article which explain how and when it is needed to clear the cache:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=81ada2a9dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961913

If I have answered your question, please mark my response as correct and/or helpful.

Thank you very much

Cheers
Alberto

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

JayD1 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 07:49:04 GMT

Hi Alberto,

Thanks for your quick response, I was referring to the post and that is more about the server cache clean up, but the thing is we need to clean up the browser cache.

for instance :

when I impersonate as X user I should be able to see a,b,c widgets but i can't,now as I clean my browser cache and I impersonate as X i can able to see the widgets.

do we have any option to clean the browser cache from ServiceNow or we have to do it manually?

why this issue is happening? will it impact the prod instance.

Thanks,

Joe

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Willem — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 08:11:33 GMT

Hi Joe,

As a good practice I always do impersonations in an Incognito window or different browser. This will create a new session and you don't have an issue with browser cache. Especially when you use incognito.

This also helps you keep track of screens where you are impersonating and where you are for example admin. Especially when you have multiple tabs open.

Hope this helps 🙂

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Alberto Consonn — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 08:29:14 GMT

Hi Joe,

as far as I understood, you're doing some testing using the impersonation feature, which is good. However, it's always best practice to try testing also using an incognito browser window and do the login with the end-user credentials instead of use the impersonation, it's more safe cause you can avoid any possible cache issue.

By the way, in production there shouldn't be any issue, however before migrate to production ensure to test it in another instance (i.e test or preprod) using the login flow.

Hope this can help you.

Cheers

Alberto

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

JayD1 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 09:51:01 GMT

Just out of my curiosity I want to go little deep and trying to understand how can I be so sure that this issue will not happen in production?

suppose in production we have small issue occurs for any specific user and to check that issue we have to check by impersonation.what we can do , please advise.

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Willem — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 10:01:45 GMT

Issues will appear in production. Impersonation is fine to analyze that.

What we do after we have analyzed the issue on production, is try to reproduce it on the developer instance. Sometimes it helps to export certain records and import them to our development instance.

Let me know if you have any further questions. We are happy to help 🙂

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

JayD1 — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 10:09:03 GMT

before moving to prod, do we have any permanent solution so that it won't happen in production.

because this is not the best practice to ask the existing users to clean their cache.(who have been using the instance for long)

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Willem — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 10:22:16 GMT

So if there is an issue caused by the users browser Cache, you want another solution besides the user clearing their browser cache? I don't have a solution for that.

If it is the ServiceNow cache. you can clear the cache for all users by using cache.do. you can trigger it via script as well:

gs.cacheFlush();

A good article on it can be found here:

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_blog&sys_id=81ada2a9dbd0dbc01dcaf3231f961913

Re: How to clean browser cache every time when we are impersonating with another user?

Willem — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 23:55:18 GMT

Hi Joe,

Hope you are doing well.

Is your question resolved? Or do we need to follow-up on this?

Please mark the answer as correct if it solves your question. This will help others who are looking for a similar solution. Also marking this answer as correct takes the post of the unsolved list.
Thanks.

Kind regards,

Willem