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Hi all,

Every time we update our app, I get e-mails from users that they cannot enter the app and they send me a picture like the one below. We have tried to prevent this from happening by using the ‘latest’ tag option. All links in our information channels link to our app ending with the ‘/tag/latest’ such that they always end up at the right version of the app. But still I get a lot of these e-mails.

Mostly this is because, once people have entered the app, they bookmark it (or store the url) and use this bookmark later on. The problem is that once they bookmark it, the url has changed to the current version name and therefore the link doesn’t consist of this latest tag anymore. And thereby causing the problem of the picture below after a new update of the app. I always reply back that they should use the link with the latest tag in there, but as we have a lot of users, this keeps happening. It would be great if there could be a solution, such that my users don’t have be annoyed by the fact that they can’t enter and I don’t have to do this extra work of explaining every time.

I see two solutions of which I would prefer the first one, but also happy to hear other solutions!

  1. Make sure the app can be used with the /tag/latest in the url, such that it doesn’t change to the latest version name and people can still safely bookmark the link. Or something similar, just to make sure the URL is consistent over all versions.
  2. Add a message in the error message below, pointing out to users that they should try the link that consists of the /tag/latest

 

 

 

Hi @Guus Kattenbelt 

That is certainly annoying. We will look at your suggestions of course. There is one thing you could do now: ask your users to bookmark the following:

 

 

Hi @Gertjan,

Thanks for the response. This is indeed what I ask them to do all the time, but not all seem to listen to me :wink:

Hello @Guus Kattenbelt 

I have checked in with the team and unfortunately this is not a simple change as the ‘latest’ option is just a reroute to the actual version where the version is part of the URL. As the browser bookmark feature does not know anything about ‘latest’, this then of course generates the problem of being unable to bookmark it as such.


Changing this would require an extensive restructure of how we publish apps and would then also create possible other conflicts regarding caching of apps. Hence, for now, we unfortunately won’t take it on; however, we sure keep it in mind towards the future because also we do not find this ideal. This does mean your users would have to be more exact when bookmarking their Apps (eg changing their bookmark) to prevent issues later on.  My apologies for not being able to help you at this time!
 

 

 

Hello @Guus Kattenbelt 

I have checked in with the team and unfortunately this is not a simple change as the ‘latest’ option is just a reroute to the actual version where the version is part of the URL. As the browser bookmark feature does not know anything about ‘latest’, this then of course generates the problem of being unable to bookmark it as such.


Changing this would require an extensive restructure of how we publish apps and would then also create possible other conflicts regarding caching of apps. Hence, for now, we unfortunately won’t take it on; however, we sure keep it in mind towards the future because also we do not find this ideal. This does mean your users would have to be more exact when bookmarking their Apps (eg changing their bookmark) to prevent issues later on.  My apologies for not being able to help you at this time!
 

 

 

That is unfortunate, but thanks for the feedback @Gertjan!

Updated idea status New → Declined

Hi @Gertjan, as I had some issues with this again lately, I went back to this conversation. I understand that the change with rerouting is not an easy one, but when reading this conversation again, I realized we never spoke about my second proposal and also added a third idea. Which was the following:

 

  1. Add a message in the error message below, pointing out to users that they should try the link that consists of the /tag/latest. Or to point out the general link (xxx.cloud.aimms.com/applications/). As users are now stuck with this screen and don’t know what to do.
  2. Even better, if a user doesn’t have the right authorization, reroute them to the latest version.

 

Thanks @Guus Kattenbelt, I have forwarded it internally to consider your reply and respond. 
 

Thanks @Gertjan, any update on this?

Kind regards,

Guus

Guus, next week we will ‘brainstorm’ possible solutions and try to estimate the associated effort. Apologies you had to chase us.

Jan-Willem

So Guus, just trying to make sure I really get this:

  • Users bookmark the app in their browser and because you are using Single-Sign-On they will not see a PRO Portal login or app catalogue page, but they will direclty see the app when they navigate to this bookmark. Correct?
  • And as soon as a new version of the app is published their bookmarks no longer work (as these include a version number). Correct?
  • You instructed them to use https://PORTALURL/launch/APPNAME/tag/latest (adjusting PORTAL- and APPNAME) as URL in their bookmark, but not all followed this advice. Correct?

If my understanding is correct we may have 2 potential solutions for this, apart from the ‘expensive’ one mentioned above. I will contact you via email as soon as we have them a bit more refined.

Regards,

Jan-Willem

  • Correct, I instruct them to go to the app via this link: https://PORTALURL/launch/APPNAME/tag/latest. So they don’t see the app catalogue page
  • Also correct, this isn’t for all of course. But I’m assuming that they bookmark once they are in the app and then the version number is in the link and therefore the bookmark won’t work when we launch a new version.
  • Also correct. I just checked, past year 230 users used the app and not nearly all came to me with this issue, so most of them do it correctly. But not all, I do get this question more frequently

Thanks for the help Jan-Willem!

Guus, I think you now have the solution for this nagging issue (PRO 2.40). Let us know how users experience this.

Jan-Willem

If I get feedback, I will share this with you. If I don’t, that means that it’s working :wink:

Just for clarity to other readers:

  • In the past, when end-users bookmarked an app, this bookmark would ‘break’ when the app was replaced with a new version.
  • PRO 2.40 has a feature that warns users when they are using an outdated bookmark, showing a link to the new version of the same app. Users will keep getting this message until they have replaced their bookmark. We will not do that for them.
  • PRO 2.40 is being rolled-out to all cloud accounts in the coming weeks by our User Support team.

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