Expense Report Issue: Reports Not Displaying

by Dimemap Team 45 views

Hey guys, this is a heads-up about a sneaky little bug we've found in Expensify, specifically when you're dealing with expense reports. It looks like, under certain conditions, not all your reports are showing up when you're trying to view the details of an expense. This can be super frustrating, especially when you need to quickly check things or make sure everything's in the right place. Let's dive into what's happening and what we know so far.

The Bug: Reports Vanishing Act

So, here's the deal. Imagine you're in Expensify, and you're trying to view the details of an expense. You click on a specific expense, and you're presented with the report field. This field is supposed to show you all the reports related to that expense, right? Well, in this case, it's not behaving as expected. Instead of showing all the reports, it's only showing some of them. In other words, some reports are simply not being displayed. This is happening when you open the Report field in the Expense details.

This bug seems to be a bit of a chameleon. It's reproducible in staging, which means we can reliably trigger it in our test environment. However, it's not showing up in production, which is the version everyone's actually using. We're working on figuring out why there's a difference and how to squash this bug for good.

How to Reproduce the Issue

Okay, so if you're curious and want to see this bug in action, here's how you can try to reproduce it. Keep in mind that you'll need a couple of accounts and a little bit of setup to make it happen. Before you get started, check out our contributing guidelines and join our Slack channel by emailing contributors@expensify.com to join our Slack channel!

Here's the Steps to Reproduce:

First, you need to create a scenario with two users, let's call them A and B, in a workspace environment. User A will invite User B to the workspace. After User A has invited User B to the Workspace, User A should log out, leaving User B to continue the process.

  1. Workspace Setup: Get User B set up in a workspace. They will need to create a few reports within the workspace chat, maybe two or three should do the trick.
  2. Add Expenses: Add expenses to each of those reports. This is a crucial step to link the expenses to the reports.
  3. Log in as User A: Open Expensify in your browser. Log in as User A.
  4. Navigate to Reports: Head over to the 'Reports' section and select 'Expense'.
  5. Open Report Details: Open the details of an expense in report one. Tap into the report field. The expected result is that all reports should be visible, but only report one is shown.
  6. Open Report Details: Open the details of an expense in report two. Tap into the report field. The expected result is that all reports should be visible, but only report one and report two is shown.

See? It's like the reports are playing hide-and-seek, and they're not very good at it. These steps are designed to help you, or anyone else, reliably trigger the bug so you can see it in action and help us out.

The Expected vs. Actual

When we click on the Report field, here's what should happen (the 'Expected Result'): you should see all the reports related to that expense. It's supposed to give you a complete picture.

But here's what's actually happening (the 'Actual Result'): only some of the reports are being shown. This means you're not getting the full context, which can lead to confusion and potential errors. This behavior is inconsistent and, frankly, not very helpful. It's like having a map that only shows half the roads – it's not going to get you where you need to go.

Affected Platforms

This issue seems to be popping up on a variety of platforms:

  • Android (App and mWeb Chrome)
  • iOS (App and mWeb Safari & Chrome)
  • Windows (Chrome)

It's worth noting that it's not showing up on macOS (Chrome/Safari) at this time. This is helpful information because it can help us narrow down the issue's root cause.

Workarounds and Next Steps

Unfortunately, there's no known workaround at the moment. When a user is trying to view a report, and the required report is not shown, this will hinder the user's progress.

We're actively investigating this bug to understand why it's happening and to find a fix. The team is already on the case, looking at the code, testing different scenarios, and trying to get to the bottom of it. The good news is that we've got a clear set of steps to reproduce the issue, which makes it easier to track down the cause.

As we work on fixing this, we'll keep you updated. In the meantime, if you encounter this issue, please don't hesitate to report it to us. The more information we have, the better we can understand and resolve this problem. Your feedback helps us make Expensify better for everyone!

Conclusion

This bug, where not all reports are shown in the expense details, is a glitch that needs our attention. It impacts the user's ability to easily view and manage their expense reports. We're on the case, working hard to solve the problem and make sure Expensify runs smoothly for everyone. Thanks for your patience and for helping us make Expensify the best it can be!