Get it right, or try again and again.
Following my thoughts from problem to solution, including the steps along the way, and the problems with each of them.
Or: How to login as a user from the Admin panel.
Yesterday
I got a phone call from a client, whom I built a Time Tracking system
for calculating the salaries of his ~800 employees.
Joe: Hi Shuki.
Me: Hi Joe.
Joe: Remember the app you built me the other day?
Me: Of course.
Joe: Can you build me an option to login as any user from my Admin panel?
Me: Hmm. May I ask why?
Joe: For QA testing, anyways there is no sensitive data.
Me: I dunno.
Joe: Common, you’ll find a way.
Me: I’ll try.
In
the following post, I will follow my path to a solution, with the ideas
that came to my mind, and the problems with each of them, and in the
end I will share the final solution I came up with.
If Stories & pictures aren’t your thing, you can jump to the solution.
My first thought was that on the
users page in the Admin panel, clicking any username will open a new window, and login as that user.The problem:
My
site uses cookies to keep the user logged in, so if the Admin logs in
as a user, his cookies will be replaced, and he will have to re-login as
an Admin.
Building on my first thought, I can add a link back from the user window, to return to the Admin panel.
The problem:
If
any of our users find this link, they will have free access to login as
an Admin, that surely is not something we can afford happening.
So we need a new window, and we can’t override the cookies, Lets open the user in
incognito mode.The problem:
According to this stack-overflow answer it is impossible to do this via code, And I don’t have the patience to teach him how to do it manually.
If
incognito mode is not an option, we can add parameters to our site like: mysite.com/?user=john&pass=123, and auto login when the page loads.The problem:
Usernames and passwords in the browser history, doesn’t seem to me like a plan, and if someone overlooks his shoulder…
Now that I knew what I needed, I texted the
DevHelps whatsapp group, where I got a quick and efficient solution.
If
you want to save parameters on the window, and can’t use cookies
because you want each window to have it’s own parameters, just use window.name — Bnaya Peretz.
So My final Solution Has the following steps.
- On page loading check for a token saved in the
window.nameobject,
if it exists, auto-login. Otherwise continue to login page. - After successful login, save the token to
window.namefor reloading. - When the admin, clicks on a username, open a new window named with that user’s token, which will auto login as the user.
- In the Admin panel display a popup to reload the page, and since
window.namehas the Admin’s token reloading will auto login as Admin.
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