Potential Bug: User Emulator doesn't apply to action updates

[_redline]

I’m referring to testing actions through different users with the “Preview App as” functionality. It tends to be a bit confusing when trying to develop an app with this tool as I haven’t found an explicit explanation of what all actually changes when you change the user in “Preview App as”.

For example: I’m running a bot which adds up numbers from a running log that contains numbers for many users. The actions will check the current user against these entries and only add together numbers relevant to the current user. This is not the case; however, when using “Preview App as”. The action will still assume my App development account even if everything else says that I am the user that I defined.

I can confirm this because if I actually create a second account and try to perform the same action, it works as intended. So I’m not sure if this is just not covered in the intended scope of this functionality or a bug. Anybody else experiencing similar?

[Steve · Accepted solution]

My impression is that Preview App as only changes what USEREMAIL() returns within the emulator itself. Bots are run on the server, are running the last saved version of the app, and aren’t aware of Preview App as at all.

Preview App as is not a great tool. It’s okay for some things, but it has a lot of limitations.