CA Service Management

Service Catalog forms support customization on a form by form basis by allowing you to place to write your script and specific events to call those scripts. This works well.

There is also the option to write scripts that would be used on multiple forms and place them in this location. USM_Home\filestore\custom\explorer\scripts\custom_form_lib.js. This is useful for thing like checking date fields for past dates which can happen on multiple forms. I've run into issues of browsers caching this file on user machines. If the form definition updates without the .js definition updating any user that uses the updated form will receive errors. I know a common method for handling such things is adding a version number or some unique numbering so the new reference will force the user to pull a fresh file, however I'm fairly certain within the confines of Service Catalog you cannot do this.

Has anyone run into this and come up with a solution? Is there a standard method to handle this within Service Catalog?

Good Day, Jordan.

It is an interesting question indeed. For which I need to seek for the answer elsewhere.

So, I did send out an internal email message. And possibly an answer will come form that.

Otherwise, some one else in the community might help you further on this.

Thanks for your understanding and kind regards, Louis van Amelsfort.

Thanks for asking and your question is a good one.

This happens mainly because .js files along with .css and image files, are being cached indeed.

We could consider exempting custom_form_lib.js from being cached.
This way, every time Catalog is opened, a fresh copy of this file is fetched from server instead of using cached file.

Since this would require code change to support what you are asking for, I propose to open an Idea in the Community.

As in a more general 'statement':
For situations like this, where a user asks for a change of behaviour of the current release of the product, I can propose to add an Idea in the Communities.

A new way to get your voice heard at CA is to suggest your idea for review through the Service Management Global User Community.
The CA Service Catalog Product Team is adopting the CA Community based Ideation solution, which is available to you through the CA Service Management Global User Community. 
  
The following steps will guide you to submit an Idea:
- Logon to the CA Service Management Global User Community.
https://communities.ca.com/web/ca-service-management-global-user-community/welcome
If you are not already a member of the community, we encourage you to join right away.
- Select "CA Service Catalog" from the "Products Covered" menu on the right side of the page. (you might need to scroll down a little).
- Click on the 'Ideas'(bulb-light) icon at the top to view the existing Ideas and see if your Idea has already been suggested.
  If it has, you can vote on it and add a comment.
- If you have a new idea, click on the "Create an Idea" link on the Actions menu at the left. 
 
Once your Idea is submitted(publish), all members of the Community can view, comment, provide suggestions, discuss alternatives and vote on ideas to define the highly popular features.
All ideas will be reviewed to see whether they can be implemented.

In short: Please open an Idea and let me know when done to 'vote' for it.

Thanks in advance for your effort on this and kind regards, Louis van Amelsfort.

For furture reference an Idea has been created and can be found here https://communities.ca.com/ideas/235733012

Hi Jordan.

Thanks for adding the Idea, to which I 'voted-up' then now.

Kind regards, Louis.

I always recommend that browser configuration should be set to flush the cache whenever the browser is closed.

I agree, and I personally have my settings this way. Unfortunately it's not always an option to force this kind of setting in a company environment.