When updating the data of an existing dynamic report that has been saved on a webserver, users who opened the report in the past might not see the updated data, as their Internet browser might be caching the old data file(s). The purpose of this support article is to make you aware of this issue and help you and your IT team to find ways around it.

Preventing caching using theme data files

If you are exporting your data in multiple theme files (see this page of our InstantAtlas Desktop User Guilde for detailed information about theme data files), the Excel data manager automatically adds a parameter to the end of each theme file URL that changes each time to get around caching:

"themes": [{
    "themeId": "t0",
    "themeName": "Theme 1",
    "fileName": "./Louisiana_Parishes-t0.js?r=41B5FD49-E22A-45CB-8864-258052159341",

While this prevents the theme data files from being cached, it has no effect if  the data.js file itself is being cached.

Preventing caching by configuring the webserver

It may be possible to configure the webserver to explicitly prevent the caching of data.js. Please ask your server administrator to look into this for you.

Preventing caching by renaming the data.js file or report folder

When you update the data, you can rename the data.js file and then add a parameter to the dynamic report URL to make it pick up the new data file. The support article Including Parameters in an InstantAtlas Report URL explains how this is done.

Alternatively, you can rename the folder on your webserver where the dynamic report is saved in.

Both methods will force the files to be loaded from the server rather than from the cache location. However, please be aware that you will have to update any links to the dynamic report to include the new data parameter/folder name.

If your data is changing on a frequent basis this process could probably be automated.