Open reports at first unread action

[janicduplessis]

Details

Implements opening reports at the last unread message. This builds on top of #52149 to be able to start our list at any item. This removes a few assumptions that open report will always open at the newest action.

Fixed Issues

$ #35011
PROPOSAL:

Tests

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console
• Test the scenarios described in the QA steps

Offline tests

QA Steps

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console
• Using 2 accounts in the same chat test the following scenarios:

1. With account A send 30+ messages, with account B open the chat. It should open at the last unread message and load more messages once scrolled at the bottom.
2. With account A send 20 new messages, with account B open the chat. It should open at the last unread message and all messages should be loaded already.
3. With account A send 1 new message, with account B open the chat. It should open at the last unread message and all messages should be loaded already.

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
  • MacOS: Desktop
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
• I verified there are no new alerts related to the canBeMissing param for useOnyx
• I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that any callback methods that were added or modified are named for what the method does and never what callback they handle (i.e. toggleReport and not onIconClick)
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text shown in the product is localized by adding it to src/languages/* files and using the translation method
    • If any non-english text was added/modified, I verified the translation was requested/reviewed in #expensify-open-source and it was approved by an internal Expensify engineer. Link to Slack message:
  • I verified all numbers, amounts, dates and phone numbers shown in the product are using the localization methods
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
  • I verified proper file naming conventions were followed for any new files or renamed files. All non-platform specific files are named after what they export and are not named "index.js". All platform-specific files are named for the platform the code supports as outlined in the README.
  • I verified the JSDocs style guidelines (in STYLE.md) were followed
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
• I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
• I verified all code is DRY (the PR doesn't include any logic written more than once, with the exception of tests)
• I verified any variables that can be defined as constants (ie. in CONST.js or at the top of the file that uses the constant) are defined as such
• I verified that if a function's arguments changed that all usages have also been updated correctly
• If any new file was added I verified that:
  • The file has a description of what it does and/or why is needed at the top of the file if the code is not self explanatory
• If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
  • A similar style doesn't already exist
  • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
• If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
  • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
  • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
• If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• If a new page is added, I verified it's using the ScrollView component to make it scrollable when more elements are added to the page.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.23.42.32.mov

Android: mWeb Chrome

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.23.37.31.mov

iOS: Native

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.22.56.37.mov

iOS: mWeb Safari

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.23.02.45.mov

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.22.33.19.mov

MacOS: Desktop

Screen.Recording.2025-01-27.at.23.32.32.mov

[janicduplessis]

I have a UX question here, where do we want the scroll of the list to open at? Currently it opens the chat where the new message is aligned at the bottom so like this:

But it could also be aligned at the top so we see more new messages instead of old ones, like this:

[rlinoz]

Oh I guess I am not sure how to assign someone from the @Expensify/design team to the PR, but I think they can help with your question #51366 (comment)

[shawnborton]

But it could also be aligned at the top so we see more new messages instead of old ones, like this:

I personally like this, but I think I would prefer to let an older message slightly peak out from above so there is a little more context that you are starting from a certain point. So basically what you have but maybe push down the starting point by like 56px or 64px or something like that.

[dannymcclain]

Yeah I like that too Shawn!

[dubielzyk-expensify]

+1 to that. Always like it when we peek content to show that there's more there

[ikevin127]

@janicduplessis First of all, props for picking up this veteran difficulty level issue, doing such great work on it so far and getting it so close to completion 🚀

👋 Please tag me before merging this in case I don't get notified because I'd like to run some tests myself to make sure this works as expected, I have 2 scenarios in mind:

• opening a report for the first time on fresh login, with 300-500 unread new messages
• opening a report for the first time on fresh login where the last read message was deleted in the meantime

Note: I'm one of the contributors which attempted to fix this from FE only but ultimately figured out it won't work and suggested a BE + FE implementation discussion months ago before Rory went on parental leave.

How did I get here ? Another C+ reviewer asked just yesterday about an issue on Slack, which will basically be fixed by this PR - that's how I remembered this 1 year old issue and decided to join the testing effort as well since I have some context on this.

Note: No compensation needed, just want to help 👍

[melvin-bot]

@ishpaul777 Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[janicduplessis]

This is ready for review and further testing. Sadly adjusting the scroll position so the newest message is near the top ended up very difficult with the way we handle opening the list in the middle of a chat. I think we should punt that for later since this is already taking longer than I would have liked.

[ishpaul777]

Sadly adjusting the scroll position so the newest message is near the top ended up very difficult with the way we handle opening the list in the middle of a chat.

how is this relevant if the last unread message is show at the bottom not the top?

[ikevin127]

From Flatlist's scrollToIndex() docs:

Scrolls to the item at the specified index such that it is positioned in the viewable area such that viewPosition 0 places it at the top, 1 at the bottom, and 0.5 centered in the middle.

[janicduplessis]

This is actually not needed anymore.

[chrispader]

When the user sends a message after going to a specific report action (unread/linked), we need to find a solution to scroll to the latest report action, even if we don't have it stored locally yet.

@rlinoz i think i found a solution for this, but i'm not sure whether we want to add some sort of loading spinner here? You can see the loading bar on the sidebar, once the message is sent, but not sure whether we'll want to also indicate the loading state somewhere else, since a OpenReport call is triggered which can potentially take longer on a slow network. Also i think once the message is sent, the "Last message" pill should optimistically hide already.

Screen.Recording.2026-04-04.at.12.24.19.mov

Basically what i'm doing is that we're fetching the very last messages in the chat, appending them to the list of current messages, then scroll to the bottom and then remove the mid-chat report actions page and update the list. This way, we can scroll to the last message without the need to manually reload the whole list

[chrispader]

@rlinoz just resolved merge conflicts and re-tested the changes. The base functionality of linking to unread report actions works smoothly and i think we don't have any other edge-cases to cover in this PR.

Last tasks for me to do are:

• Make sure that the multi-expense report view works (tableReportView)
  • [$1000] Jump to last unread chat when opening a report #35011 (comment)
• Evaluate whether we have any conflicts with changes by @aimane-chnaif and resolve them
  • [$1000] Jump to last unread chat when opening a report #35011 (comment)

After that, we can hopefully finally merge this beast of a PR 👀

[rlinoz]

Discussing here #35011 (comment) before discussing this #51366 (comment)

[rlinoz]

I think if we are going to add the loading indicator we do as a follow up to this PR, so we only need to do what you mentioned here #51366 (comment)

[chrispader]

@rlinoz both of the above points are handled. @aimane-chnaif's changes for LHN action badges should not conflict with this PR and also opening an unread report action with the multi-expense report view works smoothly. (tableReportView seems to not be a beta flag anymore, so i've just tested with any type of report view that we have on main atm)

I think this PR should be ready for a final review and merge! 🙌🏼

[chrispader]

I'll coordinate with @Expensify/design on the implementation of loading states when the report is loading newer/older messages in a follow-up PR. For context, we've previously discussed this in this Slack thread.

[chrispader]

@ishpaul777 or @ikevin127 could you please review this PR?

Also, @rlinoz could you please remove the [HOLD on #51366 and #76104] tag from the PR title? I cannot edit as this is Janic's PR originally

[rlinoz]

Running an adhoc build, after we finish reviewing I will ask applause to test this as well.

[github-actions]

🚧 @rlinoz has triggered a test Expensify/App build. You can view the workflow run here.

[github-actions]

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪
Built from App PR #51366.

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-android-Adhoc-56fbca9-40b89df-efebd42d561f09dee4fe665e743b277aa3cccc64/index.html	https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-ios-device-AdHoc-56fbca9-40b89df-aa6f0f5dced658e24bc7514f10c6ec01066e4e75/index.html

Web 🕸️
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[rlinoz]

@ishpaul777 if you could help review this one.

[chrispader]

@rlinoz sorry my bad, i forgot to push the last commit for this fix: #51366 (comment)

Could you please re-trigger the ad-hoc builds?

[rlinoz]

@chrispader can you fix the tests, typecheck and lint please?

[chrispader]

@rlinoz fixed, there was an invalid import remaining from the merge conflicts...

[github-actions]

🚧 @rlinoz has triggered a test Expensify/App build. You can view the workflow run here.

[github-actions]

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪
Built from App PR #51366.

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-android-Adhoc-0d9fc51-678b3bb-86d3f2457de6cd2aa154228b2875e190c01d12d2/index.html	https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-ios-device-AdHoc-0d9fc51-678b3bb-1b5e20092daafa5bffb8559ca74baa63a3f09422/index.html

Web 🕸️
https://51366.pr-testing.expensify.com

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[rlinoz]

It is working pretty well, only issue I found is this one:

1. Mark message as unread
2. Reset cache
3. Open report

We are scrolling to the bottom of the chat, did we discuss this before?

Screen.Recording.2026-04-14.at.12.33.36.mov