How to refresh a shortlist data?

[harun_kaldi]

Hey community,

I have a view that I list 20 users every time. I have a shuffle button to refresh this list.

But I couldnt find a way to refresh this list on tapping shuffle button.

In workflow, I tried adding clear list > display list in short list. But this doesnt make any effect.

I think Bubble caching the user data and so its only showing data once.

Then I changed logic and set users list data source to page custom states. I tried removing and updating this custom states. No effect. Its only loading the once on page load and not refreshing on tapping shuffle..

Does anyone have any idea? What can I try to refresh data on button tapping?

Thanks.

[carlovsk.edits]

Option 1: Use Bubble’s Data API
Enable the Data API in your App Settings and simply call the endpoint that returns your User list (with whatever filters you need) each time you want to refresh. Documentation:
https://manual.bubble.io/help-guides/integrations/api/the-bubble-api/the-data-api/data-api-requests

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Option 2: Build a Custom “Refresh” Endpoint

1. Create a Backend API Workflow

   • In the Backend Workflows section, add a new API Workflow (e.g. refresh_user_list).
   • Add any input parameters or filters you need.
   • In the final step, use “Return data from API” to send back the list of Users (and format the JSON exactly how you want).

2. Register it in the API Connector

   • In the API Connector plugin, add a new call pointing to your refresh_user_list endpoint.
   • Add an extra parameter (e.g. cache_bust) and pass in a unique value—like the current date‑time in ISO format on every call.

By changing cache_bust each time, Bubble sees a “new” request and will re‑run the workflow instead of serving a cached response.

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That way, whether you hit the native Data API or your own workflow, you’ll force Bubble to fetch fresh data every time.

[harun_kaldi]

Thanks for making such detailed explanation. I will try implementhing yhis and share the result back.

[carlovsk.edits]

Hey, were you able to implement it?

[harun_kaldi]

Hey there, I tried both ways. Its still sending me same list everytime. As you said, I added cache bust and gave it to unique current time on every call. Strangely, its responding back same list in the same ordered users. Here I share my setup.

I added a backend api with return data action.

Then I setup api connector as following

Finally I setup data into my front end users list as following

Its sending same list every time.. What am I doing wrong?

[harun_kaldi]

Forgot added you in the reply

[carlovsk.edits]

Hi there!

I originally tried a simpler approach, but it didn’t work reliably. Here’s a more robust (albeit slightly more involved) solution:

1. Create Workflow “get-users-json”

   • In your Backend Workflows, add an API endpoint that performs a Search for Users.

   • Use “Return data from API” to output the resulting list as JSON.

   • Example output:

     [
       { "email": "alice@example.com", "name": "Alice" },
       { "email": "bob@example.com",   "name": "Bob" },
       …
     ]
     

   

2. Create Workflow “randomize-users”

   • Add another API endpoint that:

     1. Calls your get‑users‑json endpoint.
     2. Parses the returned JSON array.
     3. Randomly the list.
     4. Returns the shuffled array with “Return data from API.”
        
        

3. Configure in API Connector

   • Add both endpoints to your API Connector with the correct URLs and headers.
   • Test each one to verify you get the raw JSON from get-users-json and the shuffled JSON from randomize-users.

4. Client‑side Call

   • In your front‑end workflow, call the randomize-users endpoint.
   • It will return a fresh, randomly ordered list each time.
   • Map over that JSON to display the fields you need (email, name, etc.).