Cross Domain Storage Support After 3rd party Cookies Phase Out
Brief Overview
Google announced that 3rd party cookies will no longer be supported by the end of 2024 in Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. The gradual phase out will begin in Q1 of 2024. During 2023, Google started limiting cross domain – local storage access for 3rd party services. WalkMe is working proactively to mitigate the impact of this change, and for any customers that were at risk immediate action was taken.
Expected Impact
If your WalkMe system is expected to cover several domains as part of a single WalkMe system and you're using a snippet deployment – this information is relevant for you.
Use cases
- Pages include iFrames in a different domain (from the top frame; users who have cross domain iFrames within the same domain won't be impacted)
- WalkMe flows direct to pages in different domains (between top domains)
Cross domain storage allows WalkMe to provide content on top of the web application and create seamless flows regardless of the domain. WalkMe content will continue to work as long as the WalkMe Javascript snippet is injected into those pages directly (by the application) or via the WalkMe extension.
The phase out of 3rd party cookies impacts WalkMe flows that begin in one domain and continue in another (when the content starts playing on domain1.com and then transitions to domain2.com with page navigation).
Read more about deployment (implementation) methods.
How WalkMe Addresses This Change
Browser Extension Deployment Method
Extension deployments are already covered with the recent addition of the Extension Storage provided by WalkMe.
This storage type operates similarly to cross domain storage bringing all the benefits of the communication between multiple domains, and is optimized for such purposes as it uses a native extension API.
Using the extension to deploy WalkMe, you already have extension storage configured and no further action will be required. If you'd like to get more information about this storage setting, please reach out to our support team.
Snippet Deployment Method
Snippet implementations cannot utilize extension storage since the extension is not in use. Therefore, it needs to be approached differently.
WalkMe has developed a unique mechanism to synchronize the data between the browser and the WalkMe servers whenever a new portion of WalkMe related activity is recorded on the browser side. This way the WalkMe server acts as a bridge between the different domains of the given web application and behaves as a communication hub.
This technology allows WalkMe to function as expected even with the 3rd party access limitations on the browser side.