Optimizing Premium Access Checks in Background Jobs

Introduction

We recently optimized a background job responsible for post-generation in our application, specifically focusing on how it handles premium access checks. Initially, the job was configured to check user-level premium access, which led to inefficiencies. This post outlines the problem, the solution, and the benefits we observed.

The Problem: Redundant User-Level Checks

The AutoSyncPostGenerationJob iterated through users, individually verifying premium access using User::canAccessPremiumFeatures(). This method ultimately delegates the access check to the tenant level. Consequently, the job performed redundant queries, as each user's premium status was essentially derived from the same tenant-level configuration. This approach introduced potential performance bottlenecks, especially with a large number of users, and raised concerns about handling unloaded relationships within the user objects.

The Solution: Tenant-Level Verification

To address this, we refactored the job to perform a single tenant-level check at the beginning of the process. This eliminated the need for repetitive user-level checks. The updated logic ensures that the job only proceeds if the tenant, as a whole, has premium access enabled.

Here's a simplified example illustrating the change:

# Before: Checking each user
for user in users:
    if user.can_access_premium_features():
        generate_post(user)

# After: Checking the tenant once
if tenant.has_premium_access():
    for user in users:
        generate_post(user)

Benefits

• Reduced Redundancy: By performing the premium access check at the tenant level, we significantly reduced the number of database queries.
• Improved Performance: The elimination of redundant checks led to noticeable improvements in job execution time, particularly for tenants with numerous users.
• Simplified Logic: The codebase is now cleaner and easier to understand, as the access control flow is more straightforward.
• Prevented Relationship Issues: By verifying tenant access upfront, we mitigated potential issues related to unloaded relationships within individual user objects during the access check.

Conclusion

Optimizing premium access checks in our background job by moving the verification to the tenant level resulted in significant performance gains and code simplification. This approach highlights the importance of analyzing job workflows for potential redundancies and leveraging tenant-level configurations where applicable. When designing background jobs, consider the aggregate level at which permissions should be evaluated to avoid unnecessary overhead.