Modify a change note in Publishing API or Whitehall
Spelling mistakes can creep into change notes, and we are often asked to correct them. The instructions below cover doing this task in the Publishing API and in Whitehall - if your change note lives in Whitehall and is updated in the Publishing API it could be overwritten later.
Whitehall
The following commands show you how to find the document, get the correct edition within it, and update it. To complete this you will need the document ID, a string to search for to identify the right change log entry (search is fuzzy, be precise to get the right one), and the string you want to replace the current change note text.
Connect to the Whitehall console (test your change on Integration first):
govuk-connect app-console -e integration whitehall_backend/whitehall
Find the document:
document=Document.find_by_content_id("YOUR_CONTENT_ID_HERE")
Output will be a summary of your document. Next, select the editions:
editions=document.editions
Output is a potentially long list of the editions. Next set up the parameters for fuzzy matching:
fuzzy_match = FuzzyMatch.new(editions, read: :change_note)
Output should show the change notes. Select the relevant one:
edition = fuzzy_match.find("A_STRING_FROM_YOUR_CHANGE_NOTE", must_match_at_least_one_word: true)
Check the returned edition and change note to ensure it’s the correct one:
edition.change_note
edition.major_change_published_at
Update it (without validation checks):
edition.update_attribute(:change_note, "YOUR_DESIRED_CHANGE_NOTE_STRING")
Republish the document using a Whitehall Rake task
Publishing API
Publishing API handles change notes in two different ways. To update the change history of a document, you’ll either need to update an individual ChangeNote or update the change_history in the details JSON of the published edition.
Note
Updating change notes in Publishing API should only be done when unable to from the publishing app (to avoid Publishing API being overwritten).
First step is to connect to the Publishing API console:
govuk-connect app-console -e production publishing_api/publishing-api
Find the document:
document = Document.find_by_content_id("YOUR_CONTENT_ID_HERE")
Find the documents live edition:
live_edition = document.editions.live.last
Check edition’s details hash for change_history. If this is empty then follow method 1, if not, follow method 2:
live_edition.details[:change_history]
Method 1 (empty change_history)
Fetch the change notes for the document:
change_notes = ChangeNote.joins(:edition).where(editions: { document: document }).order(:public_timestamp)
Select the relevant change note manually, or by searching for the note text:
change_note = change_notes.find_by("note LIKE ?", "%SUBSTRING OR FULL CHANGE NOTE TEXT%")
Update change note:
change_note.update(note, "NEW NOTE")
Finally, send the document downstream using the content id.
Method 2 (present change_history)
Fetch details for edition:
details = live_edition.details
Ouput change history:
details[:change_history]
Select relevant change note manually, or by seaching for the node text:
change_note_index = details[:change_history].find_index { |change_note| change_note[:note] =~ /SUBSTRING OR FULL CHANGE NOTE TEXT/ }
Check the returned change not is correct:
details[:change_history][change_note_index]
Update change note:
details[:change_history][change_note_index][:note] = "New note"
Update edition:
edition.update(details: details)
Finally, send the document downstream using the content id.