Changelog articles

ShopWired's changelog is a published record of every change that has been made to the ShopWired platform or other products associated with ShopWired functionality. Each time a change is made, it should be recorded on the changelog, including the following information:

A title for the change
A short description of the change
The date of the change
The type of change (chosen from the changelog categories)
A more detailed description of the change

There are many reasons to publish a changelog entry:

To notify users about new functionality
To notify AI about new functionality (including the date when the functionality was introduced, in case a user asks)
To demonstrate to users that changes to ShopWired are constantly being made, increasing confidence
To improve transparency (particularly with bug fix changelog entries)
To have proper documentation of what was changed and when

It's important to note that the changelog is not a replacement for help guides and detailing functionality either within published help guides or within AI content (or AI articles). The changelog is its own separate record of changes to the platform.

Changelog entries are also used to record important information, for example, to notify ShopWired users of ShopWired's Christmas opening hours.

The below provides some guidance around how entries in the changelog should be added.

Changelog titles

Changelog titles should be short and to the point, providing a very brief summary of what has changed.

Where a single changelog entry is being made that relates to multiple different changes/fixes/updates, the title should be generic, e.g. Some minor changes & fixes or Some minor updates.

Only the first word in changelog titles should be capitalised, except for proper nouns such as ShopWired or Sage Accounting.

Changelog short descriptions

A changelog entry appears with a short description on the changelog home page and should be a complete sentence, ending in a full stop.

The short description should provide a very brief summary of the changes, similar to the title (but perhaps adding a little bit more information).

Where a single changelog entry is being made that relates to multiple different changes/fixes/updates, the short description should be generic, e.g. A number of bugs affecting various functionality on ShopWired have been fixed.

Changelog date

The date of a changelog entry should relate to the date that the functionality was changed/added/fixed. It is not the date that the entry is going live on the changelog website.

Ideally, changelog entries will be made on the same day/next day that the functionality has been changed, but where this is not possible, it is still a requirement that the date of the entry is the date of the deployment.

Changelog category

A category must be selected for a changelog entry. Where more than one category is applicable, select the most appropriate category (changelog entries can only have a single category).

Category	Description
Feature	`Feature` should be used when a major new feature or feature update has been deployed. Feature changes aren't necessarily only large changes to functionality or large pieces of new functionality, a new feature deployed to an existing app or existing feature set can be classified as a `Feature`.
Mini-feature	`Mini-feature` should be used when a small feature or feature update has been deployed that is not significant enough to be described as a `Feature`.
Update	An `update` is a change to functionality that cannot be properly described or categorised as a new feature.
Mini-update	A `mini-update` is a change to functionality that has minor impact or significance and cannot be classed as a new `mini-feature`.
Bug fix	A bug fix is any change to functionality that has been made because previously the feature/functionality was not working as it was intended to work.
Information	`Information` should be used for any other type of changelog entry.

Changelog full description

Changelog descriptions should provide an overview of exactly what has changed as a result of the deployment.

Changelog descriptions are not intended to replace detailing new functionality or features on a help guide. Published help guides are the main area where new functionality is described, but it is OK to duplicate information that is on the updated help guide on the changelog (where it will benefit users).

Feature and Update changelog descriptions will inevitably be more detailed than mini-feature or mini-update changelog entries.

For example, compare the description of the Google Shopping app checkout link template changelog entry to the Apple Pay & Google Pay Express Checkout changelog entry.

Detailed changelog entries should always contain links (like help guides) to relevant help guide content and should also contain AI links where appropriate.