The data.world public API supports several options for programmatically making updates to resources on the platform. PATCH is a method for making partial updates to individual records, such as adding tags, changing a description, or modifying a title.

In the next two weeks, we will be making a change to the way PATCH endpoints modify list values. We outline these changes below.

Existing Merge Behavior

Lists are merged with existing values on PATCH requests

1. A dataset has tags: [tag A , tag B] 
2. A PATCH request is sent to /datasets/democorp/my-example-dataset with body: { "tags": [ "tag C", "tag D" ]  }
3. The dataset is updated to reflect tags: [ tag A, tag B, tag C ,tag D]
4. A PATCH request is sent to /datasets/democorp/my-example-dataset with payload: { "tags": []  }
5. No change is applied and the tags remain: [ tag A, tag B, tag C ,tag D]

New Replace Behavior

Lists replace existing values on PATCH requests

1. A dataset has tags: [tag A , tag B] 
2. A PATCH request is sent to /datasets/democorp/my-example-dataset with body: { "tags": [ "tag C", "tag D" ]  }
3. The dataset is now updated to have tags: [ tag C ,tag D].  tag A and tag B have been removed.
4. I send a PATCH request to /datasets/democorp/my-example-dataset with body: { "tags": []  }
5. The dataset has been updated to remove all tags.

Why we are making this change

Today, PATCH can be used to add, modify, or remove fields for all non-list values. With the current merge logic, items can only be appended to list values using PATCH. As a consequence, if you want to remove or reorder the items in a list, you must use the PUT method, which does not support partial updates and requires a full overwrite of the existing record. The new logic to overwrite list values will allow users to make partial updates to records that remove or modify the order of items in the list without needing to modify the entire record.

This new logic primarily impacts tags, file labels, collections, and multi-select custom metadata fields.

In August, we plan to release a series of improvements to our search page including: 

• Category tabs to replace the result type dropdown
• Collapsible filter groups for the left sidebar
• A new discovery-driven All Results Page to highlight a more comprehensive set of result types for broad searches
• A new Advanced Search Builder utility for more complex searches that take advantage of boolean operators and our advanced search syntax

We're investing in navigation enhancements across the site for community and enterprise users. This week, we plan to roll out a beta breadcrumbs feature to help you get back to your list views from your resource pages. This first beta release will include easy access to your organization page from metadata catalog resources, quick filters to navigate back to similar items in your catalog, and basic hierarchical navigation for things like tables and columns. Additional hierarchical navigation support is planned for the coming months.

Next week, we will be releasing an update to the Search UI to include a new standard filter for Resource Type. This has been a much requested filter option to help users drill down into the specific resource types returned from search. This filter includes our common types like datasets, projects, and queries as well as custom types that are configured for your organization's catalog.

This change will also update the presentation order of the search filters as:
1. Resource Type
2. Owner
3. Status
4. Tag
5. Collection
6... Custom configured facets

On Thursday, June 10, we will be deploying a major update to data.world Enterprise Data Catalog customer Usage and Governance Reporting, which is delivered to the ddw-metrics-* dataset in your catalog.

These changes have focused on performance optimizations, increased consistency, some additional columns, and some new tables/reports. Some columns have been renamed to order to achieve consistent use and definitions.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know at support@data.world or via your customer success representative.

Multi-tenant change log

Single-tenant change log (private sites & private installs)

🚨 Default behavior change coming next week 🚨

We have recently discovered that when executing queries, there are some cases where our DATETIME columns contain timezone information, and other cases where they do not. This is primarily an issue that arises with columns containing date/time information in uploaded files (we do not see this with live tables). We have decided to address this inconsistency. Starting next week, query result columns of type DATETIME will no longer contain timezone information, while columns of type DATETIMESTAMP will always contain timezone information.

The impact of this change shouldn’t be significant, and most users will see no change. However, if you have queries across ingested data which aggregate on DATETIME columns, or do DATE_ADD() style calculations, you may notice differences in your results depending on your current timezone.

If you are impacted by this change, here are some ways to clarify your intent w.r.t. timezones:

1. CAST the resulting column to a DATETIMESTAMP to force timezones, or DATETIME to strip timezones (documentation)
2. Use AT_TIME_ZONE() to explicitly state your timezone (documentation)
3. Ensure that the table column type is set to be of type DATETIMESTAMP or DATETIME (documentation)

Note: If timezone information is desired, but not defined, UTC is assumed. 

Please contact support@data.world with any questions or concerns. As always, we’re happy to help.

data.world is very excited to announce our new deep brain integration.

Now data consumers simply need to think about what data they want, and data.world will return governed, curated data. It also supports cataloging of business terminology straight from subject matter experts.

When we originally envisioned the feature, our design inspiration was to provide an "easy button." However Jon Loyens, co-founder and CPO, famously then said "what if there was no button at all?"

A future release will support agile data governance workflows, such as data access approvals. Integration is quick and relatively painless, though upgrades require a bit of effort and minor outpatient surgery.

An update is coming soon for the following metrics tables.

Events - Pageviews - Last 90 Days: This table now includes all types of pageviews, whereas previously it was filtered to only include dataset and project views. In addition, the window has been extended from 30 to 90 days.

Events - Queries: This new table is a detailed audit of query events. This was previously already available for multi-tenant customers. Going forward, it will also be available for single-tenant or virtual private customers. More details are included in the data dictionary markdown file. 

Resources - Datasets: This table contains a new column called “notificationsEmail” which includes any additional email address associated with the notifications for the dataset, as set in the dataset settings.

Visits - New Users By Month: This table logic has been updated to be consistent with other metrics, namely Visits - Unique Visitors To Date and Visits - Unique Visitors - All Time List.

We're proud to announce a new metadata collector is now available for enterprise customer use in private beta -- Looker (business intelligence). Let us know if you'd like to get your hands on the early version of this collector.

As we get closer to general availability, we'll be releasing more information on these exciting expanded metadata and discovery capabilities!

Keep your eyes open for an exciting new feature in upcoming enterprise releases.
Soon, our standard search behavior will be expanded to include custom metadata associated with your catalog resources. This feature will enable users to execute generic searches such as "Smith" and find resources where "Jane Smith" is listed as "Steward" (a custom metadata property) for a given resource. This feature will be accessible to enterprise customers and will include public API support.