Applies to: UK – CAWS-based (Preliminary and work section) specifications only. Please see the separate article for Uniclass Preliminary and work section-based specifications.
The ‘Update’ tab is used to notify the specifier about clauses in the spec that have been revised as part of a content set update. You can preview the newer version of the clause and decide whether to update your spec.
When you have edited the clause, you are given the option to insert the newer version as an additional clause. You should manually transfer your clause edits from the existing version to the newly added version. You should then delete the existing version from your specification. When the clause has not been edited, you have the option to replace the old version with the new version.
Topics covered in this article:
- Identifying what has changed
- How the content set can change
- Applying changes to your specification
- Technical update release notes
Related articles:
Update notifications - an overview
Unable to update clause, the suffix is too long
We recommend referring to the technical update notes that accompany a content set update when you are using ‘Update’. The notes highlight the key areas where changes have been made.
Technical update notes are posted to the 'Technical content releases' page for every content set change. For convenience, the can be accessed from the 'Help' menu within the platform.
How the content set can change
Our Technical Authors make changes to the clause itself, to the accompanying guidance or to both. Changes can range from grammatical changes to rewrites for greater clarity, items being added for technical reasons, and clauses being removed because the information is captured elsewhere.
The platform is limited in how it can compare the differences. This is a limitation of the UK – CAWS content set. There may be occasions where it is not obvious from the update preview what has changed or when there are guidance-only changes. We recommend that you use the update preview and the content set technical update notes together. The notes highlight the key areas where changes have been made, e.g. ‘Technical revision: grammatical change only’ or ‘Technical revision: amendment to evidence of compliance’.
Figure 1 - Screenshot of the Technical update notes for UK – CAWS 2021-3 content set update.
Applying changes to your specification
There are buttons to apply the changes to your specifications.
Cancel and ignore changes
Cancel – closes the previewer, returns you to the ‘Update’ tab and leaves the specification unchanged. The update notification will remain in the Update tab.
Ignore changes – rejects the new clause notification, leaves your specification unchanged and closes the previewer. Ignoring this update clears the notification from the Update tab. The last edited date for the clause is unchanged.
Even if you ignore this update notification, notifications of future content set changes affecting this clause will be displayed in the Update tab.
Update and add as new
Depending on whether the clause has been edited, The platform will replace the old clause with the new one, or it will insert a new clause.
Update clause – clicking on ‘Update clause’ replaces your clause with the latest version. The option to ‘Update clause’ will be given when the clause has not been edited. The platform will simply swap out the existing version with the latest version.
Clicking on ‘Update clause’ closes the update preview window, and the notification will be cleared from the Update tab. The last edited date for the clause is updated.
Add as new clause – keeps the existing version of the clause and inserts the latest version as an additional unedited clause. The option to ‘Add as new clause’ is only an option when the clause has been edited.
The newly added version of the clause will have the same prefix and suffix as the clause that it replaces. The suffix will begin with ‘(newer)’, and the clause will not be edited.
You should manually transfer your clause edits from the existing version to the newly added latest version. You should then delete the existing version from your specification.
Remove ‘(newer)’ from the remaining clause suffix.
Figure 2: Screenshot showing an example where clause '232 Subsoiling (newer) Type A' has been added to the spec to replace '232 Subsoiling Type A'. The specifier should transfer their edits to the newer clause, then remove the older version from their spec and update the suffix.
Deleted clauses
Keep clause – is displayed when the clause is being removed from the content set. Clicking on ‘Keep clause’ rejects the notification and retains the clause in the specification. It will not receive any update notifications in the future because it has been removed from the content set. The last edited date for the clause will be unchanged.
Delete clause – is displayed when the clause is being removed from the content set. Clicking on ‘Delete clause’ removes the clause from the specification and closes the previewer. The notification is cleared from the Update tab.
Technical update release notes
Technical update notes are posted to the 'Technical content releases' page.