At the high level, there are two types of taxonomy changes that can happen in Technopedia:
- Changes in the taxonomy structure:
- New categories/subcategories are introduced
- Existing categories/subcategories are deprecated
- Existing categories/subcategories are modified
- Changes in the category and/or subcategory associated with the product
The first type of change only happens rarely and, when it happens, it has to go through a due diligent process within content process to make sure the impact is assessed and an advanced notification in the form of Content Change Notification is posted on the Community Portal to ensure that all customers are aware of the upcoming changes. Customers are given a "grace period" to absorb the changes before they get deployed (typically 2 weeks or more. See here for more details on the Content Release Notification process).
The second type of change happens as part of the BAU process, where every effort is being made to always reflect the most accurate information that the Content Team discovers in their research:
- as part of curation, new products are being added into Technopedia and they will be associated with any of the existing categories/subcategories. This happens continuously, every day within Technopedia.
- as part of curation, more information is also discovered on existing products in Technopedia which may trigger updates to make sure they have the most accurate information, including their categories/subcategories. The new information comes through validated feedback from customers, partners, direct from the vendors, as well as further market and industry research by the Content Team. This only happens occasionally, and as the products have reached certain maturity in their curation and accuracy, the categories/subcategories associated with them are becoming static without any further changes.
There is currently no mechanism for "advance notification" on this second type of change--customers see the changes as they happen. Flexera is exploring mechanisms that would allow customers to manage the changes, including tracing what have changed, what the changes are, and make the decision to absorb the changes.
