How can you tell what's changed in a report?

If you'd like notification of when a report changes, please see the help topic on the Watchlist or Feeds.

At the top of every report is a link to the "history" of the report, which documents all of the changes that have been made.

The history link looks like this:

Once you click the link, you'll be taken to a page that lists all of the versions of the report. You can pull up a side-by-side comparison of two older versions, or an older version and the current version by clicking the buttons next to the report.

Here's an example of how to see what the page looks like:

Each entry in the list is a change that was made on a particular date (the information in each entry includes helpful information like the time a change was made and the user/author who made the change).

Examples

1. What are the most recent changes?

If you want to select what has changed between the last version and the current report, you can use the default setting - just click "Compare selected versions" near the top of the list of changes.

2. What were the changes from a day, week, or a month ago and now?

If you'd like to select an older version to compare what has changed from one version to the next, you need to select the older version in the list of changes. You'll notice that the buttons aren't in a single column, this is on purpose. When the button is in the 'left' column, it is the source document (your comparing what changed from this version). When the button is in the 'right' column, this is the destination document (your comparing has been changed in this version from the previous).

Here is an example of comparing changes over a few months:

This compares the version from June 11, 2010 vs. the version on September 6, 2010 (see below).

3. What are the changes between two specific dates?

You can follow the same logic as the steps above to select different 'source' and 'destination' documents. In the example below, the comparison is between the version on June 11, 2010 vs. August 14, 2010.

See the changes

In the image above, the "before" and "after" versions of a change are shown. Note that the changed (or deleted) text is highlighted in red, to make it easier to spot what's different. In this example, the changes are minor, however for larger updates the changes can be more significant. Also note that the "after" version of the report is shown below the "before/after" text, so you can see the full version of the "after" report.