colouring-montreal/docs/adding-new-fields.md

# Adding new building attribute fields

This document is a checklist for adding a new building attribute to the system. It's split into three sections - actions that apply when adding any field, and additional steps to add a field that will be visualised on the map.
The second section would be required when adding a new category or when changing which field should be visualised for a category.
The third section would apply to any data which can be amended via the API.
When adding a new attribute a set of seed data should be identified, the base data set for many fields is Polly Hudsons PhD data set. This data set is required to;
- Test visualisation elements (map styling)
- Provide some data for users to relate to and encourage them to fill in the field
- Test the API and database elements.


## Adding any attribute

### In database
1. Add a column to the `buildings` table in the database.
2. Add any check constraints or foreign key constraints on the column, if necessary (if the foreign key constraint is used to restrict the column to a set of values, the table with the values might need to be created from scratch)
3. If a source is being collected for field. Add a column `fieldName_source` to the `sources` table. 
4. If verfication is being enabled. Add a column `bieldName_verifications` to the `verfication` table.


### In API
1. Add field name to `BUILDING_FIELD_WHITELIST` in the building service to allow saving changes to the field
2. Add any special domain logic for processing updates to the field in the `processBuildingUpdate()` function

### In frontend
1. Add the field description to the `dataFields` object in `data_fields.ts`
2. Add the data entry React component of the appropriate type (text, numeric etc) to the appropriate category view component in the `building/data-containers` folder. Link to `dataFields` for static string values (field name, description etc)


### In data extracts
1. Add the field to the select list in the COPY query in `maintenance/extract_data/export_attributes.sql` 
2. Add a description of the field to the `README.txt` file

## Adding an attribute which is used to colour the map

All steps from the previous section need to be carried out first.

### In tileserver
1. Add a SQL query for calculating the value to be visualised to `BUILDING_LAYER_DEFINITIONS` in `app/src/tiles/dataDefinition.ts`
2. Add Mapnik rendering style in `app/map_styles/polygon.xml`

### In frontend
1. Update the category to field name mapping in the `tilesetByCat` object inside the `ColouringMap` React component (`map.tsx` file)
2. Add an entry for the field to the `LEGEND_CONFIG` object in `legend.tsx` file


## Testing 

Run tests on staging to confirm;
- Database changes accepted
- API is working and data is getting posted to the database
- Map styling is applied and style is appropriate way to visualise the data