SPIKE: CMS: Ability to preview changes to reusable Q&A within parent node previews

[jilladams]

Description

Original request: https://dsva.slack.com/archives/CDHBKAL9W/p1677601865133289

Single Q&A nodes can be referenced in FAQ and Resources & Support pages (with intent to add to more content types later, via #10780). However: if a single Q&A has changes saved as draft, it is not possible to view those staged changes in the context of an FAQ or Resources & Support node preview today.

We want to investigate whether / how it would be possible to allow that preview of the full set of draft content on the parent entity.

User story

Describe the audience/user, enhancement or fix, and value / outcome desired.

AS A(N) Editor I WANT to be able to see all staged changes to a piece of content before it is published SO THAT I can get signoff and be sure content is correct before it's made visible to Veterans.

Engineering notes / background

• Preview Button Topic Dive: https://va-gov.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/VAGOV/pages/1714094110/CMS+Topic+Dives

  • Slack thread with Swirt https://dsva.slack.com/archives/CT4GZBM8F/p1677614911334909 -- notably:

    The preview server gets the latest revision of whatever node you ask for. It does not know to get latest revision of the other stuff that node uses or links to. What you are after is essentially a server that does a content-build of all the pages of the site from their latest revision. That would allow seeing all of it, but then it is not a fast preview because it would take 40+ minutes to do the content build.

• Conceptually, we are talking about nested drafts here. Is it possible to show Draft Q&A content on Draft Preview of R&S / FAQ (or any entity type where Q&As may be added in future)

  • Preview environments in this context are reachable from a Draft node, using the Preview button to reach a link like http://preview-prod.vfs.va.gov/preview?nodeId=[NODE_ID]

• Discussion re: how this flavor of Preview env is built: https://dsva.slack.com/archives/CT4GZBM8F/p1677614911334909
  • Implementation of resuable Q&A on R&S may be useful to know about = https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-cms/issues/9737

Repro

1. Modify an existing FAQ or R&S page in a lower env, add a word to the title & set to Draft, e.g. /resources/ds-logon-faqs
2. Modify a Q&A node associated with that page, e.g. /resources/will-my-ds-logon-account-or-password-expire. Add a word to the title, for example.
   1. You will run into #12800 if trying to edit within the parent node form. Just go edit the Q&A independently.
3. From the parent node, click the View tab > Preview button
4. See in the Preview that your content changes to the FAQ node persist and are visible, but the Q&A changes are not visible.
5. From the Q&A node, click View > Preview button. See that your changes to the Q&A node are present.

Acceptance criteria

• [ ] Investigate and understand CMS Preview environment capability / limitations
• [ ] Document what is / isn't possible re: displaying Draft Q&A content on Draft parent content in CMS Preview env
• [ ] Review findings with Wes & Jill for follow up ticketing / closing stakeholder loop (with @RLHecht)

Team

Please check the team(s) that will do this work.

• [ ] CMS Team
• [X] Public Websites
• [ ] Facilities
• [ ] User support

[jilladams]

@chri5tia @wesrowe - Daniel and I will both be out next week. I'm working on getting a repro of this for demonstration purposes, but @swirtSJW has agreed to join backend refinement next Tues for a few mins to help us understand how the Preview Server works for Prod CMS, and where / how we might track this down.

[jilladams]

I haven't classified this as a defect, but arguably we could.

[jilladams]

The thread with Swirt is notable. I think this is outside scope of Public Websites, and is a paradigm we'll have to think through for the CMS product, in the world of COPE / Seamless content where we reuse bits and bobs around the CMS and editors will want to see a preview of everything at once. FYI @EWashb 😬 Swirt did also flag: we didn't build this. So will prob involve some Platform interactions, etc. to think about.

[jilladams]

Tagging with Accel Pub and moving back to CMS team based on this note from Steve:

The other aspect to this is essentially... you want a fast content build of all draft content. That requires Accelerated Publishing. You would essentially be building that.... which as you know, is not a one or two sprint kind of thing.

(FYI @timcosgrove as AP holder of lore and dreams for the future)