Identify/Search companies for which name has changed

API Question
#1

Hello Team,

As part of data quality activity, we are planning to invoke the CH Api to find companies where the names have changed and save it in our system.
After going through the API, we found the streaming API will be fit for our requirement. However, the response from the stream doesn’t have the “fields_changed” property as mentioned in the API documentation. Please find below the response which we received.
event":{“timepoint”:68488748,“published_at”:“2023-10-30T09:59:56”,“type”:“changed”}}

Could you please guide us with the same ?
Is there any alternative approach (like search) through which we can Identify companies for which name has changed for a given date/date range ?

Regards,
Sachin Mohan

#2

The response from the filings stream: https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/filings does contain the “fields_changed” property as stated in the streamig API documentation. This is the only streaming API that explicitely shows details of the changes made.

Here is an example:

{
“resource_kind”: “filing-history”,
“resource_uri”: “/company/08933270/filing-history/MzM5ODU5NzQ4OWFkaXF6a2N4”,
“resource_id”: “MzM5ODU5NzQ4OWFkaXF6a2N4”,
“data”: {
“barcode”: “XCFEIHWJ”,
“category”: “accounts”,
“date”: “2023-11-01”,
“description”: “accounts-with-accounts-type-total-exemption-full”,
“description_values”: {
“made_up_date”: “2023-03-31”
},
“links”: {
“document_metadata”: “https://frontend-doc-api.company-information.service.gov.uk/document/YSvPO7a-hQYjhoCPUwQCV5wkNJHFiLyb_PvrGfeR6Mo”,
“self”: “/company/08933270/filing-history/MzM5ODU5NzQ4OWFkaXF6a2N4”
},
“pages”: 7,
“transaction_id”: “MzM5ODU5NzQ4OWFkaXF6a2N4”,
“type”: “AA”
},
"event": {
** “fields_changed”: [**
** “links.document_metadata”**
** ],**
“timepoint”: 139715957,
“published_at”: “2023-11-01T08:42:03”,
“type”: “changed”
}

#3

Hello,
We are trying the Companies stream, https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/companies. For which we are not receiving the fields_Changed field.

#4

Please provide an example as I have done in the above example. The timepoint for the event is 139715957 and it does have the “fields_changed” property.

#5

Name changes run at an average circa 250 daily so filtering these out of the voluminous filing stream may not be the most efficient / cost effective approach here.

We supply a number of our subscription clients with a custom dataset containing company number, new name, old name and date during the day following the change for a modest fee; should this suit your needs then pm me for details.

#6

Hi,
As mentioned in my previous commment, we are not looking for the https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/filings stream.
However, does this apply for the https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/companies stream api also ?

#7

Hi @sachin.mohan

The url https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/companies is probably not the correct url to use if you are searching for companies who have changed their name. The url that provides such details is https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/filings. The property “fields_changed” you are using to identify such companies is not correct either. The correct properties are “category” and “type”. These appear in the filings url https://stream.companieshouse.gov.uk/filings.

Here is the snippet of the information the filings url shows about companies who have changed their name several minutes ago:

image
image954×499 13 KB

The company number is shown in the “Uri” column.

Good luck with your search.
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