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5.6. Category Management

Categories are the primary way of grouping requests inside of HelpSpot. When HelpSpot is installed it will come with pre-populated categories to get you started. Using these categories is completely optional. 

To customize the categories available in your helpspot instance navigate to Admin > Categories.

Adding a New Category

Use the add category form to add a new category to HelpSpot.

Settings in Depth:

Category Name: The name of the category that will appear in the user interface of helpspot.

Category Grouping: Sets of categories can be grouped together for easier navigation. 

Visibility: This setting will control whether a category is available on public request forms. Allowing request categorization also needs to be enabled at the portal level.

Category Staff Member: The option allows you to select staff members who are available for work requests in this category. This setting works in conjunction with the Auto Assign Requests setting to define the pool of staff used for auto assignment rules.

Default Staff Contact: This setting defines the default staff member that will be assigned requests in this category. It can be left blank. 

Auto Assign Requests: This dropdown allows an auto assignment rule to be defined for a category. The options are as follows:

• To Default Contact - Automatically assigned requests to the Default Staff Contact
• Random Category Staffer - This will randomly select a staff member from the Category Staff Member's pool.
• Random Category Staffer (No Administrators) - This will randomly select a staff member from the Category Staff Member's pool, but staff that are administrators will be excluded.
• Category Staffer With The Least Requests - This will assign requests to the category staff member with the least number of open requests in Helpspot.
• Category Staffer With The Least Requests (No Administrators) - This will assign requests to the category staff member with the least number of open requests in Helpspot, but staff that are administrators will be excluded.
• Round Robin (Even Distribution) - Category staff members will be rotated through in order (i.e. staff 1 - receives request 1, staff 2 - receives request 2, staff 3 - receives request 3, staff 1 - receives  request 4 and so on.)
• Round Robin (Even Distribution, No Administrators) - The same round robin methodology as the previous setting, but excluding administrators.

Reporting Tags: Report tags provide another level of organization beyond categories themselves. Reporting tags are unique in that more than one reporting tag can be selected at a time. 

Custom Fields: Custom fields for a specific category can be specified here. Custom fields that are checked will be included in the side bar of the request window. If the category and custom fields are marked as public they will also be visible on the customer portal form. 

Editing Categories

Each category can be edited by clicking on the category name in the categories listing. All of the settings available when creating a new category are also available when editing.

Deleting Categories 

Categories can not be deleted, but they can be made inactive. To make a category inactive, edit the category and then click on the "Make Category Inactive" button in the lower right hand corner. Once a category is made inactive, it can be accessed by clicking on the "Show Inactive Categories" button in the main categories setting page. Inactive categories can be reactivated by editing the category and then clicking on the "Restore" button.