Setting up categories and tags

Sort your projects, companies and contacts into logical groups with Categories and Tags.

What are Categories and Tags?

Categories are how your team classifies records. A category is a named collection of tags that people pick from: a category called Sector might hold the tags Health, Education, Commercial and Residential.

A category applies to the kinds of record you choose. Sector might apply to projects and companies, Client Type to companies and contacts, and Managing Office to all three. On each of those records the category appears as a field on the form and on the page, and in the list menus as a filter.

Once your records are tagged, you can filter any list by a tag, group a table report by one, chart your fees by sector, split the built-in reports by one, and count wins and enquiries by one in your scheduled reports.

The Categories + Tags screen

You must be an Account Admin to set up categories and tags.

Navigate to Account Settings -> Categories + Tags. Your categories are listed on the left, each with how many tags it has and which record types it applies to. Type in Find a category or choose a record type to narrow the list. Click a category to open it on the right.

Categories + Tags: the categories listed on the left, and Client Type open on the right with its tags and settings

Everything on this screen saves as you change it. There is no save button; the status beside the category's name says Saving… and then Saved.

Creating a category

Click New category at the bottom of the list.
Type the name, such as Sector.
Under Applies to, tick the record types it should be set on. Projects is ticked to begin with.
Click Create.

The New category box: a name, which record types it applies to, and Create

The new category opens on the right with no tags yet. It starts with Show in menus and Reportable on, and Allow several tags off.

Adding tags

The Tags card lists the choices your team picks from.

To add one, type its name into New tag and click Add tag. New tags go to the bottom of the list.
To add many at once, click Paste a list… and paste from Word, Excel or anywhere else, one tag to a line. Bullets, numbering and extra spaces are taken off, and a name already in the category is skipped. The preview shows what will be added before you click Add N tags. Up to 200 tags go in at a time.
Drag a tag by its grip to reorder, or click Sort A to Z.
Click a tag's name to rename it, or the line under it to add a description, which people see when they're choosing a tag.
Click a tag's colour swatch to change its colour.

The Tags card: each tag with its colour, description and how many records carry it, and a New tag box underneath

Each tag shows how many records carry it. Click the count to open the tag and see those records.

Merging and deleting tags

Click Merge or delete… to tick tags. Choose which one to Merge into and click Merge: the records carrying the other tags get the one you chose, and the others are deleted. Delete selected removes the ticked tags from every record that carries them. Tags can only be merged within their own category.

To delete a single tag, click the × at the end of its row. tiny+ tells you how many records will lose it before it goes.

A category's settings

The Settings card under the tags has:

Setting

What it does

Applies to

The record types the category can be set on. It appears on their forms and pages as a field. At least one is needed.

Allow several tags

A record can carry more than one tag from this category. Off, choosing a tag replaces the one before. Several suits Sector; one suits Managing Office.

Show in menus

The category is offered as a filter in the list menus of the record types it applies to.

Reportable

The category is available for grouping and filtering in the built-in and scheduled reports.

Required

At least one tag has to be chosen when a record is added or edited.

How the tag is picked

When one tag is allowed: a dropdown list, or every tag shown with its description.

Colour

New tags take this colour, and changing it recolours every tag in the category. With no colour set, each tag keeps its own. Charts use these colours.

Delete this category removes it and its tags. The records keep everything else.

A category marked Synced with Synergy mirrors a Synergy field: make the same change in Synergy, because changes here aren't sent back. One marked Locked was set up with tiny+ support; talk to us before changing it.

Importing tags

If your spreadsheets already have a column for a category, set the category up here first, then match the column to it during an import. Several tags in one cell are separated by semicolons.

Examples

Looking for ideas? Here are some commonly used categories.