Categories Overview

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About Categories

Categories help you organise your Courses, Resources, Users, and other items within the platform so everything is easy to find, manage, and report on.

The Category Maintenance area allows you to create and assign Categories to be used throughout accessplanit. Categories can be applied to Course Templates, Awards or Communications and are used to group items together.

Additionally, you can set up your Course Calendar to display each of your Courses in their Category colour, this means that you can quickly and easily see the types of Courses by Category at a glance!

Benefits

Here are the benefits of using Categories

Centralised organisation	Group similar Courses, Users, or Resources under shared categories to keep your platform tidy and intuitive.
Smarter reporting	Filter Reports using Categories to drill down into the data that matters most, whether that is by department, topic, or Course type.
Better visibility for bookers	Use Categories to group your Courses together on your website! This helps your customers quickly find the most relevant Courses for them and provides a better user experience.
Reusable structure	Apply consistent categorisation across your Platform to support scaling, this is especially helpful with large Course structures and/or complex setups.
Easier automation	Use Categories to drive your automated Workflows to have even more control over what sends, when, and to who!

Key Terms and Glossary

Category	The Category is a label used to group and classify items in the platform, such as Courses, Users, or Resources. Categories are used for organisation, filtering, and reporting.
Category Type	This defines what kind of item the Category is for, for example, Course Categories vs. Communications Categories. Each item type has its own list of Categories.
Item	A general term for anything that can be assigned a category, including Courses, Users, Resources, Communications, etc
Reporting	Categories can be used as filters in many reports to segment data by topic, department, audience, etc.
Portal	The learner or booker-facing area of the Platform. Categories can help your customers search for the Course that is right for them in their Learner Portal.
Checkout - Manage Booking	The Manage Booking step is the final stage of the Checkout Basket where you can capture additional information about your Delegates, the questions in this step can be configured to only show when your Delegates are registering onto Courses in a specific category.

Creating a new Category

When creating a new Category, you will be asked to provide some of the following details about the Category:

Label
This is the name of your Category. It's best to make it relevant to the content that it will represent!
For example, “First Aid” if it will be used to group all of your First Aid courses.

Category Type
This defines the type of Category you're creating. Your accessplanit platform has two options for this: Course Template/Awards or Communications. This dictates where the Category will be available within the platform.

Colour
This option can be used to define the colour that any Course Templates in this Category will display as on the Course Calendar.

Maintaining Categories

Categories can be maintained from the Category Maintenance page, found by editing each Category. Here, you can see any Course Templates or Awards associated with a Category.

You can also find out which Categories are associated with an Award or Course Template by going to that Award's or Course Template's Maintenance page and selecting the Categories tab.

Where to find Categories

Click ‘Profile’ and then ‘Administration’ in the top right corner of your Platform This will open the Administration Menu Select ‘Categories’ from the administration menu This will open the Categories DataGrid

Category Management

Learn how to create and manage Categories in your platform:

Categorise Courses

FAQ’s

Why should I use Categories instead of just naming things clearly?

Naming helps, but categories give you a consistent, structured way to group items across the platform (this is especially useful when managing lots of data!).

Can I assign multiple categories to one Course or Award?

Yes. You can assign multiple categories to an item, which makes it easier to find and manage across different areas of the platform.

Are categories visible to learners or bookers?

Yes! Categories can be shown in the Learner portal to help users filter and find the Course that’s most relevant to them.

Can I report on activity by category?

Definitely! Categories are available as filters and fields in many standard and custom reports, helping you see trends by department, topic, or group.

Can categories be used in workflows for automation?

Yes, you can trigger actions or tailor messaging based on the categories assigned to items, making your automations more targeted.

If I update the categories assigned to a Course Template, will existing scheduled Courses receive this category update?

Yes - if you update the Categories against a Course Template, the Course Dates will inherit the Categories!

How do I add or edit course categories and tags?

Here's the full corrected FAQ, ready to add to the page: How do I add or edit Course Categories? How do I add or edit Course Categories? You can manage your Categories from the Administration Menu, and assign them to Courses from the Course Template record. Adding a new Category Click Profile and then Administration in the top right corner of your platform Select Categories from the Administration Menu Click Add to create a new Category Enter the Category Name and configure any additional settings (e.g. whether it should be visible to learners on the Portal) Click Save Editing an existing Category Click Profile and then Administration in the top right corner of your platform Select Categories from the Administration Menu Find the Category you want to edit in the DataGrid Click on the Category to open it Make your changes and click Save Assigning Categories to a Course Template Open the Course Template you want to categorise Navigate to the Categories tab Click Add to assign one or more Categories to the Course You can assign multiple Categories to a single Course Template Setting up a Category hierarchy Categories can be organised into a hierarchy with parent and child Categories. When creating or editing a Category, you can set a Parent Category to create a structured grouping (e.g. Health & Safety > Fire Safety > Fire Marshal Training). Tip: Categories are used to organise Courses on the Portal for learners and bookers, and can also be used as filters in SmartGrids and Reports.