Categories

Partner categories are a tree of groups that you file your suppliers and clients in. You can group them by what they supply, by size or by certificate. You see a partner’s groups on its Categories tab. No list, filter or report reads them yet, so a category does not narrow the partner list.

The Partner categories list narrows on its filter button by Parent category and Active. A category’s Children tab narrows by Active in the same way.

How Categories Work

Categories form a tree. You create top-level categories, and you put subcategories under them. A partner can be in several categories at any level, so a category works like a tag rather than a folder.

For example, you can file one supplier under “Raw Materials > Metals > Stainless Steel” for what it supplies. You can also file it under “ISO 9001 Certified” for its certificate. These are two separate groups on the same partner.

Clients and suppliers share one tree, so one group can hold both.

Example Category Trees

Here are some common ways to arrange categories:

By supply chain role:

Raw Materials
├── Metals
│   ├── Stainless Steel
│   ├── Aluminum
│   └── Copper
├── Plastics
└── Textiles

By business relationship:

By Size
├── Enterprise
├── SMB
└── Micro-enterprise

By Sector
├── Government
├── Private
└── Non-profit

By certification or quality:

Certifications
├── ISO 9001
├── ISO 14001
├── Halal Certified
└── Organic

You can create as many trees as you need.

Managing Categories

Only the owner of your organization can add, change or delete a category, unless the owner gives you that right. The same holds for filing a partner in one.

1. Go to Business Partners > Setup and open the Categories tab.
2. Press New and create a top-level category for a broad group, such as “Raw Materials” or “Certifications”.
3. To create a subcategory, press New again and pick its parent in Parent category.
4. To file a partner, open the partner and its Categories tab. Press Add and pick the category.

A category’s name has to be unique among the groups under the same parent. So you can have “Services” under “Suppliers” and another “Services” under “Clients”, because their parents differ. Two top-level categories cannot share a name either.

You can deactivate a category on its own page, under More actions (the three dots). An inactive category stays on the partners that are already filed in it. You can still pick it on a partner’s Categories tab. Only the Parent category field stops offering it.

When you pick a Parent category, the list never offers the category itself or any group under it. So a branch cannot loop back on itself, however deep it goes.

When you delete a category, its partners stay and only lose that category. The groups directly under it become top-level groups. If a top-level group already has the name of one of them, the app refuses the delete. Rename one of the two first.

Tips

• Keep the tree shallow. Two or three levels are usually enough, because a deep tree is hard to find your way in. “Raw Materials > Metals > Stainless Steel” is fine. “Suppliers > Active > Regional > North > Metals > Ferrous > Stainless Steel” is too deep.
• Put groups that cut across at the top level. Certificates, regions and business sizes apply to every kind of partner. Keep each one as its own top-level tree, and do not nest it under “Suppliers” or “Clients”.
• File a partner at any level. A partner does not have to sit at the end of a branch. A partner that supplies many kinds of metal can go straight under “Metals”, with no sub-type.
• Plan your categories before you add partners. Then you can file each partner as you create it, and you do not have to come back to hundreds of records later. If you can file partners, the Categories tab is there while you create a partner.
• A category does not decide who sees a partner. The row access rule form offers nothing to compare on a partner. So no rule can narrow the partners that a person sees, by category or otherwise.