A Category is a tool that you can use to group Guided Paths together by topic. The hierarchy of Categories that you create in your Support.com tenant appears to Agents to help them navigate to the Guided Path that they need. The same Categories also appear to your Consumers when they use Self Support.


The Manage Categories screen is where you create Categories and give them a name and description. It is also where you control the Category hierarchy that Agents and Consumers see. You can create up to three levels of nested Categories. You can always change the name and location of the Category later if you need to: click and drag the Categories to change their order.


Tip: There is no practical limit on the length of your Category names. However, you should keep the names as short as possible. Long names can make the hierarchy difficult to navigate for Agents and especially Consumers using Self-Support.


To open the Manage Categories screen, select Designer in the Navigation bar and then select Categories in the sub-menu navigation.

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Restricting Access to a Category

You can disable a Category to make it unavailable to everyone, for example, so you can archive the contents without actually deleting everything. You disable a Category by clearing the Enabled check box in the Category Details window. To open this window, click the pencil icon that appears when you pause your mouse pointer over the Category name. 


On the other hand, you might want to limit who can access a Category, but not actually disable it. You can control which Teams have access to each Category using the Restrict access to field on the Category Details window. Note that when you restrict access to a Category, you are also restricting the access to its Sub-categories. You can override the access restrictions that a Sub-category inherits from its parent by specifying different access restrictions on the Sub-category.


For example, imagine you have a Category named Configure that contains Sub-categories named User and Admin. If you restrict the Configure Category so that only the Onboarding team can see it, then the User and Admin Sub-categories will also be restricted to only that team. If you then change which teams have access to the User Sub-category, then that Sub-category will no longer inherit the restrictions from the Configure Category and will instead use the restrictions you set up especially for it.


Procedures in this Document

From the Manage Categories screen, you can perform the following procedures, described in this document:


Viewing Existing Categories and Sub-categories

The Manage Categories screen contains an interface that displays the following information and functions for each Category or Sub-category:

  • Disabled Categories: List of Categories that are saved in Support.com Cloud but not available for use. You can toggle displaying disabled Categories on and off by checking or clearing the Show Disabled Categories checkbox at the bottom left of the screen. Disabled Categories appear grayed out.
  • Enabled Categories: List of Categories that are ready and available for use by Agents (see Starting a New Connection and Path/Article - opens a new article). Enabled Categories are not grayed out.


For each Category, Support.com Cloud displays the following:

  • Icon: Image file for each Category.
  • Name: Name of the Category.
  • Expand/Collapse Sub-categories: If a Category has one or more Sub-categories under it, then clicking the arrow next to the Category toggles displaying them on and off.


You can organize the Categories by clicking and dragging them.


From left to right, the buttons at the top of this screen are:

  • Add New: Clicking this button (plus sign) opens the New Category popup, which allows you to create a new Category or Sub-category. See Creating a new Category or Sub-category.
  • Undo: Undoes your previous action.
  • Expand All: Expands all Categories and Sub-categories.
  • Collapse All: Collapses all Categories and Sub-categories.


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Creating a New Category

When you create a Category, you only specify the name and location in the hierarchy. You can then edit the Category (see procedure below) to do things like add an icon, add a description, or limit access to the Category to only certain teams. 


To add a new Category:

  1. Click the green Add New button (+) at the top of the Manage Categories page. 

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The New Category popup appears.

  1. Enter a name for the new Category in the Name field.
  1. Select whether the new Category should appear Before the selected Category, After the selected Category, or as a child (Sub-category) of the selected Category by checking the appropriate radio button.
  1. Click Save.


Support.com Cloud will:

  • Create the new Category or Sub-category using your selected name and placement.
  • Close the New Category popup.
  • Return you to the Manage Categories screen.


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Editing an Existing Category or Sub-category

To edit an existing Category or Sub-category:

  1. Hover the mouse over the right side of a Category or Sub-category until an Edit icon (pencil) appears, and then click the icon. You can edit both Enabled and Disabled Categories.

    The Category Details popup, such as the following, appears:

  1. Edit any or all of the following:
  • Category Name: Enter a new name for this Category in this field.
  • Enabled/Disabled: Check or clear the Enabled checkbox, as appropriate.
  • Image: Click the Add/Edit icon (pencil) to add or edit an image or the Delete icon (trash can) to remove the image.
  • Description: Enter a description for this Category in this field.
  • Restrict Access To: Clicking or typing in this field opens a list of available Teams. Selecting one or more Team(s) restricts access to only those Agents who are in the selected Team(s). See Teams (opens a new article). See the note about nested restrictions below.
  1. Click Save.


Support.com Cloud will:

  • Edit the existing Category using the information you provided.
  • Close the Category Details popup.
  • Return you to the Manage Categories screen.


Nested Restrictions

When you restrict access to a Category, any Sub-categories inherit the same restrictions, unless you specify restrictions on the Sub-category.


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Enabling a Disabled Category

To enable a disabled Category, open the Category Details popup and then check the Enabled checkbox.


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Disabling an Enabled Category or Sub-category

To disable an enabled Category, open the Category Details popup and then clear the Enabled checkbox.


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Deleting a Category or Sub-category

To delete a Category or Sub-category, open the Category Details popup and then click the Delete button.


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