Using Categories effectively

In BlueDocs, categories are a core way to organize your documents, making it easier for your team to browse, filter, and find what they need. While folders provide a familiar structural hierarchy, categories offer flexible classification across document types and teams. This guide explains how to use categories effectively, how they differ from folders, and how to create a scalable, user-friendly content structure.

📚 What Are Categories?

Categories are labels that classify documents based on their purpose, audience, or topic. Unlike folders, categories are searchable and filterable across the entire workspace. Each document type — such as SOPs, policies, training modules, and knowledge base articles — has its own category system, but you can maintain naming consistency across all types.

🧱 How Categories Are Structured

BlueDocs categories are:

• Document Type Specific: Each type (e.g., SOPs, Training, Policies) has its own list of categories.
• Organization-Wide: Shared across users — anyone with access can search or filter by them.
• Complementary to Folders: Categories work alongside folders for multi-dimensional organization.

For example, a training document might live in the "HR Onboarding" folder and also be categorized under "New Employee Training".

🛠️ Setting Up Categories

Only users with admin or category management permissions can create or edit categories.

To manage categories:

1. Go to Settings → Categories
2. Choose the document type tab you want to manage
3. Click Add Category
4. Enter a meaningful, clear name
5. Save the new category

Document creators can also create categories on the fly when editing a document by clicking the "+" next to the category dropdown. This streamlines category creation during content entry.

💡 Best Practices for Naming Categories

To make categories intuitive and scalable:

• Use full, descriptive names: "Employee Onboarding" is better than "EO"
• Avoid special characters and internal codes unless necessary
• Keep naming consistent across document types if a category applies broadly
• Think from the user’s perspective: what language do they naturally use?

🧭 Strategies for Categorization

There are several useful ways to structure your categories. You can choose one or combine multiple:

1. By Purpose

Use this when categorizing by the function of the document:

• SOPs: Quality Control, Customer Service, Safety Protocols
• Policies: HR Policies, Financial Guidelines
• Knowledge Base: Troubleshooting, Best Practices

2. By Audience

Label documents by the intended reader:

• All Employees
• Management Team
• IT Department
• Remote Workers

3. By Priority

Use categories to signal how often something is needed or how important it is:

• Critical Procedures
• Compliance Required
• Daily Reference
• Emergency Use Only

4. By Topic

This is the most common strategy:

• Customer Relations
• System Administration
• Project Management
• Product Knowledge

🧭 Organizing and Maintaining Categories

Over time, it’s essential to manage your categories to keep them effective.

When creating new documents:

• Select the most relevant category
• Don’t leave documents uncategorized
• Avoid creating duplicates or near-duplicates

When managing existing content:

• Periodically audit documents without categories
• Consolidate redundant or unused categories
• Align category names across different document types

🔍 Search and Discovery Benefits

Categories enhance the platform’s search functionality. Users can:

• Filter by category to quickly narrow down results
• Browse documents by category within each section
• Combine folders and categories to support both structure and discoverability

For example, someone might go to the "Support" folder and then filter by the category "System Errors" to find troubleshooting docs faster.

📊 Advanced Category Management

Cross-Type Consistency

Although categories are specific to each document type, you can maintain naming conventions across them. For instance:

• Use Onboarding in both Training and Policies
• Use Customer Service for both SOPs and Knowledge Base articles

Category Analytics

Admins can monitor how well categories are being used:

• Identify most-used categories
• Spot underused or redundant ones
• Find documents with missing categories

✅ Best Practices Summary

Do:

• ✅ Create clear, reusable category names
• ✅ Use consistent naming across document types
• ✅ Train your team on when to use each category
• ✅ Periodically review and clean up categories

Don't:

• ❌ Don’t create categories for one-off documents
• ❌ Don’t overuse abbreviations or internal codes
• ❌ Don’t duplicate folder structure with categories — they serve different purposes
• ❌ Don’t let your category list grow unchecked — consolidate when needed

🛠 Troubleshooting Category Issues

💬 Pro Tips for Success

🎯 Start Small – Begin with 5–10 core categories per document type

🎯 Think Like a User – What terms would someone search for?

🎯 Document Your Strategy – Keep a simple internal guide for category usage

🎯 Review Regularly – Clean up your categories quarterly

🎯 Gather Feedback – Ask your team what categories actually help them

🆘 Need Help?

• Reach out to your BlueDocs admin for category management access
• Visit the Settings section to manage categories and document types
• Explore the in-app Help Docs or contact support for technical issues

By using categories effectively, you’ll help your team stay organized, speed up content discovery, and create a scalable structure that grows with your organization. The best category system isn’t the most complex — it’s the one your team actually uses consistently.

Updated on: 07/07/2025