Using tags and categories effectively

🏷️ Using Tags and 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:

Go to Settings → Categories
Choose the document type tab you want to manage
Click Add Category
Enter a meaningful, clear name
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

Issue	What to Check
“I can’t find the right category”	Confirm you're in the correct document type tab; ask an admin to create a new one
“Categories aren’t showing up”	Ensure the user has permission; refresh the page or re-login
“There are too many categories”	Work with an admin to consolidate or guide users with a category reference list
“Inconsistent naming”	Audit category usage and align on standardized conventions

💬 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 tags and 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: 27/05/2025