Categories

Categories are labels or profile information attached to each member, such as “Department”, “Function” or “Location”. Each category has values: “Marketing” for “Department”, “Paris” for “Location”.

Examples

• Department: the division of the organization where the employee works (Marketing, Communication, Human Resources…).
• Location: where the employee is based (Paris, Berlin, Lisbon…).
• Favorite sport: the sport the employee enjoys most (Basketball, Tennis, Yoga…).

You manage your categories in “People” > “Categories”. See Create categories.

Why create categories

Categories help you manage, understand and engage your members. They organize and enrich member profiles, and you use them to define audiences, write matching rules, personalize messages and read your results.

Collect, structure and visualize your members’ data

• Structured data: organize and search your members’ information.
• Detailed profiles: enrich profiles with roles, skills, locations and more.

Define the right programs for the right audiences

• Targeted engagement: build audiences from specific criteria and use them in your programs.
• Customization: tailor programs to different segments of your organization.

Create higher-quality connections with matching rules

• Better connections: match members on shared or complementary attributes.
• Personalized matches: make sure each connection is relevant and useful.

Improve engagement with personalized match messages

• Context-rich introductions: give members meaningful, personalized introductions. See Personalize messages.
• Better engagement: members see relevant information about their match upfront.

Read your results by category

• Participation by category: in your dashboard, the “By category” view shows, for each value of a dropdown category, how many invitations were accepted and how many were not (a member invited to several sessions counts once per invitation).
• Better decisions: spot the teams, sites or groups where engagement is lower and act on them.

Let members personalize their experience

When the Member Portal is enabled:

• Profile updates: members keep their profile up to date (role, skills, interests…), which makes matches based on your categories more accurate.
• Preferences: members state the kinds of connections they want to make, or avoid, based on your categories. See Set your matching preferences.

The 6 category types

Each category has a type, which defines how members answer it. The type is chosen when you create the category and cannot be changed afterwards.

Type	How members answer	Example category	Example values
Dropdown	One option from a list	Country	Germany, Japan, Canada, India
Multiple Choice	Several options from a list	Skills	Time Management, Project Management, Problem solving, Communication
Date	A calendar date	Hiring date	A date
Number	A number	Years of experience	A number
Short Text	A short free text answer	Hobby	Free text
Yes/No	Yes or No	Mobility project	Yes or No

In the app, the list of types reads “Dropdown: list of options to choose from”, “Short Text: good for short answers ex: Job Title”, “Date: only accepts calendar dates”, “Number: only accepts answers as numbers”, “Multiple Choice: list of options to choose from” and “Yes/No: give your members just two options”.

Use categories in your matching rules

In a program’s matching rules, two rule types rely on categories:

• “Category”: compares the values of two members for one category, for example to match people from different departments.
• “Category values”: forces or prevents matches between specific values, for example “IT” “Must not be matched with” “R&D” and “Operations”.

The comparisons available depend on the category type:

Category type	Rule using “Category”	Rule using “Category values”
Dropdown	“Is the same”, “Is different”, “Is the closest” or “Is the furthest”. Example: “Department” “Is the same”.	[values] “Must be matched with” or “Must not be matched with” [values]. Example: “IT” “Must not be matched with” “R&D”, “Operations”.
Multiple Choice	“Has the most in common” or “Has the least in common”. Example: “Skills” “Has the most in common”.	[values] “Must be matched with” or “Must not be matched with” [values].
Date	“Is the closest” or “Is the furthest”. Example: “Hiring date” “Is the closest”.	Not available
Number	“Is the closest” or “Is the furthest”. Example: “Time zone” “Is the closest”.	Not available
Short Text	“Has the most in common” or “Has the least in common”. Example: “Hobby” “Has the most in common”.	Not available
Yes/No	“Is the same” or “Is different”. Example: “Internal mobility project?” “Is the same”.	Not available

See Matching rules for all rule types and how to combine them.

Use categories to define who takes part in a program

You choose who takes part in a program with audiences. An audience can be built from any category type, combined with member information and activity. See Create an audience.