Category Settings

This topic details all the settings for categories. Some settings are not available in the Add Category dialog box, but become available only after the category has been created and saved.

Service Design Center uses a change management process to track and approve all changes to any product. All of these changes, including additions, edits, and deletions, must go through the promote-approve-deploy process before they become available.

Any changes you make (change a name, change a price, add or delete a product from a bundle, etc.) to any product do not affect any users that already have the product.

General Tab

Description Settings

Setting Description
Name Required. Limited to 115 characters.
URL

Use this field to define a path to the category in the catalog.

You can then use this path as part of an internal link fully qualified URL. See Internal Links for more information.

You can also use this path to create custom store experiences.
Long Description Use this field to enter more information about the purpose of the category. The content is seen by Service Design Center users only.

Active Date Range Settings

Setting Description
Active Start Date Defines the date and time a category becomes available and visible in the store.
Active End Date Defines the date and time a category is removed from and no longer visible in the store, which is different from deleting a category.

Behavior Settings

The Behavior section is used only for exchange categories.

Setting Description
Structure

Defines how the exchange category is presented. Select from:

  • Accordion: For the ability to exchange one type of plan.
  • Carousel: For the ability to exchange up to three types of plans. Create one Carousel category, which can contain up to three Child categories.
  • Child: For the ability to exchange one type of plan within a carousel. Add up to three Child categories to the All Child Categories list on the Advanced tab of the Carousel category.

This shows an example of how an accordion category might look. "MONTHLY PLANS" is the name of the category, and customers can exchange between the plans in the category.

This shows an example of how a carousel category might look with three child categories. "15-Day Plans" is the name of the carousel category. The children of the carousel do not show the category name, but all the plans within each child are of the same type, in this example, voice, text, and data.

 
Show When

Defines when customers see the exchange category and the products within it. Select from:

  • Account is created
  • Subscribers join
  • Both
Exchanges that ascend product order are fulfilled

In exchange categories, the order of the products in the All Products list in the Products tab defines not only the order in which the products are displayed, they define an order that is commonly thought of as upgrade and downgrade. If a customer exchanges for a product higher on the list (ascending), that's typically considered an upgrade, and if a customer exchanges for a product lower on the list (descending), that's typically considered a downgrade. Within an exchange category, you can define separately when ascending exchanges and descending exchanges are fulfilled. Select from:

  • Immediately
  • Start of next cycle
  • User chooses (Immediately or Start of next cycle)
Exchanges the descend product order are fulfilled

Mandatory Settings

The Mandatory section is used only for sign-up categories.

Setting Description
Assign When?

Required. Determines who gets the products and fees within the category, and at which events. Select from:

  • Account is created - When an account is created, the subscriber used to create the account receives the products and fees within the category based on the other mandatory settings.
  • Only additional subscribers join - When any subscribers other than the subscriber used to create the account are added to the account, they receive the products and fees within the category based on the other mandatory settings.
  • Subscribers join - When any subscribers (including the subscriber used to create the account) are added to the account, they receive the products and fees within the category based on the other mandatory settings. 
Number of assignments

Required. Available only when one of the two subscriber-joining options (On Join or On Join and Create) is selected in the Assign When? setting. Determines how many times the products and fees within the category are received. Select from:

  • Only Once - The products and fees in the sign-up category are received by subscribers exactly once, at the first assignment event (join or resume).
  • Unlimited - The products and fees in the sign-up category are received by subscribers anytime they repeat an assignment event (join or resume). 
The account or device user

Required. Determines what products and fees are received and determines the mandatory category subtype. Select from:

  • Receives all products - The subscriber receives all products and fees in the mandatory category. The category type becomes Mandatory: Receives all.
  • Chooses one product only - The subscriber is prompted to choose exactly one product or fee in the mandatory category. The category type becomes Mandatory: Chooses one.

 

 

 

Marketing Tab

Featured Products Settings

Defines a list of products to be featured within the category/tab. Featured products typically appear in a carousel separate from the other products in the category/tab. 

For a product to be featured in the store, it must be added to this list and it must have a media graphic added to the product in the Media tab of the product's settings.
Setting Description
Name The featured product's name.
Featured Product Promotion Message Optional additional text content that gets displayed in the store adjacent to the product when it is featured.

 

Media Tab

 

Media Settings

Setting Description
Key Required. A unique identifier within the category. If you add a media asset and give it the same Key value as an existing media asset associated with the category, the existing media asset will be replaced with the new one.
Media URL The pathname to the asset file.
Media Title The text you enter in the Media Title field becomes the content of the title tag in the store presentation.
Media Alt Text The test you enter in the Alt Text field becomes the content of the alt tag in the store presentation. This is often used by screen readers and other services that assist those with disabilities.
Media Tags Enter terms separated by commas to help find the media in searches.

 

Advanced Tab

Advanced Settings

Content TBD.

All Child Categories List

These settings are used to create relationships between categories and to order categories within the relationship.

Setting Description
Advanced Content TBD.
All Child Categories A list of all sub-categories of the current category.
All Parent Categories A list of all parent categories of the current category. A category can have more than one parent, which means that the products within the category can appear in the store in different places.
Category Attributes Content TBD.

Products Tab

All Products List

A list of all products assigned to the category.

Setting Description
Name The product name.
Display Order

Determines the order that the products will be displayed. Products are displayed in the category in ascending order.

If more than one product in a category has the same number in the Display Order field, the ordering of those products is determined by an internal product identifier, with the product with the smallest identifier being displayed first.