Categories are how customers file their discussions, and how your site's public discussion area is arranged. Tender starts you with three: Problems, Questions and Suggestions. You can rename them, add your own (Billing, say) and remove the ones you don't need.
Categories are for customers. To sort discussions for your team behind the scenes, use queues instead.
Create a category
- In the dashboard, click Manage Categories under Organize in the left-hand sidebar.
- Click + Create a category.
- Fill in the form (below) and click Create category.
- Category name: what customers see, such as "Billing".
- Permalink: the category's part of the web address (
/discussions/billing). Leave it blank and Tender makes one from the name. - Private: discussions started in this category are private by default, seen only by your staff and the customer who started them (and, if that customer belongs to a company, its members).
- Visible: lists the category on your site's discussions page. Untick it for a category you only use by email or behind the scenes. At least one category must stay visible.
- Announcement: only your support staff can post here (with Create a Discussion in the dashboard), and replies are turned off. Useful for news and release notes.
- Don't check for spam: for categories that receive automatic emails from a source you trust, such as your own monitoring.
- Beta and Important: show the category only to customers you've marked as beta or important. These appear once Enable Beta Users is ticked in Account & Settings › Settings; see User Class: Important & Beta.
- Autoresponder: an automatic reply sent to customers who start a discussion here. See Setting up your site autoresponders.
- Mail template: the template for notification emails about discussions in this category. See Customizing your site email templates.
- GitHub repository: shown when you've connected GitHub as a ticket tracker. The repository is offered first when a supporter attaches a ticket to a discussion in this category.
- Summary: a short description (up to 255 characters). It's public: customers see it under the category's name on your discussions page.
The new category is ready straight away. Each category can also receive email at its own address: see Setting up email.
Change, reorder or remove categories
On Manage Categories:
- Click a category's name to edit it, then click Save your changes.
- Drag a category by its handle to change the order customers see.
- Point at a category and click Remove to delete it. This deletes every discussion in the category, so move the discussions you want to keep first (open a discussion and use Change Category in its staff toolbar).