Overview

Categories are the labels you use to group your Applications and manage how recipients can opt out of communications. They might sound like a small piece of admin, but they do a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes — driving how reports filter, who can see what, which fields apply by default, and which recipients should be excluded from future sends.

There are two types to know about, and they do different jobs:

• Application categories group your Applications by business use, audience, or function. They power filtering in reports and searches, role-based access controls, and the default data structure for any Application that uses them.
• Unsubscribe categories manage opt-outs at a broader level, so if someone unsubscribes from one type of communication, they're removed from every Application that falls under it.

Getting these set up properly early on saves a lot of cleanup later, so it's worth taking a few minutes to think through how you want things grouped before you start adding categories.

How the two types work together

You'll usually have more Application categories than Unsubscribe categories. Application categories are about granular reporting, access, and data structure — Unsubscribe categories are about keeping opt-out management simple for your recipients. For example, you might have ten Application categories that all roll up to a single Marketing Unsubscribe category.

Application categories vs Unsubscribe categories

Before you start adding categories, it helps to see how the two types differ and where each one fits in. Here's a quick comparison:

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Where to find categories

Categories live in the Send module's settings area, alongside other system-wide configuration. Here's how to get there:

1. In the secondary navigation menu, click Edit settings under Send settings.
2. From the top navigation bar, select the Categories tab.
3. You'll see two cards on this page — Application categories and Unsubscribe categories — each with its own list of existing entries and an Add new button.

Inside a category

When you add a new category or open an existing one to edit, you'll land on the category settings screen. There are three tabs across the top, and each one controls a different part of how the category behaves:

Unsubscribe categories use the same three-tab layout, so the steps below apply to both — just with fewer fields to fill in for unsubscribe groupings.

Add a new Application category

Application categories are the ones you'll add to most often as your platform grows. Here's how to create one:

1. In the Application categories card, click Add new.
2. On the Details tab, enter a clear, descriptive name for the category in the Name field.
3. Tick Add automatic unsubscribe headers if you want CX Platform to include standard unsubscribe headers in messages sent under this category. Most marketing categories will want this on.
4. Click Save to create the category. You'll see a green confirmation banner, and the Default fields and Callbacks tabs will become available.

Your category is now live. Before you start using it, take a moment to set up permissions and defaults — that's where the real value sits.

Naming tip
‍Keep names short, specific, and consistent — think Marketing, Compliance, Onboarding rather than long phrases. Future you (and anyone else managing the platform) will thank you when the list grows.

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Set permissions for a category

Permissions are how you control who can do what within a category. Each action — searching, viewing documents, uploading, editing settings, creating Applications, sending copies, and so on — can be locked down to specific roles, or left open to all users.

This is the section that powers role-based access controls. If you only want your Compliance team editing Application settings under the Compliance category, this is where you set that up.

1. From the Details tab, scroll down to the Permissions panel.
2. Find the action you want to control — for example, Edit Application Settings Basic or Upload Document.
3. Click Add next to the action, then select the role you want to allow.
4. Repeat for any additional roles or actions. To remove a role from an action, click the bin icon next to it.
5. Click Save at the bottom of the page to apply your changes.

From here on, users will only see the actions they've been granted access to within this category — anything they're not permitted to do simply won't appear in their view.

What happens if an action has no roles assigned?
‍If a permission row is empty, that action is restricted across the board. To open something up to everyone, add the All users role; to lock it down to a specific team, add just their role and leave the rest off.

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Add default fields to a category

If every Application under a category uses the same core data structure, set those fields up here once instead of recreating them each time you spin up a new Application.

1. From the category settings, click the Default fields tab.
2. Enter a Name for the field — this is what you'll reference in templates and personalisation.
3. Select the Data type from the dropdown to define what kind of data this field will hold.
4. Enter the Source data field — the field name in your incoming data payload that this should map to.
5. Tick Is search index? if you want this field to be searchable in the platform, and Show in list view? if you want it to appear in list views.
6. Use the arrows to reorder fields, and click Save when you're done.

Any new Application created under this category will start with these fields already in place — saving setup time and keeping your data structure consistent.

Configure category-level callbacks

Callbacks let you fire an HTTP notification to an external system whenever a document is sent successfully or runs into an error. Setting them up at the category level means every Application underneath inherits the same behaviour, so your CRM, registry, or downstream system stays in sync without per-Application configuration.

1. From the category settings, click the Callbacks tab.
2. Choose the Template type — Plain text or another encoding option, depending on what your receiving system expects.
3. Add any HTTP headers in the Headers field (one per line) — for example, an Authorization token
4. Enter the Success callback URL and the message body to send in the Success callback template. Use %%FIELD%% syntax to inject data from the document into the payload.
5. Do the same for the Error callback URL and Error callback template to handle failures — things like a missing field, a composition error, or a bounce.
6. Click Save to apply your callback configuration to every Application under this category.

Add a new Unsubscribe category

Unsubscribe categories work the same way as Application categories, but you'll typically only need a few. The same three tabs are available, though most platforms only need the basics:

1. In the Unsubscribe categories card, click Add new.
2. Enter a name for the category — something recipients would recognise, since this is what they'll see when managing their preferences.
3. Set permissions, default fields, or callbacks if you need to — otherwise leave them as-is.
4. Click Save.

The new Unsubscribe category is now available to assign to any Application from the Details tab.

Edit or delete an existing category

Need to rename a category, adjust its permissions, or remove it entirely? It's all done from the same settings screen:

1. Find the category you want to update in either the Application categories or Unsubscribe categories list.
2. Click Edit next to it to open the category settings.
3. Make your changes across the Details, Default fields, or Callbacks tabs as needed.
4. Click Save to apply your changes, or Delete at the bottom of the Details tab to remove the category.

Updates flow through to every Application tagged with this category, along with your reports and filters.

Before you delete
‍If a category is in use by existing Applications, deleting it will affect how those Applications behave — particularly around permissions, default fields, and reporting filters. It's worth reassigning Applications to another category first, or archiving them, before removing the category itself.

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An example to get you started

If you're setting up categories from scratch, it helps to see how they map together in practice. Here's a simple example showing how multiple Application categories can roll up to just a couple of Unsubscribe categories:

This kind of structure gives you detailed reporting on each campaign type, while keeping opt-out management nice and simple for your recipients — they choose to stop marketing emails without accidentally cutting themselves off from important transactional ones.

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What's next

Once your categories are set up, you can start assigning them when you create or edit an Application. Head over to the Create a new Application guide to see how categories slot into the wider setup process — or jump into Send Activity to see your categories in action as report filters.