About Categories and Groups
Categories are parent classifications that include multiple groups. As part of a contact’s preference settings, your university or organization will be required to create categories and groups against which a contact can select communication preferences.
The following table illustrates the concept of categories and groups. See the example after the table for more details.
| Category | Group | Communication Preferences | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | SMS | |||
| Track Events | Individual sprints | |||
| Relay sprints | ||||
| Middle distance sprints | ||||
| Middle distance relays | ||||
| Long distance events | ||||
| Field Events | Throwing events | |||
| Jumping events | ||||
| Multidiscipline events | ||||
Example
The sports department at McCaul University is conducting trails to finalize the track team for the inter-university track and field championships that are scheduled for next summer. To finalize the athletics team, events are broken down as indicated in the Categories column, and these categories are broken down further into groups as indicated in the Groups column. For the selection trails, the sports department sends an email to students to collect information about their preferred media of notification. The available media are email, letter, and SMS.
The example illustrates that Categories are a super set classification that comprise groups. Groups are a fundamental unit of classification based on which an organization can collect information regarding a contact’s communication preferences. While multiple groups typically form a category, a category can also have only one group.