Categories

What Are Categories?

Grouping your content into Categories allows your users to access the most relevant content in the most relevant place within your app. These Categories are defined in the CMS and allow you to choose which content you want to show, where you want to show it, and for how long you want it to appear.

With Storyteller, you can add multiple Stories Rows and/or Story Grids to your app on different screens of your app, not just the Home Screen. Which Categories are linked to which rows/grids on which screens will be handled during the integration of Storyteller into your app. Categories allow your content to be targeted to a specific row/grid on a per Story basis and multiple Categories can be linked to a row/grid.

• For example, on a News App you could have a 'Breaking News' Story Row with the Category 'breaking-news' on the Home Screen and a 'USA News' Story Row with the Category 'usa-news' within the USA Screen. A Story about a piece of breaking news in the USA is given the Categories 'breaking-news' and 'usa-news' and therefore appears in both Story Rows, and on both screens of the app.

Storyteller also enables you to customise the lifetime of your Stories with the ability to have a certain Story on your Home Screen for one week, but remaining on a different screen for two months. See Creating Stories for more information on scheduling to Categories.

Alternatively, Categories can also be used for the Clips Filtering feature, letting users tap Category tags at the bottom of a Clip to open a new player and explore more content types, driving content discovery. This feature is toggled in the Collection settings Categories must be toggled 'Available for navigation' to appear.

Adding a Category

To add a new Category:

• Navigate to the Categories section of the CMS

• Select 'New Category'

• Input an Internal Title

  • This is only used within the CMS

• Input a Display Title

  • This is shown to users on the frontend e.g. Clips Filtering

• Toggle for Localisation

  • This can be adjust by selecting the translation icon

• Toggle Available for navigation

  • This is relevant for Clips Navigation

• Select Category Type

  • This lets you group Categories for easier scheduling

• Input a External ID

  • If you don't enter an ID, one will be made from your Title

• Press 'Save' and your Category has been made.

Importing Categories

You can import your own Categories from a CSV file by selecting the 'Import From CSV' button. The CSV file must contain the following two columns, named exactly: title and externalId.

The externalId property must be formatted in all lowercase and use hyphens as spaces between words, the following characters cannot be used as part of an externalId:
Spaces / ? # [ ] @ ! $ & ' ( ) * + , ; = " < > % { } | \ ^ ´

The title property is only used in the CMS to identify the Category. The externalId property should be a unique identifier for the Category and is used by the Storyteller SDKs to power Story categorization.

You will receive a notification at the top right of the screen upon a successful import.

Editing a Category Title

To edit a Category title, select 'Categories', find the Category you wish to edit and select 'Edit'

Edit the Category title and select 'Save'

Deleting a Category

To remove a Category, select 'Categories', find the Category you wish to delete and select the bin icon.

You will then be asked to confirm that you wish to remove the Category. Select 'Yes, Delete'

Mandatory Short Titles

You can require Stories in a category to include a Short Title, and optionally set a maximum length to prevent text from being cut off or truncated in the app.

To configure this:

• In the CMS, go to the Categories section and select the Category you want to set Mandatory Short Titles for.

• Scroll to Display Settings and enable Short Title Required.

• Optionally set a maximum length.

• Click Save.

If a category requires a Short Title, users won’t be able to save Story titles until one is entered — and within the limit, if set.

Default Schedules

You can add a Default Schedule to any Category to automatically apply scheduling to Stories using that Category.

To configure a Default Schedule:

• Go to the Categories section in the CMS.

• Create or edit a Category.

• In the Default Schedule section:

  • Choose a preset duration (e.g. 6 hours, 1 week),

  • Select Custom Duration to set your own time range, or

  • Choose Forever to make Stories visible indefinitely.

• Click Save.

When this Category is later added to a Story, the Default Schedule will apply automatically — but it can still be edited or removed within the Story editor.

Followable Categories

You can also make Categories followable (Clips Only). This allows users to follow specific categories of content e.g. teams or players, discover related or archive content, and have follows influence their feed, or appear in a dedicated ‘Followed’ feed. To make a Category followable:

• Go to the Categories section in the CMS.

• Create or edit a Category.

• Scroll down to Follow Settings

• Toggle Show in Clips

• Add a Thumbnail

  • This is the image that will appear within the Clips Player

• Add an Action (Optional)

  • Tapping the thumbnail sends users to the Action’s destination

• Toggle Is Followable

  • This needs to be toggled on for full following functionality

  • If turned off only the Thumbnail will appear with no option to follow