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App Portal Software Categories

I'm working at setting up the App Portal software categories and have been using the FNMS categories for the time being. I find that they are not user friendly for "non-technical" people.

What are community members using for App Portal categories?

(1) Reply

I know not everyone has a license/subscription for our Data Platform product, but Technopedia categorization is a much better starting point, in my opinion.  I've also seen customers categorize catalog items by publisher, by user population/business unit, and by type (which is where the Technopedia classifications come into play).  You can use any or all of these approaches simultaneously.  I've also seen customers just put everything into a generic "Software" category because their users tend to use the search function instead of navigating through the categories (though that could cause performance problems when loading the page if you have a large number of catalog items).

Whatever approach you take, I generally recommend starting simple with not a lot of categories, and especially not too deep a hierarchy (i.e. not more than two levels deep).  Try to limit the number of catalog items in a category to about 100 or less.  Then after your users have been using App Portal for a while (and periodically thereafter), conduct some focus groups with a mix of people across the organization and see what they like/don't like.  This will help you get a feel for how your users think when they go looking for software, so you can adjust your category structure to help them.

I know this isn't very prescriptive, but I hope it helps.

 

Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera. If my reply answers a question you have raised, please click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION".