Create Categories and Assign Pods

Categories provide the ability to classify individual Solstice Pods, and the collaboration spaces they create, in your Solstice deployment in ways that are meaningful to you. Mersive strongly recommends assigning Pods to categories once you have imported them into the Solstice Cloud management portal. Once created, categories can be used to filter, sort, and compare usage data among different Solstice instances to help drive business decisions. For example, data from Solstice Cloud's meeting analytics can help you determine future meeting room construction based on the most utilized types of rooms. Categories can also be used to schedule software updates for Pods selected by location or department, allowing you to choose the best update times for that group.

Solstice Cloud allows you to automatically categorize Pods by location and create your own custom categories. Creating a robust category scheme enables you to drill down into your deployment usage data in meaningful ways. For example, you can compare Solstice usage between buildings to see how the technology is being adopted at each location or compare the average meeting duration of bookable versus non-bookable huddle spaces.

Mersive recommends that you follow these guidelines when assigning categories.

  • Create categories that can be applied to all Pods (e.g., create a "City" category instead of a "Denver" category).
  • Start with broad categories then drill down into more specific ones (e.g., create a category for Country, City, Building, then Department or Floor).

Here is an example location category scheme:

Automatic

Custom
Country City Building Department Room Type Bookable
US Denver Denver HQ Marketing Conference Yes
US New York NY Office Sales Huddle No
Italy Milan Corso Vittorio Product Office  
UK London 141 Sussex Gardens Engineering Public Area  
Beijing China Jiang Jun Si Lu Chemistry    

How To

  1. In the left sidebar of Solstice Cloud, select Categories.
  2. Click Add Category.
  3. To create a category from one of the recommended options:
    1. Click Choose from recommended. Options are Room Type (huddle, conference, etc.), Display Type (flat panel, 4K, etc.) or Interaction (mouse, touch, etc.). Each pre-configured type can be used once.
    2. Select one of the recommended categories, then click Next. A note about managing the new category may appear; click Got It to proceed to category configuration.
    3. Click Add new at the top of the options table to add more options. Click the trashcan icon beside any existing options in the table that you do not wish to keep.

      Options within a category should always be mutually exclusive since only one option can be selected for each Pod. Avoid creating overlapping options that could be simultaneously true of a single Pod.

    4. Click Done. The added category now appears in the Category Manager table.
    5. Click Back to return to the category overview charts.
  4. To create your own custom category:
    1. If given the choice, Click Create custom. If all of the pre-configured recommended categories have already been added, you will go straight to entering the Category Name in the next step.
    2. Enter the Category Name, then click Next.
    3. Enter in the Options. For example, if you are creating a category to group Pods based on the floor of the building they are on, you can enter Level 1, Level 2, etc.

      Options within a category should always be mutually exclusive since only one option can be selected for each Pod. Avoid creating overlapping options that could be simultaneously true of a single Pod.

    4. If you wish you add another option, click in the last option field and hit the Enter key.
    5. Once you are done entering options, click Save & Apply.
    6. A note about managing the new category appears; click Got it. The added category will appear in the Category Manager table.
    7. Click Done and Back to return to the category overview charts.

As much as possible, choose the best category for each Pod from the beginning, as changing the assigned category of a Pod can affect the accuracy of historical data.

  1. In the left sidebar of Solstice Cloud, select Categories. Any Solstice Pods that have been imported into Solstice Cloud for your organization will appear in the Category Manager table.
  2. To select which previously added categories display in the Category Manager table, click the expand icon next to Manage Columns.
  3. Check the boxes for categories you wish to view. The selected categories will appear as columns in the table.
  4. To add an individual Solstice Pod to a category:
    1. In the row for the desired Pod, click the down arrow in the corresponding category column and select an option from the list that appears. Each Pod can be assigned to only one option per category.
  5. To add Solstice Pods to categories in batches:
    1. Check the box to the left of the Name for each Pod to be assigned to the same category option. Check the box at the top of this column to select all the Pods in the table.

      Start typing in the Search box at the top of the table to filter for Pods with names that contain the matching letters or words.

    2. In the row for any of the selected Pods, choose the desired option from the desired category column.
    3. Click Save to confirm you want to assign the category option for the number of Pod displays you selected and return to the Category Manager table.
  6. Repeat steps 3–5 to assign groups of Pods to other category options.
  1. In the left sidebar of Solstice Cloud, select Categories. Any Solstice Pods that have been imported into Solstice Cloud for your organization will appear in the Category Manager table.
  2. At the top of the screen, click the left and right icons to find the desired category, then click anywhere on the pie chart to view details of that category.
  3. Click the pencil icon above the category options to access tools to edit the options, change the category name, or delete the category.
  4.  To change the name of the selected category:
    1. Click the category name and select Rename Category.
    2. Click Done when finished making changes to view the updates to the selected category.
    3. Click Back to return to the full list of categories and overview charts.
  5. To add a category option:
    1. Click Add new... in the top row of the options table.
    2. Enter the name of the new category option and click the check icon to save the new category option. Click the gray X icon to cancel the addition of the new category option.
    3. Click Done when finished.
    4. Click Back to return to the full list of categories.
  6. To edit the name of an existing option:
    1. Click the existing option name in the table.
    2. Make your desired changes to the name and click the check icon to save the new name. Click the gray X icon to cancel any changes and keep the existing option name.
    3. Click Done when finished to view the updates to the selected category.
    4. Click Back to return to the full list of categories.
  7. To delete the selected category:
    1. Click the category name and select Delete Category.
    2. Click Yes - Delete to confirm deletion and return to the full list of categories.

Next Topic

Set Pod Locations