Once you put in more than a handful of names, it can be very useful to organize your data by giving it some classifications. Our program offers two ways to do this: Groups and Categories.
Especially for new users, it can be confusing because Groups and Categories seem to overlap in functionality. There are some important differences between Groups and Categories, but our software supports both methods because each have their advantages.
Groups are the simplest method of the two styles of organizing your data. When you enter or modify a record, Group is a text field on the main tab. You can use the drop-down list to select a group name you have used before OR you can type a new phrase to make a new Group.
The ease of using Groups also can be its limitation: each record can be in one and only one group. If your needs are slightly more complex, where a record needs to be more than one thing at a time, you can use Categories instead.
Categories can be found on a separate tab when you are editing a record. This screen has a number of checkboxes available which you can label as you see fit. Just click to the left of the checkbox you want to use and you'll get a cursor to add a label to this field. Once labeled, this checkbox will be available on all your other records of this type, also. With Categories, you can check all the boxes that apply, which makes this great for marking people as part of different targeted mailing lists or Christmas card lists.
IF YOU USE CHAOSHOST.COM, creating new Categories is just a bit different since you are sharing with other computers and devices (and maybe people). Instead of adding new labels directly in your Windows program, you need to login to www.chaoshost.com then go to Options. You'll find a place for choosing your default labels including your Category labels. Add the new labels you have in mind here, save your new options, then sync with your Windows program. Your new labels will be transferred and ready to use so you can start to check whatever boxes apply. These new labels will also update everyone else's copy, too.
Once you have classified your records using Groups and/or Categories, you can use these to filter the data back on our main screen. On the toolbar of each type of data, you'll find some buttons with Green and Red funnels. These buttons will let you choose a particular group or a particular category you wish to view and will hide all the other records from sight. When filtered, you should notice that the title of this section changes from ALL to showing the filter you selected, as a way of reminding you there could be more data available than what you see. You can then return to these buttons to get back to your full view of data again.
Groups have a special choice called Unfiled, by the way. This selection will show you all the records where the group name is blank.
This help article applies to Intellect 4 or newer, Time & Chaos 8 or newer, and Chaos Free