Labels

What are labels?

Labels are admin-only tags that can be applied to petitions, events, groups, or members on ControlShift. Labels are shared across the organization (so all admins with the appropriate permissions will see the same set of labels) and can be used to organize the work that your members are doing.

How are labels different than categories?

Unlike categories, which are only used for petitions, labels can be used across the platform – allowing organizations to have one coherent set of tags for events, groups, petitions, and members. Also, while categories are publicly visible on the petition page and in the site directory, labels are only visible to admins.

Why would I want to use labels? 

Labels can be created to fit the organization's needs and structure, but here are some examples of how labels can help with the work your organization is doing: 

• An admin adds a 'follow-up' label to an upcoming calendar event. The admins supporting the day of action will be able to see all events tagged with the follow-up label and will know to reach out to the event's host.
  
  
• As an admin, I want to keep track of a set of petitions that I've been working on. I can add my name as a label to the campaigns so that I can find them quickly and so that other admins will know that I'm helping the petition creator.
  
  
• As an organization with special programs aimed at organizing different groups of supporters (like youth organizing, campus action teams, or Latinx organizing), admins could add program labels so that the staff members working with special programs know which events, petitions, or groups are part of their program.
  
  
• An organization uses an 'environment' category for campaigns, but wants to keep track of which campaigns are working for clean water vs. fossil fuel divestment vs. plastic reduction. It may not make sense to add more granular categories because they'd be publicly visible, but the organization can add admin-only labels that show what specific issue a petition is targeting. That label can then be used in the all petitions list to quickly see all divestment campaigns, etc.
  
  
• As an organization who recently ran a day of action, you identified a set of event hosts who went above and beyond your expectations. You can add labels to their user accounts so that you'll remember that they're good people to call upon in the future. Similarly, if an event or group leader is not meeting expectations, you could add a label to the user account as a future warning.
  
  
• You organization is starting a multi-faceted campaign before a crucial vote in parliament. The campaign plan includes an effort with petitions targeting each MP, events organized around the country, and some of your local groups are also getting involved. You can add the same label to all of the petitions, events, and groups that are part of the parliamentary campaign to make sure that nothing gets missed. 

How do I use labels?

To get started using labels, you'll need to have the appropriate permissions. All members of the Owners team have full labelling permissions, meaning that they can create new organization-wide labels and add or delete labels from events, groups, petitions, and users. Members of other teams will need the label:everything permission to create new labels. They'll also need the :apply_label permission to add or remove labels from events, groups, petitions, and/or users.

Once you have the appropriate permissions, you can start adding labels by going to the admin view of an event, group, or petition (or by going to a person's member record). From here, go to the labels section and click into the search box. The search uses typeahead, so we'll begin showing matching labels as soon as you start typing.

If the label you want to add does not already exist, you'll have the option of creating a new label.

Once a label has been added, you can use it to help filter the petition, group, or event lists.

If you need to remove a label, just click the x next to the label's name.

Admins with the appropriate permissions can also see and manage all labels that are being used on the platform by going to Settings > Labels. This page includes a list of the existing labels and their number of uses (e.g. if a label has been added to petitions, events, and groups, it has 3 uses). From here you can also create new organization-wide labels or delete existing labels.