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Applying Custom Content Fields in the Catalog

There are two options for organizing the content in your catalog: Custom Content Fields and Curated Categories. While both can be used, each has its own uses and differences. You'll need to decide which method is more appropriate for your learning site. See our Custom Content Fields vs. Curated Categories article for more information.

The Custom Content Fields option consists of 1) the field and 2) the value. For example, a field for "difficulty" might have values of "easy" or "challenging". Learners can click on any field value to filter all related content. 

This is the best option if you'd like to allow complex content filtering, allowing learners to filter on multiple values at once. This also works well if you'd like to assign a custom field within each piece of content as you create it. 

Where do I find this?

Creating Custom Fields: 

Settings > Content > Organization & Display

Adding Custom Fields to a Content Item: 

Content > Actions > Settings > Catalog

How do I do this?

This is essentially a two-step process: 1.) to create the custom content fields and then 2.) to assign custom content fields and values to content. 

Creating a custom content field:

This is where you create the field name.

  1. From your homepage, select Settings.
  2. From the left menu, select Content and then Organization & Display.
  3. Click Add Custom Content Field and complete the following:
    • Field Name: The title for your custom field (e.g. “difficulty”, “ISBN”, "recipe type").
    • Browsable?: toggle to "Yes" if you would like the field to be browsable on the catalog. If "No" (default setting), this specific field will not be visible in the catalog.
    • Multiple?: toggle to "Yes" if there are possible multiple values. For example, in the case of "recipe type", a particular piece of content could be both "quick breads" and "sweets". If "No" (default setting), content can only be associated with one value/subcategory within this field. 
    • Include On Articles/Videos?: toggle this to "Yes" if you want to display the values for this custom field on article/video content types. 
  4. Click Save.

Adding a value on a piece of content

Once you’ve created one or more custom fields, you can assign values for each piece of content.

  1. From your homepage, select Content.
  2. Click the Actions drop-down next to the course you want to alter and select Settings.
  3. From left menu, select Catalog and then scroll down the page to locate the Custom Fields section.
  4. Choose a field from the drop-down list and then click Next Step.
  5. Type the desired value (e.g. “quick breads”) within the search field. If the value already exists, you can select it. Or, click Add once you're done typing to create a new value. 
  6. Click Save.
  7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all of your custom fields have been added. 

What else do I need to know?

  • Custom fields appear within the left sidebar of the catalog for learners to use as filters.
  • To remove a custom field from a piece of content, click the trash icon next to the custom field. This is a permanent action.
  • To remove a value from a piece of content, click the pencil icon to edit the custom field entry. Then, click into the input box and delete. Enter a new value and click Save. Or, delete the value and click Save to remove the field altogether. 
  • To remove a value from the list of available values, simply remove it from all pieces of content that are using the value.
  • You can also add custom fields to content that isn’t built into the base Thought Industries platform. For example, if you have book-related content, you could add an ISBN field.

What does this look like?

Learner View (Catalog):

Admin View (Creating Custom Fields):

Admin View (Assigning Values):

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