Mercury enhances your organisational structure, by allowing you to build up your own flexible hierarchical category system, including an unlimited number of levels, with the possibility to apply specific parameters to each level/sub-level/campaign. 



Managing Category-trees

The list of all of your existing category trees is usually displayed on your main Mercury page.


Please note that if your just started implementing Mercury, this page will be empty


Using a hierarchical category structure has a number of advantages:

  • Categories help users keep track of data in the system.
     

  • Administrators can use categories to specify which users can access specific data in the system
      

  • Use categories to store specific data used for media plans (e.g. fees, invoicing data, ad server conditions) and have it centrally available. This makes it easier to access important data and reduces errors because only users with the relevant permissions can manage that data.

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Examples of Category paths:
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Frankfurt > Client A > Furniture > Tables > Dining tables > Rustic > 2017
Client A > Product 1 > EMEA > Spain > TV
Client B > Brand Campaigns > 2019 - 2020 > Summer
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Think of categories being like folders, except that categories in Mercury are easier to navigate through because of the dropdown option.


Inheritance in category trees

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Data stored in a category is "inherited" or in other words, automatically passed on to all subcategories in that category tree. 


Examples:
The system has the following category structure:
  • Client A
    • Product 1 
    • Product category 1 
      • Product 2
  • Client B 
    • Product 3

- A fee model of 5% on media cost is assigned to the "Client A" category. This fee model will be automatically inherited by the subcategories "Product 1", "Product category 1" and "Product 2”. Subcategory "Product 3", however, will not be affected by it, because as it is not a subcategory of "Client A”.

- If the role "Media Planning" under "Product Category 1" has been assigned to the user "Thomas", he will be only able to perform all the tasks defined for the role "Media Planning" for the "Product category 1" and subcategory "Product 2", but not on the other remaining categories.

- When a client cash discount of maximum 2% is assigned to "Product category 1" and "Product 2" had a client cash discount of 4%, the new value of 2% from the main category will override any other values from the subcategories.

- If a technical component for tracking creatives up to 200 KB is added to "Client A”, it will be available in all subcategories of "Client A". If however another technical component of 500kg is applies to "Product 1", than it will be available for "Product 1" but not for "Product category 1" or "Product 2"


Categories on the highest hierarchical level are called "Root categories", they do not have any other categories above them (i.e. can not inherit properties.

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The difference between root categories and other categories (sub-categories), is that users which create root categories have to specify their category role within the category, therefore a user must be permitted to manage the new root category.

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Permissions to manage root categories can be subsequently deleted for all users. Please be careful full while managing category roles.

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Creating a root category:

  • To create a new category tree, please click on the blued  ⊕  button
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  • .Categories must always have a name, please insert one in the Name field
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    Please note that names can only be used once on the same level.

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  • Please select the type of this category in the Type section. Attributing the category to one of the three available types is optional, but would bring a few further operational advantages (see below)
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    Types can be used to classify categories as: clients, product categories and products.
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    *Clients and products should always be properly typed in the category path to ensure effective communication in booking, emails, status emails, etc.
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    Typing is frequently used:
    1. When communicating with campaign participants, as publishers, Ad Ops, etc.
    2. To reflect the data properly in reporting tools like Tableu
    3. To control user access to different clients or campaigns (e.g. by using subcategories)
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    There are a few rules which should be followed for effective typing:
    - Typing is not required for each category (e.g. if you create one category per calendar year)
    - Only one category within a category path can be typed as client
    - Multiple categories within a category path can be typed as product category
    - Only one category in a category path can be typed as product
    - A subcategory can only be typed as product category, if it has a parent category typed as client
    - A subcategory can only be typed as product, if it has a parent category typed as client
    - A category/subcategory which is typed as product, cannot have any subcategories typed as product category.
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    Note: Some types may not be available in the dropdown menu due to the above rules for typing categories. You can contact Mercury Media Support for more assistance.
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    Example:
    - Client A (type client)
    .............- Toys (type: product category)
    .....................- Wooden (type: product category)
    ...................................- Wooden swings (type: product category)
    .....................................................- "Peter" swing (type: product)
    ...................................................................- 2017 (untyped)
    ...................................................................- 2018 (untyped)

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  • To create a new root category, your category role must be selected in the Category roles field
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    Please note! You will be the only user who can access the category once it has been created
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  • Please define the currency for the new category
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    Cost and prices in media plans, bookings, etc. are in shown the currency selected here.
    Subcategories always use the same currency as their parent category unless a different currency has been explicitly selected for a sub-category.
    Saved and calculated costs and prices are not converted into the selected currency.
    Selecting a currency only means that costs and prices are shown with a specific currency symbol.
    Only the development team can add additional currencies. This setting can be overriden in subcategories

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  • Optionally you could also specify the percentage of tax for this category, in the field VAT
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  • Define a standard recipient for internal media orders if required (optional) in the field Email for internal invoice requests.
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Please note! If you leave this field blank you may not be able to send media offers (unless a valid recipient has been defined in all sub-categories).

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  • To save all the filled information and create the new root category, click on  Create Category
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  • After creation, your new root category will be displayed in the list from your main page
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Creating a sub-category:


  • A subcategory can only be created within a root category, please click on the desired root category to navigate through it
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  • To start creating a sub-category, click on  ⊕Sub-category  button
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  • In the new opened window, fill in all the relevant information (some values will be inherited form the parent category automatically, they should only be changed if needed)
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  • Repeat the above steps for as many times as needed to establish your working structure, by created all the relevant categories and sub-categories

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  • After creation, all the sub-categories attributed to a root category, will be displayed when accessing the parent category or by expanding the dropdown list under the parent category
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Other useful features of Categories:


Navigation:

  • There are two options to navigate between categories and subcategories:
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    1. Using the drop down function, by clicking on the > sign to expand the category/subcategory
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    2. Clicking on a Root-category and viewing all the subcategories from the inside
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Modification:

  • There are a few ways to modify the data inserted when creating the category/sub-category
    1. Click on the ⚙ symbol parallel to each category name
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    2. Click on the ⚙ symbol in the top right corner of the screen, when accessing each category
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    3. Inherited properties of sub-categories, can be updated as a bulk when updating the parent category


Delegation:

  • Delegating responsibilities in a category/sub-category can be done by assigning roles in that category
    Note: Only users which have a role in a category will be able to see it on their list
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    To assign a role to an user in a category, please access that category page and click on ? symbol (Assign category roles) the top right corner of the page
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Relocation:

  • Categories/sub-categories can be moved in between different category trees if they meet the Typing Rules (A client category can not be moved under another client category, but a product category can be moved to another category tree type "product category" or "client")
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    To move a category/sub-category, please access that category page and click on Move , then choose the new corresponding category/subcategory tree and confirm the movement
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    If the types of the selected categories can not be correlated, system will display an error