Overview
Custom field categories are an optional wrapper you can use to group related custom fields together, making them easier to organise and manage across your organisation. Grouping custom fields into categories helps keep your OKR setup tidy as the number of custom fields grows, and lets you manage sharing at the group level.
Using categories is optional. If you don't assign a category when creating a custom field, the field is automatically placed in the default Other category.
Requirements
You need the Governance role to create and manage custom fields and their categories. This is geared toward program managers, results management leaders, and those who drive the process behind the program.
How categories work
Optional grouping - Categories are a way to organize custom fields. You can create custom fields with or without assigning them to a category.
Default category - Any custom field created without a specified category is added to Other.
Sharing settings - Each category has its own visibility (sharing) settings that establish the boundaries for the custom fields inside it. See the section below for how this interacts with field-level visibility.
Create a custom field category
Users with Governance privileges can create categories for the organization.
Select the 9-square menu from the top navigation bar and choose Governance.
Under Result Management, click Custom fields from the left-side menu.
Click Add field category in the top-right corner.
In the Object dropdown, select the object type this category is grouped under: Objectives, Key Results, User profile, or Work Items.
Enter a Category Name that describes the grouping.
(Optional) Add a Category Description explaining the purpose of the category.
Set View permissions to establish who can see the category. This determines the boundary for every custom field placed in it (see the next section):
Check Visible to everyone in the organization to make it globally visible, or
Use Search by team or business group to share it with specific teams or business groups.
Click Save.
Category visibility vs. custom field visibility
Custom field visibility is managed independently of category visibility, but always within the scope defined by the category. In other words, the category sets the outer boundary of who can see a field, and you can restrict access further at the individual field level - but never beyond what the category allows.
There are two things to keep in mind:
1. A category's visibility does not override tighter field-level restrictions. If a custom field belongs to a category with global (organization-wide) visibility, you can still restrict access to that individual custom field. The category-level setting won't force the field to be visible to everyone.
Example: A category is visible to the entire organization, but you configure one field inside it to be visible only to the Finance team. That field stays restricted to Finance, even though its category is global.
2. A field can only be shared within the teams that have access to its parent category. If a category is shared with a specific set of teams, each custom field within that category can be shared with any subset of those teams. However, a custom field cannot be shared with teams that don't have access to the parent category.
Example: A category is shared with Teams A, B, and C. A field inside it can be shared with just Team A, or with Teams A and B — any subset. It cannot be shared with Team D, because Team D doesn't have access to the category.
The takeaway: field permissions are fully configurable on their own, but only inside the boundaries established by the category's sharing settings.
Assigning a category to a custom field
You assign a category when you create or edit a custom field:
Select the 9-square waffle menu from the top navigation bar and choose Governance.
Click Custom fields from the left-side menu.
Select the tab where you'd like the field to live: Objectives, Key Results, or User profile.
Click Add your first custom field (or the pencil icon to edit an existing one).
In the Category field, choose or enter the category the field should belong to. Leave it blank to place the field in Other.
Finish entering the remaining field details (Field name, Field description, Tooltip description, Field type), set the required-field and view-permission options, and click Save.