Interests - what are Interests and how do I add them to Citizen Space?

An Interest is a searchable topic which can help your participants to find activities that relate to them.

Interests are an optional site-wide feature which can be enabled when you are initially setting up your Citizen Space site. Only Site Admin users can create and edit the site-wide Categories and Interests which can be applied to any activity.

Interests are grouped within 'Categories'. You will need to add Categories and Interests into Citizen Space before you can create activities as once enabled, they become a required field in order to publish an activity. It's good practice to decide on your Categories and Interests before you begin consulting and engaging with respondents.

How to add interests

To add Interests, select the 'Site' dropdown from the dark grey admin navigation bar across the top of the page and then select 'Settings'. This will take you to the Site settings section, where you'll find the link 'Interests' which will take you to the page for managing interests in your site.

Under the heading 'Add a Category', you can add your first Category:

Each new Category you add will go to the bottom of your Categories list.

Next, add Interests to your Category:

Repeat this process until all of your Categories and Interests have been added. 

It is possible to disable or edit your Categories and Interests should you need to. However, take care when doing so, because if you change a Category and/or Interest that is used in a closed or open activity then these will no longer appear on the activities they have been assigned to.