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How do I organize announcements and roadmap items to match my product structure?

Overview of how to use categories and labels

Chelsea Davis avatar
Written by Chelsea Davis
Updated in the last hour

Summary

You organize your announcements using Categories and Labels. Categories are the primary way to structure your content—they map to how you think about your product (like "Billing," "API," or "Mobile App"). Labels add secondary information about the type of change (like "New Feature" or "Bug Fix"). Categories enable subscriptions and audience targeting, while Labels help visitors filter content on your page.


Understanding Categories vs. Labels

Categories

Categories are your main organizational structure. They should reflect how your team talks about the product internally and how customers think about different areas of functionality. Every announcement requires at least one category.

Key benefits of Categories:

  • Customers can subscribe to specific categories they care about

  • You can target notifications to category subscribers

  • They appear on your published page and in notifications

  • They work with audience segmentation and cohorts

Labels

Labels are optional secondary tags that describe the nature of the change. Unlike categories, labels don't enable subscriptions or audience targeting—they purely help visitors filter and understand updates.

Common label examples:

  • New Feature

  • Improvement

  • Bug Fix

  • Integration

  • API Update


Setting Up Your Categories

Step 1: Plan your category structure

Before creating categories, consider your product structure. Here's some examples:

  • Single product: Use categories for different feature areas

    • Example: Task Management, Reporting, Integrations, Mobile App

  • Product suite: Use categories for each product

    • Example: Payments, Billing, Connect (like Stripe)

  • Enterprise software: Use categories for platform layers

    • Example: Core Platform, Advanced Features, Admin Tools

Step 2: Create categories

  1. Navigate to Settings > Categorization > Categories in your LaunchNotes management portal

  2. Click Create category

  3. Set the Category name (required) — this displays on your public page

  4. Add a Category description (optional) — internal only, not visible to customers

  5. Choose a Category color to visually organize similar categories

Each category automatically gets an API slug and unique ID for integrations and embeds.

Step 3: Create labels (optional)

If you want to add secondary classification:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Categorization > Labels

  2. Create label names like "New Feature," "Bug Fix," "Improvement"

  3. Set a label color

Labels only display on your page if at least one announcement or roadmap item uses them.


Managing Your Organization System

Updating categories on existing content

To remove a category from an announcement:

  1. Navigate to the announcement in the admin portal

  2. Go to Update content & settings

  3. Remove the category and click Update

To remove a category from a roadmap item:

  1. Navigate to the roadmap item in the admin portal

  2. Remove the category—changes save automatically

Editing or deleting categories

Go to Settings > Categorization > Categories to update category names, descriptions, or colors, or to delete categories entirely. The same applies to Labels under the Labels tab.


Notes & Important Info

  • At least 1 category is required to send notifications with LaunchNotes

  • Categories enable subscriptions and customers can follow specific categories

  • Labels do not enable subscriptions or audience targeting

  • Both categories and labels have API slugs for custom integrations

  • You can apply multiple categories to a single announcement or roadmap item

  • Your category structure should match how customers think about your product, not just your internal team structure

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