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Categories, criteria groups, and criteria

The rubric inside Sparqbox is three levels deep: a workspace has categories, each category has criteria groups, and each criteria group has criteria. Admins set this up; reviewers don't change it.

The hierarchy

Section titled “The hierarchy”
workspace
└── category
    └── criteria group
        └── criterion

A category is a kind of idea like Process Improvement or Cost Reduction. Criteria groups organise the scoring questions inside a category, for example Impact, Feasibility, Strategic Fit. A criterion is a single scoring question with a weight, like Efficiency Gain with weight 0.250.

The eight defaults

Section titled “The eight defaults”

Every new workspace ships with eight categories pre-loaded. Each has four criteria groups and a starting set of weights that sum to 1.000.

| Category | Criteria groups | |---|---| | New Product / Service | Customer Acceptance, Strategic Fit, Market Potential, Feasibility | | Process Improvement | Impact, Feasibility, Strategic Fit, Stakeholder Value | | Cost Reduction | Financial Impact, Feasibility, Sustainability, Strategic Fit | | Customer Experience | Customer Impact, Competitive Advantage, Feasibility, Strategic Fit | | Safety & Compliance | Risk Reduction, Regulatory Impact, Feasibility, Stakeholder Value | | Technology & Digital | Impact, Technical Feasibility, Strategic Fit, Scalability | | Sustainability | Environmental Impact, Feasibility, Strategic Fit, Stakeholder Value | | Workplace & Culture | Employee Impact, Feasibility, Retention & Attraction, Strategic Fit |

You can keep them as is, edit them, or deactivate the ones that don't fit. Active criteria weights in any category must sum to 1.000, with a tolerance of 0.001 for rounding.

Each default criterion ships with a short description that explains what it measures. The description appears below the criterion name in Settings → Categories & criteria and helps admins understand the scoring intent before they customise weights or questions. Existing workspaces that were created before this was introduced do not receive the descriptions automatically.

Default activation by industry

Section titled “Default activation by industry”

During the onboarding wizard, Sparqbox activates four or five of the eight categories automatically based on the industry you select. The remaining categories are present but inactive; you can turn them on at any time.

| Industry | Active by default | |---|---| | Manufacturing & Industrial | Process Improvement, Cost Reduction, Safety & Compliance, Sustainability, Workplace & Culture | | Software & Tech | New Product / Service, Customer Experience, Technology & Digital, Process Improvement | | Professional Services | Customer Experience, Process Improvement, New Product / Service, Workplace & Culture | | Healthcare & Life Sciences | Customer Experience, Safety & Compliance, Process Improvement, Workplace & Culture | | Retail & Hospitality | Customer Experience, Process Improvement, Cost Reduction, Workplace & Culture | | Other / Not listed | Process Improvement, Customer Experience, Cost Reduction, Workplace & Culture |

Adding or editing categories

Section titled “Adding or editing categories”

Open Settings → Categories. The page lists every category in your workspace.

  • Add a category with the New category button. You'll set a name, an optional description, and the approve and reject thresholds.
  • Edit a category by clicking it. You can change the name, the icon and colour, the thresholds, the primary reviewer, and the maximum reviewer count.
  • Deactivate a category by clicking it and switching its status off. Inactive categories don't appear in submitter forms but keep their existing ideas.

Criteria groups

Section titled “Criteria groups”

Criteria groups organise the scoring questions inside a category. Each group has a name and an optional description. The description appears at the top of the group panel on the criteria page to help admins understand the purpose of the group at a glance.

To edit a group, click the three-dot menu on the group header and choose Edit group. You can change the name and add or update the description there. If a group has no description, you'll see a clickable Add a description for this group link in the panel body; clicking it opens the same edit dialog.

Working with criteria

Section titled “Working with criteria”

Inside a category, criteria are grouped under their criteria group.

  • Add a criterion by clicking + Add criterion inside the relevant group. The page inserts a placeholder row inline with the name "New criterion", a default description, and 0% weight. The name is selected automatically so you can start typing straight away. The page-level Save button stays disabled until you replace the placeholder name with something of your own.
  • Edit changes the name, question text, description, and weight of an existing criterion directly in the row.
  • Archive retires a criterion. Active and archived criteria are tracked separately; archived criteria don't count toward the weight sum.

The weight field accepts decimals between 0 and 1. The page shows a running total so you can see whether your active criteria add up to 1.000 before saving. The ring turns green when the total is exactly 1.000, amber when it is over or under.

Approve and reject thresholds

Section titled “Approve and reject thresholds”

Each category has two thresholds, set per category and used by the auto-decision rule.

  • Approve, the score at or above which an idea is automatically approved. Default 3.5.
  • Reject, the score at or below which an idea is automatically rejected. Default 2.0.

Scores between the two thresholds land in Needs discussion. The constraint approve > reject is enforced; thresholds must be in the range 1.0 to 5.0.

Cascade rules and orphan prevention

Section titled “Cascade rules and orphan prevention”

Categories aren't fully deletable once they have ideas linked to them.

  • Deleting a category cascades to its criteria groups and criteria.
  • Deleting a category that has ideas attached fails to prevent orphan rows.
  • The supported pattern is: deactivate the category, or move its ideas to another category, then delete.

Plan limits

Section titled “Plan limits”

The Starter plan caps your workspace at three categories. The fourth category attempt shows an upgrade tooltip on the New category button; clicking opens the upgrade modal.

The Growth and Scale plans have no category cap.

What's next

Section titled “What's next”