Best Practice: When to use Categories vs. Picklists

Author: Patrick Knowles

Date: July 11th, 2025

Audience: Everyone

Products Applicable: Jama Connect®

Use Case

Deciphering when to use the Categories feature or a Picklist in Jama Connect® can be challenging. This guide will help users, admins, and others involved in using the tool make an informed decision based on Jama Software's industry experts' best practices.

Best Practice

The best practice when choosing between Categories and Picklists boils down to the pros and cons of each. From the highest level, determining which is best for your use case will depend on many of the questions below, as well as the list of pros and cons found in the next section.

Implementation

Pros & Cons of Categories & Picklists

Determining Which Option to Choose

To determine which feature is best for your use case, start simple and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do users need to access this while editing an item?
2. Will this information need to be single-select only?
3. Is this metadata specific to just one or two Item Types?

If yes to any or all of the above questions, then it is likely that a Picklist will suffice. However, if you said no to any of the above, there is a chance that a set of Categories is a better option.

Asking similar questions for all the pros and cons above will allow the team to make an informed decision. Additionally, when optimizing a Jama Connect instance in this way, giving this a try is never a bad idea. Items with assigned Categories or Picklist metadata can always be updated at a later time to switch between the options.

References

• Success Programs
• Success Catalog
• Datasheets
• Request a Solution Offering or Training from the Success Catalog

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