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Dynamic Categories

Vimeo OTT offers two types of categories: Manual Categories and Dynamic Categories. Manual Categories let you select and organize specific pieces of content into an ordered group. Dynamic Categories let you create rules to automatically filter and organize content. Once set up, Dynamic Categories update content rows daily when new content meets your rules, saving you time and providing a more dynamic experience for your viewers.

Few examples of what you can achieve with Dynamic Categories:

  • Most Recent - Show viewers just your newest videos by using the date-added sort to pull in the most recent videos. When a new video is added, it will appear in this dynamic category.
  • From the Archives - Unearth overlooked videos by adding a specific tag to some of your less watched videos and create a dynamic category that filters to that tag and randomly sorts the videos. Every day different videos will be displayed, keeping viewers engaged.  
  • Most Popular  - Show off your most popular videos by using the video views sort. Add a tag, genre, or cast/crew filter to create categories for the most popular videos in different subgroups.
  • Time-Based - Give your viewers an easy way to watch content that fits into their schedule by using the “Video Length” filter to pull in just videos of a specific length. Create a few categories, each with filters for different lengths. Great for fitness classes

In this article

Creating a Dynamic Category

To create a Dynamic Category:

  1. Navigate to Content > Categories.
  2. Click the + Add button next to the Categories section of the Content page or the + New Category at the top.
  3. A pop-up will then prompt you to enter a category title and choose if you want a manual or dynamic category. Add your title, choose dynamic, and click Add a title, then selct Add.

Category settings

After creating your category, you'll be brought to the category's settings page, starting with the General settings. Here, you can modify the category title, and add a short description, a Full description, and a thumbnail. These options are all identical to Manual Category settings. For a full overview of General, Distribution, and Discovery tab settings, please review the article “Creating and managing categories on Vimeo OTT’

Adding content to a Dynamic Category

The biggest difference between a manual and dynamic category is how content is added and updated. With a manual category, you add specific videos and manually order them. With a dynamic category, you create rules for which videos to add to a category and how they should be displayed. Anytime new videos that meet the categories criteria are uploaded, they will be added automatically.  

  1. Set the Maximum Items filter to limit the number of content pieces added to your category. The dynamic category will pull in content that meets the filter criteria, up to the specified maximum. If more items meet the criteria than the maximum allows, only the top items—based on the set sort order—will be displayed to viewers. 
  2. Choose the sort. This is how your content will display to the viewer inside of the category when viewed on the Browse and Category detail pages.
    • Added Date - The date the content was added to your site
    • Alphabetical - Alphabetical based on the content title.
    • Number of Comments - Number of comments viewers have added to the video.
    • Random - Content will appear in a random order and will update the random order every 24 hours. 
    • Release date - The date the content was released. You can see the release date in the Discovery tab of the video details. 
    • Video Duration - Order videos based on how long they are.
    • Video Views - Order videos based on how many all-time views they have received.

⚠️Note: Not all sorts are compatible with Collections and only apply when a Category is composed exclusively of Videos.  

  1. Choose the sort direction. For all sorts (except for random) you can choose to sort ascending (A to Z // lowest to highest) or descending (Z to A // highest to lowest)
  2. Click +Add condition and a new row will appear with filter options. This is where you set rules on which content to include and exclude.

  1. Select your filter type. 
    • Availability - Is the content available now or does it have a future availability date
    • Actor - Type the name of any actor you have added in the Actor field on a video. 
    • Cast - Type the name of any Cast member you have added in the Cast field on a video.  
    • Content Type - Choose Movie, Playlist, Series, Video, Vimeo Event, Live Event
    • Crew -  Type the name of any Crew member you have added in the Crew field on a video. 
    • Genre - Choose from a predefined list of genres. 
    • Subscription Plan Access - Choose to pull in videos available to Anyone, Registered Members, or Subscribers 
    • Tag - Type the exact tag. 
    • Title - Type the title of the content. Partial matches will get added. You can use this filter to add specific items. 
    • License - Choose Licensed or Original content.
    • Video Duration - Choose from predefined video durations.  

⚠️Note: For text input fields, only exact matches will apply so be sure to check the spelling. Also, you cannot add separate values by adding commas, instead you need to create a new line for each entry.

  1. Select is or is not and you will be choosing whether to include or exclude videos that match your filter.
  2. You can click the +Add condition and use a new filter option. Filters are additive so if you have multiple filters, only content that matches all filter criteria will appear.
  3. Click Preview Content and you will see all videos that match the filters sorted by your preferred sort option. This is how videos will display to your viewers in your Category when it appears on your Browse page. 
    • If a random sort order is selected, the order is re-randomized when Save & Refresh is clicked and this is how content will be displayed until the next daily refresh occurs. 
  4. Click Save & Refresh and your filter options will save.

When you upload new videos or add new collections, be sure to add all relevant metadata so they can be automatically pulled into any relevant Dynamic Categories.

Filter and Sort Refresh

Dynamic Categories refresh daily at 3 AM UTC (11 PM ET //8 PM PT). Any content added throughout the day that matches a filter on a previously created Dynamic Category will be pulled in when the category refreshes and the sort order will update to reflect the new content. If a Random sort is selected, the content order will re-randomize at the daily refresh. To update content or sort order outside of the daily refresh,  click the Refresh Content button on the Dynamic Categories content tab and the new content will be pulled in and sort order updated. 

Feedback

 After you have used Dynamic Categories, please let us know your thoughts and suggestions via this form. We are actively developing this feature and adding functionality and your feedback will help us refine and improve the functionality.

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