Organize tags into hierarchies

Tags work best when they reflect how your team actually thinks about conversations. A flat list of 80 tags is hard to navigate; a 2-level tree of 80 tags is easy.

Before you start

• Admin permissions on Tag Management
• A rough sense of your top-level categories — usually 5–12 root Topic tags is the sweet spot

Re-parent an existing tag

1. Open Settings → Tag Management.
2. Find the tag in the tree.
3. Click the tag to open its detail pane, click Move under Place in the tree, and pick the new parent under Select new parent (or Root level to make the tag a root).
4. Click Move. The tag and all its descendants move with it.

Existing conversations tagged with this tag are not retroactively re-tagged with the new parent — the tag itself just lives in a different place in the tree. Reporting and filters update immediately.

Move multiple tags at once

1. Open Settings → Tag Management.
2. Select the tags you want to move in the tree.
3. Use the bulk action bar’s change-parent / move action.
4. Choose the new parent and confirm.

Selecting a parent tag includes its descendants, so the whole subtree moves together. Descendant rows included because their parent is selected appear checked and disabled — you don’t need to select them separately.

Rename a tag

1. Click the tag in the tree. Its detail pane opens with the name in the Name field.
2. Type the new name. Atender tracks edit sessions so two admins can’t overwrite each other’s changes accidentally.
3. Click Save changes.

Conversations keep the same tag record and show the new label after the rename. Automation rules that store the tag name are not updated automatically — review any affected conditions and actions and update the old name manually.

Promote a tag to a root

Same as re-parenting: open the tag, click Move, choose Root level, and click Move. A sub-tag carries no type of its own, so the promoted tag has no type (None) until you set its Tag Type.

Demote a root tag to a sub-tag

Same flow: open the tag, click Move, pick the new parent, and click Move. Children of the demoted tag stay attached — the whole branch moves down a level. The demoted tag’s type setting is overridden by the new parent’s type.

Verify it worked

Reload Tag Management. The tree should reflect the new structure. Spot-check a recent conversation that had the tag — the tag should still be there with its new label. If you renamed a tag used in automation, review the affected automation conditions and actions and update any stored tag names.

Practical taxonomy tips

• Cap depth at 3 levels. Beyond that, the tree becomes hard for agents to navigate during tagging.
• Use Quick Add for bulk setup, not one-at-a-time creation. See Create a tag.
• Topic tags should describe the customer’s situation, not your internal process. Refund is a topic; Goes-to-finance-team is a workflow concern that belongs in routing or automation, not a tag.
• Metadata tags should describe state. Things that turn on and off, things that need attention.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: I re-parented a tag but old conversations still show it under the old parent. Fix: Conversations don’t store the parent path — they store only the tag itself. The tag chip shows only the tag’s name, not its parent — check the new parent in Tag Management.

• Symptom: I can’t drag a tag to a new parent. Fix: Atender’s Tag Management has no drag-and-drop. Use the tag’s Move action (on its row or in its detail pane) and pick the new parent there.

See also

• Create a tag
• Topic vs Metadata reference