Book Depot Custom List - Multiple Categories and Subjects

Custom List Tool: Categories and Subjects List

February 28, 2019

Categories may be an area where you wouldn’t think you would need a tool to assist you in browsing our online book selection. We already include a list of categories on the side bar of our pages that easily filters the list of titles—what could be easier?

What the website does not currently offer, however, is the ability to compile as many categories and subjects as you desire into one list, which makes the category selection tool extremely valuable! For example, if you have a store that specializes in science fiction books, you would need to go to the Fiction category on the website and select the Science Fiction subject (and maybe Fantasy as well). However, this filtering would only include adult titles. You may also be interested in young adult and tween science fiction titles so then you would head to the Young Adult Fiction category and select the Sci-Fi subject, followed by a look through the Tween category with the Sci-Fi subject as well. By doing this, browsing the titles that you are interested in can become a tedious process. Here is where the Category/Subject List Tool is going to save you time and allow you to generate all the titles that are of interest to you.

Through this example, you can start to see how useful this tool really is! For further flexibility, once you have created a list that includes all of your interests you also have the ability to save it all into a single template and have that delivered to your inbox as often as you like. Now that is a timesaving tool!

Video Tutorial

Here is a brief video tutorial to show you how to use this tool:

Step-by-Step Instructions

Once you are logged into your account, you can find our Custom List tool under the profile icon at the top of the webpage in My Lists (or by clicking here). When you get to the page, you may notice that you already have a list or two already created. These are example lists we have created for you to help get you started and to aid your browsing experience.

GETTING STARTED

To create a Category list, start by clicking on Create. You will see a list of several attributes that you can create a list from. For the purpose of this tutorial, check the box next to Category and select Next to proceed to the next page.

CATEGORY

On the Category page, you are first presented with many category options. Once a category is selected, the corresponding subject options will appear. From there you have the ability to select as many categories and subjects as you would like!

Book Depot Knowledge Center - Categories and Subjects List

Let’s walk through the example presented at the beginning of this tutorial to demonstrate how exactly this tool works. Start by clicking on Fiction under the list of categories. Once selected, a second list of options appear that display all the subjects under the category that was selected. Travel down the list and select the subjects of interest or click Select All if you would like to proceed with the entire list of subjects available.

For the purpose of this example, we only want a couple of the subjects under fiction, so we will select Science Fiction and Fantasy as our subjects. As you select your subjects you will see a number at the top increase, displaying how many subjects are selected. From here we can continue the same process with additional categories. Again, to follow through on this specific example, we will select Tween Fiction as the category and then Sci-Fi as the subject. Finally, we will select Young Adult Fiction as the category and then Sci-Fi as the subject. Now that this list covers three different categories and a few subjects, let’s move onto the next page.

REPORT FIELDS

On the Report Fields page, you have the ability to select the information you would like included in your downloadable Excel spreadsheet list. We have preselected several for you but you can alter these options to whichever you prefer. You even have the option to include the cover image, but please note that if your list exceeds 1,000 titles, the images will not appear due to file size constraints. When you are satisfied with your selections you can continue to the final step by clicking Next.

FINALIZE

On this last page, you will finalize your list and then move it to a shoppable format or create a template from the list and schedule it to be delivered to you by email. The Review section gives you the ability to make any last-minute changes to any of the attributes that make up your list. Since we only selected Category for this list, all the other attributes listed should have All included or No filters applied listed. The only attribute that will be impacted from this tutorial is Category & Subjects, and that will specify how many categories and subjects you selected.

The Name section is your next step, where you simply need to name your list. Once you have done that, you have the option to create a template by checking the box beside Create as template. If you choose to create the template, a scheduling program will appear that gives you several options including frequency of recurrence (weekly, monthly, yearly), start and end dates, day of the week, etc. You need to include the email address(es) that you want to send to list to, and you can also create a subject and message for that email to remind you of what you are receiving. Whether you choose to create a template or not, you must finalize the list by clicking on the green Create button at the bottom of the page.

TEMPLATES

If you decided to just create a list and not make it into a template, you will see a pop-up to either view the list on our site using a special viewing page which allows you to add items to your cart, or to download the list to an Excel spreadsheet.

If you chose to create a template, you will see that list under My Templates. To view it immediately, you need to select Create Now and that list will be moved over to My Lists. By doing so, you now have the ability to open it on the custom view page on the site, or you can also download it to an Excel spreadsheet under Actions.