Vendor Tags

Vendor tags are free-form labels you assign to vendors to organize, filter, price, and report on your vendor relationships. Tags are one of the most versatile tools in Marketspread -- they power everything from simple vendor categorization to automated fee calculations and targeted communications.

Understanding Tag Scope and Lifecycle

Signup-Level Tags vs. Season-Level Tags

How Tag Syncing Works

When you set signup-level tags on a vendor in one market, those tags automatically sync to the same vendor's signup in every other market within your organization. This keeps vendor information consistent when you manage multiple markets.

Season-level tags do not sync -- they are specific to the individual season where they are assigned.

Auto-Tags from Applications

When a vendor submits an application that includes auto-tag questions, the answers become tags that are merged with any existing tags. They never replace existing tags. This means you can safely use auto-tag questions without worrying about losing manually assigned tags.

Managing Your Tag List

Navigate to Settings > Tags to manage your market's tag configuration.

Viewing Existing Tags

The Tags settings page shows all tags currently in use across your market's vendor signups and season signups. This gives you a complete picture of every tag that has been assigned.

Creating New Tags

1. On the Tags settings page, enter a new tag name in the "Add Tag" field.
2. You can add multiple tags at once by separating them with commas.
3. Click Add. The tag is added to both your global tag list and your allowed tags list.

Configuring Allowed Tags

The allowed tags list controls which tags can be assigned to vendors. When an allowed tags list is configured:

• Only tags from the approved list can be used when tagging vendors.
• This prevents typos and ensures consistent tag naming across your team.
• Tags not on the list are rejected when someone tries to assign them.

If you do not configure any allowed tags, all existing tags are available for use. The system only enforces the restriction when you have explicitly set up an allowed list.

Assigning Tags to Vendors

Individual Vendor Tagging

When reviewing a vendor's profile on their vendor review page, you can edit both their signup-level and season-level tags directly. Signup-level tags appear at the top of the vendor's information, while season-level tags appear within each season's section.

Bulk Tagging

To tag multiple vendors at once:

1. Go to your Vendors list.
2. Select the vendors you want to tag using the checkboxes.
3. Choose Tag Vendors from the bulk actions menu.
4. Select or enter the tags you want to apply.
5. Confirm the action.

The selected tags are appended to each vendor's existing tags -- they do not replace them.

Bulk Untagging

To remove tags from multiple vendors:

1. Go to your Vendors list.
2. Select the vendors you want to untag.
3. Choose Untag Vendors from the bulk actions menu.
4. Select the tags you want to remove.
5. Confirm the action.

When you bulk untag vendors, the specified tags are removed from both the signup-level AND all associated season-level signups for those vendors.

Promoting Tags

When reviewing a vendor's application, you may see "submitted tags" -- these are tags that were generated from auto-tag application questions. You can promote these submitted tags to the signup level by clicking the promote action. This copies the application's auto-generated tags up to the vendor's persistent signup-level tags.

Auto-Tags from Application Questions

You can configure application questions that automatically generate tags when vendors submit their applications. This eliminates manual tagging for common vendor categories.

Auto-Tag Question Types

There are three question types that create tags automatically:

1. Multiple Choice (Auto-Tag): Presents options as radio buttons. The vendor's single selection becomes a tag.
2. Multiple Choice Dropdown (Auto-Tag): Same as above, but displayed as a dropdown menu. Good for long lists of options.
3. Multiple Select (Auto-Tag): Presents options as checkboxes. Each selected option becomes a separate tag.

How Auto-Tagging Works

1. When a vendor submits their application, the system reads the answers to auto-tag questions.
2. Each answer is cleaned: spaces are converted to underscores, and special characters are removed.
3. The resulting tags are merged with any tags the vendor already has.
4. Tags are applied to both the season signup and (for virtual applications) the signup level.

Example

If your application has a Multiple Select (Auto-Tag) question asking "What types of products do you sell?" with options like "Fresh Produce", "Baked Goods", and "Prepared Foods", a vendor who selects "Fresh Produce" and "Prepared Foods" would automatically receive the tags Fresh_Produce and Prepared_Foods.

Tags in Season Pricing (Tag Fees)

One of the most powerful uses of tags is automated fee calculation. You can configure tag-based fees on each season so that vendors with specific tags are automatically charged additional fees.

Setting Up Tag Fees

Tag fees are configured per season in the season's pricing settings. Each tag fee includes:

• Tag name: The tag that triggers this fee.
• Price: The fee amount.
• Term: When the fee applies (per day, per week, per month, or per season).
• Action type: How the fee is calculated (additive by default).
• Applicable days/weeks/months: Restrict when the fee applies within the term.

Peak Pricing for Tag Fees

Tag fees support peak pricing -- you can set different fee amounts for specific date ranges within the season. For example, a "premium-vendor" tag fee of $10/day could increase to $15/day during holiday weekends.

How Tag Fees Are Calculated

When pricing is calculated for a vendor, the system checks both the vendor's signup-level tags and their season-level tags. If either set contains a tag that matches a configured tag fee, the fee is applied.

Example Tag Fee Scenarios

• "electricity" tag: $5/day fee for vendors who need power hookups
• "organic-certified" tag: $25/season certification verification fee
• "corner-booth" tag: $50/month premium location surcharge with $75/month peak pricing during summer months

Tags in Invoicing

Tags flow through to invoices in several ways:

• When tag fees are calculated, the resulting invoice line items carry the tag information for reference.
• Invoice line items have their own tags field that can be used for categorization and reporting.
• You can filter invoices by vendor tags in invoice reports to see charges associated with specific vendor groups.

Tags in Reporting

Tags are available across a wide range of reports, making them an excellent tool for analysis and record-keeping.

Dedicated Tag Report

The Vendor Tags Overview report provides a comprehensive view of all tags across your market. It shows:

• Vendor name and alias
• Signup-level tags
• Season-level tags (per season)
• Event dates and attendance status
• Tag fee pricing (base price, peak price, and active price)
• Application information (vendor type, category, status)

This report is available at both the market level and the organization level (which spans all markets).

Tags Column in Other Reports

A "Tags" column is available in more than 20 reports, including:

• Applications
• Vendors
• Assignments and Pending Assignments
• Attendance
• Vendor Sales
• Submitted Documents and Agreed Documents
• Survey Responses and Form Results
• Notes
• Products and Submitted Products
• Invoices, Invoice Items, and Invoice Payments
• Rentals
• Association Members
• Failed Credit Card Payments

You can filter, sort, and group by tags in any of these reports.

Tags in Status Replies (Automated Communications)

Status reply messages -- the automated notifications sent when a vendor's application status changes -- can be targeted based on vendor tags.

How Tag-Based Status Replies Work

When configuring a status reply (such as an approval message or a received confirmation), you can assign tags to the reply. When the system determines which message to send, it:

1. Collects the vendor's tags (from signup, season, and submitted application tags).
2. Compares them against the tags on each configured status reply.
3. Selects the reply with the most matching tags (the most specific match wins).
4. If multiple replies tie on tag matches, all of them are sent.
5. If a vendor has no tags, only replies with no tags are matched.

Example

You could create two different approval messages:

• One tagged "prepared-food" that includes food safety compliance information.
• One with no tags that serves as the general approval message.

When a vendor tagged "prepared-food" is approved, they receive the food safety message. All other vendors receive the general message.

Tags in the Booth Scheduler

Tags integrate with the booth scheduler's pricing engine:

• Tag fees are included in price calculations when vendors are booked into spaces.
• Tags are passed to custom pricing modules (V8 JavaScript) for markets that use custom pricing logic.
• When a season is cloned, both tag fee configurations and vendor season-level tags are preserved in the new season.

Best Practices

1. Use consistent naming conventions. Stick to lowercase with hyphens or underscores (e.g., "organic-certified", "needs_electricity"). Avoid spaces in tag names.
2. Include the year in time-sensitive tags. If you are tracking something like payment installments, use "2026-1st-installment-paid" instead of "1st-installment-paid" so the tags remain clear across years.
3. Configure an allowed tags list early. This prevents inconsistencies from typos or different naming conventions among your team members.
4. Use auto-tag application questions to reduce manual work. Let the application process handle vendor categorization automatically.
5. Use season-level tags for season-specific information. If a tag should NOT carry over to the next year, assign it at the season level instead of the signup level.
6. Review the Vendor Tags Overview report periodically. This helps you spot inconsistencies and ensure your tagging strategy is working as intended.
7. Remember the sync behavior. Signup-level tags sync across all markets in your organization for the same vendor. If you do not want this, use season-level tags instead.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do tags carry over year to year?
Signup-level tags persist across years and are never automatically reset. Season-level tags are specific to each season but are copied when you clone a season. If you need tags that do NOT carry over, use season-level tags.

Q: Can vendors see their tags?
No. Tags are only visible to market managers. Vendors cannot see what tags have been assigned to them.

Q: What happens when I clone a season?
Season-level tags assigned to vendors are copied to the new season. Tag fee configurations (including peak pricing) are also copied when using the "copy fees" option.

Q: Can I remove tags in bulk?
Yes. Select vendors from your vendor list, then use the "Untag Vendors" bulk action to remove specific tags from all selected vendors at once. This removes the tags from both signup-level and season-level signups.

Q: Are tags case-sensitive?
For display purposes, tags preserve the casing you enter. For matching purposes (status replies, fee calculations), the system normalizes tags by converting to lowercase and treating hyphens, underscores, and spaces as equivalent. So "Organic" and "organic" will match each other.

Q: What happens to existing tags when a vendor resubmits an application?
Auto-tags from the new application are merged with existing tags. They never replace or delete tags that were already assigned. You can safely have vendors resubmit without losing your manual tagging work.

Q: Can I use tags for different purposes at the same time?
Absolutely. Tags are general-purpose labels. You might use some tags for vendor categorization ("prepared-food", "farmer"), others for fee calculations ("electricity", "corner-booth"), and others for internal tracking ("2026-1st-installment-paid"). They all coexist in the same tag list.