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title: Best Practices for Designing a Custom Taxonomy
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locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/data/264-0-0/c360_a_best_practices_custom_taxonomy.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=data.c360_a_best_practices_custom_taxonomy.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
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description: A well-structured taxonomy is essential for effective tagging and policy enforcement in Data 360.
products:
  - Data 360
release: "264"
---
# Best Practices for Designing a Custom Taxonomy

A well-structured taxonomy is essential for effective tagging and policy enforcement in Data 360.

- Define a clear purpose and scope: Start by identifying the specific objective your taxonomy supports, such as tagging customer data, sales information, or operational metrics. A focused scope keeps the structure manageable and relevant.
- Involve key stakeholders: Collaborate with business teams who plan to use or manage the taxonomy. Their input ensures the taxonomy is practical, aligns with business processes, and uses familiar terminology.
- Prioritize clarity over complexity: Favor simple, clear business terms over technical or ambiguous language. Taxonomies must be intuitive and easy for non-technical users to apply correctly.
- Structure using parent and child tags: Organize your taxonomy in a hierarchy that supports both broad classification and detailed categorization:
    - Parent tags: Establish broad, logical groupings relevant to your objective. For example, Customer Data, Product Information, and Operational Metrics.
    - Child tags: Create specific descriptors nested within each parent tag. For example, under Customer Data: Contact Info, Order History, and Support Tickets.
- Maintain consistency:
    - Use standardized naming conventions. For example, always use Customer ID instead of variations like Cust\_ID or CustomerID).
    - Keep tag names clear and unambiguous. Consistent naming improves usability and ensures better results when using LLM-powered features such as Suggest Tags.
- Start small and iterate:
    - Begin with a small set of parent tags and a few child tags.
    - Test the taxonomy by tagging a sample set of Data 360 objects.
    - Collect feedback from users and refine the structure before expanding it further.