Tags let you organize Connections, Positions, Surfaces, Workflows, Cuelists, and routing resources by whatever structure actually matches your facility (studio name, room, floor, equipment type, or anything else) without forcing everything into one fixed hierarchy. A resource can carry tags from several different Collections at once, so the same camera can be found by room, by format, and by role at the same time.
The three tag elements#
Selecting + Create on the Tags page offers exactly three kinds of element:
- Folder: organizes Collections into logical groups. A Folder holds Collections; it doesn't hold tags directly.
- Collection: contains multiple Tags, and is what you use to group tags together and build filters from.
- Tag: the label you actually assign to a resource. Every Tag belongs to a Collection.
This structure means you always create a Collection before you create the Tags that live inside it, and you can group related Collections under a Folder once you have several.
- Open Tags.
- Select + Create, then Collection.
- Enter a Label.
- Optionally set Restrict Resource Type to limit this Collection's tags to specific resource types: Connection, Position, Surface, Shared Section, Workflow, Cuelist, Salvo, Router Source Bundle, Router Destination Bundle, or (when virtual routing is enabled) Virtual Bundle. Leave it unset to allow the Collection's tags on any resource.
- Select Create.
- Select + Create again, then Tag.
- Enter a Label, choose the Parent Collection, and select Create.
Repeat for every Tag you need in that Collection. A resource can hold any number of Tags from any number of Collections at once: nothing about this structure implies a single correct hierarchy.
Most resources that accept tags show a tag box with placeholder text Click to assign.... Selecting it opens a searchable tree of your Folders, Collections, and Tags: check the ones you want, then select Select. Only Tags whose Collection isn't restricted away from that resource's type appear as options.
When you select several resources of the same type at once, the same control shows partial-assignment state, so you can add or remove a tag across all of them in one action without disturbing tags only some of them already had.
You can also work from the Tag's own side: opening a Tag shows an Assigned Resources panel, organized by resource type (Source Bundles, Destination Bundles, Virtual Bundles, Connections, NMOS Nodes, Positions, Shared Sections, Surfaces, Workflows), where you can search for and check resources to attach that one Tag to many of them at once. If the Tag's Collection has Restrict Resource Type set, only the allowed resource type's section appears here: the same restriction that limits where the Tag can be assigned from also limits what shows up on this side.
Filter by tag#
Tag-aware lists across Buttons (for example, the source and destination lists in Routing → Execute) offer a Tags filter alongside their other filters (such as Connections or NMOS). Selecting it opens the same searchable tag tree; picking a Tag, Collection, or Folder narrows the list to matching resources.
Buttons assigns some tags for you, based on what a resource actually is:
- Connections and routing ports can pick up tags automatically from three built-in tag families: Format (such as SDI, NMOS, SRT, NDI, MADI, Dante, Analog), Equipment (such as Camera, Vision Mixer, CCU, Player, Recorder, Monitor, Router, Converter), and Role (such as Multiviewer, Input, Aux, M/E, Generator, Intercom, Transport): whenever the connection or connection module reports matching properties. These automatic assignments update on their own as connections and modules change; you don't need to maintain them by hand.
- A Collection's Category can mark its tags as a Default Source Filter, Default Destination Filter, or Default Generic Filter. Tags from a Collection with one of these categories are used to automatically pre-populate the default source/destination tag filters on a newly created router section.
- Any Tag you create can opt into this same mechanism: its Auto Tag Bundles field lets you pick one or more of the built-in Format/Equipment/Role values, and your Tag then gets assigned automatically to every routing source or destination that already carries that value, and unassigned again if the port stops reporting it: the same way the built-in tags themselves behave. This lets you fold your own naming onto the automatic behavior instead of tagging every matching port by hand.
You can still tag a resource manually alongside whatever Buttons assigned automatically: the two aren't exclusive.
Delete a Folder, Collection, or Tag#
Deleting any of the three is immediate: there's no warning that a Collection's own Tags (and their assignments) are being removed along with it, and no check for whether a Tag is still assigned to resources.
If you get stuck#
What you see | What to try |
|---|
A Tag doesn't appear as an option when assigning it to a resource. | Check whether the Tag's Collection has Restrict Resource Type set to something that excludes this resource. |
A tag you expected to appear automatically never shows up. | Automatic tags depend on the connection or module reporting matching properties: confirm the connection is actually the type you expect, and that it's connected. |
You can't decide whether something needs a Folder, a Collection, or a Tag. | You almost always want a Collection with Tags inside it; reach for a Folder only once you have several related Collections to group together. |
Where to go next#
