Anonymity is at the heart of how Zoios works — people share honestly because they trust their answers can't be traced back to them. At the same time, the more detail you can see in your results, the more useful they are. These two goals naturally pull against each other, so there's always a balance to strike between showing data and protecting anonymity. Core categories are how we strike that balance: on the most sensitive views, results are shown through this trusted set of categories — Department, Subdepartment, Team and Reporting line.

The purpose is simple: to make sure no one can slice the data in a way that, in the worst case, lets them piece together for example who might have scored high on strain. We take that protection seriously, and tying the most sensitive views to the core categories is how we keep it intact.

You can filter by any category — core or custom — across most of the platform. On a few select pages, though, the experience is built around the core categories specifically, so that anonymity is preserved. That's why how you set up your organization matters: if people aren't placed correctly under e.g. Department - some of these views won't be as complete.

You manage all of this in the admin panel under Groups. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see How to set up your organization in Groups.

The core categories are:

• Department

• Subdepartment

• Team

• Reporting line — your Direct & Indirect reports, generated automatically from the 'Manager' field. Learn more in Automatic reporting lines.