Skip to main content
What you’ll learn: how a taxonomy turns fields into a form, how an Option filter narrows a shared dropdown per taxonomy, how the Quick, Form, and Grid modes work, and how approving a submission produces records.What you’ll build: three taxonomies (Email, Social, Ads), each with its own UTM Medium filter, plus one approved submission whose rows land as campaign records with live short URLs.Prerequisites: Part 7: Computed fields.

Why this matters

Up to this point the governance model has been a static set of definitions. A taxonomy is what turns those definitions into a live form a user can fill in. Three taxonomies, one each for email, social, and paid campaigns, let your team share almost all of the same rules (same fields, same computed chain, same picklists) while each channel surfaces only the UTM medium that applies to it. Once you approve a submission, every row becomes a record, every record has a live short URL, and the setup mapped out in the tutorial overview is doing real work.

Concepts first

Taxonomy

A taxonomy pulls a subset of the governance model’s fields into an ordered list and calls that combination a form. A field placed on a taxonomy can carry per-taxonomy overrides. The one you’ll use here is the Option filter, which narrows a Dropdown field’s visible codes to just the subset that taxonomy cares about. A single field like UTM Medium can appear on three taxonomies with three different filters while the underlying picklist stays whole. See the taxonomies reference.

Submission statuses

A submission starts as Draft while it is being edited. Finalizing it makes it Approved, and only an approved submission produces records, the permanent governed output. Whether a review step sits in between depends on the workspace: each taxonomy assigned to a workspace has a Require review switch, off by default. With review off (the tutorial’s setup), anyone who can edit the submission finalizes it directly. With review on, the submission goes to Awaiting review and a workspace manager approves or rejects it. Review requires the Business plan or higher; see Plans and limits. The full state diagram is in the submissions reference.

Quick, Form, and Grid modes

The builder has three fill modes, switched in the header.
  • Quick: a compact, single-record form. Build URL opens the builder in this mode, unless you last picked another mode in this browser.
  • Form: a single-record vertical form.
  • Grid: a spreadsheet for many rows at once, with copy and paste, a fill handle, and row insert, duplicate, delete, and reorder.
Quick and Form are single-record modes. The moment a submission has more than one row, the builder switches to Grid. The fill modes article covers the switching rules.

Step-by-step

1

Create the Email Campaigns taxonomy

With the Marketing governance model open, click Taxonomies in the sidebar, then Create new. In the New Taxonomy dialog, enter the name Email Campaigns and click Create. The taxonomy editor opens.
2

Add the fields and filter the medium

Use Add field to add every field except QR Code: Campaign Name, Goal, Country, Region, Launch Date, Destination URL, UTM Medium, UTM Source, UTM Campaign, Tagged URL, Short URL. Then select UTM Medium in the field list, open its Taxonomy settings tab, and under Option filter click Filter options. Choose Only specific options I choose. Every option starts ticked, so untick social and cpc, leaving only email, and click Save Filter. Then click Back to close the field. Submissions in this taxonomy now only ever see email in the medium dropdown. Changes in the taxonomy editor save as you go; there is no separate save button.
3

Create the Social Campaigns taxonomy

Create another taxonomy the same way, named Social Campaigns. Add every field including QR Code, because social posts are the one place the QR code actually gets printed. Filter UTM Medium to only social.
4

Create the Ad Campaigns taxonomy

Create a third taxonomy named Ad Campaigns. Add every field except QR Code. Filter UTM Medium to only cpc.
5

Publish the governance model

A submission’s form comes from the governance model’s published revision, so publish before you build anything. Every page of the governance model has a Draft/Publish bar at the top right: a status pill and a Publish button. Because this governance model has never been published, the pill reads just Draft. Click Publish, add an optional note in the Publish governance model dialog, and click Publish again. The pill changes to Up to date. If you change fields or picklists later, publish again to roll the change out to new submissions. See the publish a revision guide.If this is the first governance model your account publishes, the model’s pages also show a Back to review banner. It offers a one-screen review that publishes and connects every taxonomy to one workspace in a single step. This tutorial publishes from the designer instead, so you can ignore the banner.
6

Assign the taxonomies to the workspace

In the sidebar, open the 2026 Campaigns workspace (from Part 2) and click Settings. Under Assigned taxonomies, use Add Taxonomy to add Email Campaigns, Social Campaigns, and Ad Campaigns. Leave Require review off. Click Save changes. The workspace can now take submissions for all three. For more on workspace setup, see workspaces.
7

Build your first URL

In the workspace, click Submissions, then Build URL, and pick Build URL · Email Campaigns. The builder opens in Quick mode with a single blank row (if you have used the builder before and picked another mode, click Quick). You can rename the submission inline at the top.
8

Fill in the first row

Enter Campaign Name = Black Friday 2026, Goal = Awareness, Country = United States, Region = California, Launch Date = any date from today on, picked with the calendar button beside the box (the examples use 2026-11-15, and the field’s minimum date is today), Destination URL = https://shop.acme.example/deals, UTM Medium = Email (notice it is the only medium offered, which is the option filter at work), UTM Source = Newsletter. The computed fields fill in as you type.
📸 Screenshot coming soon: part 08 quick mode
9

Watch the computed values

UTM Campaign shows awareness-us-california-2026_11_15-black_friday_2026 (with your launch date), Tagged URL shows the full URL with query parameters, and Short URL shows an 8-character slug. None of these are live yet; they are previews of what will be stored on approval.
10

Save as draft and add rows

Click Save as draft. (Drafts save even if a row still has validation errors.) To add rows, switch the builder to Grid. Right-click the row and choose Duplicate row (or click Add row for a blank one), and give each new row its own campaign name, for example Cyber Monday 2026 and Holiday Sale 2026. Campaign Name requires unique values across the whole account, so a row that repeats Black Friday 2026 fails validation. In Grid the same computed columns update live, and once a submission has more than one row it stays in Grid.
📸 Screenshot coming soon: part 08 grid mode
11

(Optional) Paste rows from a spreadsheet

Copy rows from a spreadsheet whose columns are in the taxonomy’s field order and paste with Ctrl/Cmd+V into the grid. Pasted cells map left to right by position; there is no header matching, so if your columns are in a different order, rearrange them first or values land in the wrong fields. To match columns by name instead, click Export CSV in the grid toolbar, fill in the downloaded file (its headers are the field handles, such as campaign_name, generated from the name Campaign Name), and load it with Import CSV. Importing replaces the rows in the grid.
12

Finalize the submission

Click Create URLs (Create URL when there is one row). Because review is off, the submission goes straight to Approved and each row becomes a record. Approval requires every row to be valid; an invalid row blocks it and the per-cell errors are shown. (With Require review on, the button reads Submit for review instead, the status shows Awaiting review, and a workspace manager clicks Approve.)
13

(Optional) Build a Social URL

Back on Submissions, open the Build URL picker (the arrow beside the button) and choose Build URL · Social Campaigns. The builder opens in the mode you last chose, so if you switched to Grid above, click Quick for a single link. Use a new campaign name such as Black Friday 2026 Social, because black_friday_2026 is already taken. Pick Social as the medium (the only one offered) and a source such as Facebook, fill in the rest, and click Create URL. This record also gets a QR code.
14

Inspect the records

In the workspace, click Records. The new records appear with their final values, including the short URL and, for the Social record, the QR code. See work with records for what you can do from here.
📸 Screenshot coming soon: part 08 record detail

Check your work

  • Three taxonomies exist on the Marketing governance model, each with the right field set and the right UTM Medium filter.
  • The governance model’s Draft/Publish pill reads Up to date, and the 2026 Campaigns workspace has all three taxonomies assigned.
  • One Email submission went from Draft to Approved, producing one record per row, each with its own campaign name.
  • Each record carries a populated UTM Campaign, Tagged URL, and Short URL. If you built the optional Social URL, that record also has a QR Code.
  • Visiting a record’s short URL redirects to its tagged destination URL.

What you just built

The end-to-end flow from the tutorial overview is now running. A user with no governance knowledge can open the 2026 Campaigns workspace, pick a taxonomy, type a handful of values, and walk away with UTM-tagged, shortened, QR-coded links. The governance model enforces every rule you wired in Parts 2 to 7 without anyone having to remember them.

Gotchas

  • The option filter only narrows the entry form. The underlying picklist still holds all three mediums; you are hiding the others for this taxonomy. Anyone reading the records or the picklist directly still sees the full list.
  • A short URL slug is frozen once the submission is approved. The slug becomes part of the record; you cannot edit it afterward. If you need a different slug, build a new URL. You can still update a live link’s destination URL, just not its slug or domain. See the short URL reference.
  • Grid paste matches the taxonomy’s field order, not your column headers. There is no header matching. If you added Destination URL to the taxonomy before Launch Date but your sheet has them the other way around, the paste lands the URL in the date cell and validation fails. Arrange the sheet to match.
  • An option filter on UTM Medium does not cascade to UTM Source. Filtering the medium to email does not also filter the sources; UTM Source keeps showing every child of whichever medium was picked. If an admin ever files an off-topic source under email, it will still appear. Use reviewer discretion.
  • Campaign names are unique across the account. A cancelled or rejected draft still holds its campaign name, so reusing the name in a new submission fails validation until you change it.
  • Short links need an active account. Short URLs and QR codes stop redirecting while an account is locked, for example after a trial ends without a subscription. See locked accounts.
  • Approved submissions are locked. Once approved, a submission cannot be edited or re-approved, and editing the rows of a not-yet-approved submission resets it to Draft. See review and approve submissions.

You did it

The seven parts cover one complete, real-world workflow. Everything else in Terminus Hub (automated picklists, the other computed field types, sharing and embedding, analytics) is a variation on what you’ve already built. To compare your model with the finished one, open the Campaign URL Builder template. A few places to go next:

Automated picklists

Source dropdown options from another taxonomy’s records.

Short URL slug modes

The alternatives to auto-generated, editable slugs and when to use them.

Computed fields

Every computed type, including Auto Number, Random, Constant, Terminus ID, and Auto-fill.

Share and embed

Put a governance form in front of people outside your account.

Analytics

See clicks and scans roll up by any field you defined.

Field reference

Every field type, picklist type, and taxonomy setting in isolation.