Configuring the request form and its categories

The meeting request form is the common entry point for requesters. Each request category presents its own field set and can follow a different approval and event-creation path.

Configure categories on the Request form tab of Event requests. Configure the rules that read their submitted values under Policies; see Configuring approval routing, the compliance gate, and auto-approval.

Open the request form configuration

1. In Onomi 360, open Event requests, then open the Request form tab.
2. Copy the portal address at the top of the tab for your internal request channels. Below it, you see the active request categories.

A new organization starts with internal, scientific, executive, and congress categories.

Configure a category's fields

1. Select a category to open its field set.
2. Review the fields, their order, and whether each one is required. Edit the Label to change the wording requesters see, and drag fields into the order in which they should appear.
3. For Business unit, Therapeutic area, and Brand, optionally set a category preset. A preset supplies a value without asking the requester to select it.

Core fields and their downstream use

• Requester is prefilled from the requester's signed-in account.
• Event title names the requested meeting.
• Format records whether the meeting is in person, virtual, or hybrid.
• Proposed dates supplies the event record's initial Start date and End date at approval. Several dates are alternatives unless the requester starts with Duplicate last event, which creates a request series. See Submitting, tracking, and withdrawing a request.
• Country and city supplies the request geography.
• Business unit, Therapeutic area, and Brand use the lists maintained under Policies > Dimensions. Approval routes, compliance routes, role scopes, filters, and reports can use those values.
• Venue records a restaurant or another venue selected directly on the request. What requesters can enter and whether an off-list venue is flagged or refused depends on the market's venue rules. See Setting venue rules in Onomi 360.
• Estimated hospitality per person is compared with the market meal cap when the request and market currencies match. It can affect routing, compliance auto-clearance, and the Over meal cap indicator.
• Expected attendees records an attendance band.
• HCP attendees records whether healthcare professionals or public officials are expected. The default compliance-gate trigger uses it, so keep it required wherever that trigger must apply.
• Speakers or honoraria records whether external speakers or honoraria are involved. Compliance auto-clearance can use it.
• Budget band sets the approved band and budget currency used by the resulting event. The available values come from the per-currency band sets configured in the Budget suite.
• Objectives records the purpose of the meeting.

Keep any field used by routing or compliance required unless your policy defines how an unanswered value should behave. To a rule, an unanswered optional field behaves like a field the category does not ask.

Add a field

1. Open the category and select Add a field.
2. Choose the field from the shared library, set its label and required state, then drag it into position.

The field appears the next time a requester opens the form. Adding a field does not alter requests already submitted.

For categories involving external speakers, add Faculty. It lists recorded speakers with their eligibility and engagement count; a speaker marked Not eligible cannot be selected. The field displays eligibility from the speaker qualification process and does not set it. See How to run a speaker program.

Remove a field safely

1. Before removing a field, check whether it is used by an approval condition, the compliance gate, auto-approval, auto-clearance, event creation, role scope, or reporting.
2. Select the field, then select Remove.

New requests in that category no longer ask the field. Submitted requests retain their recorded value.

Fields that require particular care

Removing HCP attendees means the default compliance trigger cannot match that category. Add another trigger if those requests must still enter compliance review.

Removing Budget band, or leaving it optional and unanswered, creates an event with no approved band and no budget currency. Until a band is set on the budget header, cost lines and sourcing awards cannot record monetary amounts, budget thresholds cannot be evaluated, and the request cannot qualify for budget-based auto-approval or meal-cap comparison. See Budget capture at request and working the budget during planning.

Removing Proposed dates, or leaving it unanswered, creates an event with no Start date or End date. It does not appear as Planned or Completed on the portfolio calendar, supplies no default travel or room-block dates, and starts no reconciliation reminder until the dates are set. See From approval to execution and auditing requests.

Removing Venue means no venue rule can act during the request. The market rules still act when a venue is added to the event record.

Add a category

1. Select Add category and enter its name.
2. Configure its fields and dimension presets.
3. Open Policies > Event creation and check what approval creates for the category. A new category starts with Create at Start execution and the default workspace template.

The category becomes available in the portal, filters, approval-rule conditions, the portfolio calendar, and reports. An organization can have up to 12 active request categories.

A speaker program is a request category, not a separate record type. If your organization runs both speaker programs and symposia, use distinct categories so they can follow different routes and remain distinguishable in reporting.

Retire a category

1. Select a category that should no longer receive requests, then select Retire.

The category leaves the portal picker and stops counting toward the active-category limit. Submitted requests keep the category, approval trail, and event-creation behavior that applied when the category was retired.

A draft or declined request using the retired category asks its requester to choose an active category before submission. Existing reports can still filter historical records by the retired value.

If events arrive from a CRM, update the connector mapping in the same change. An inbound record carrying a value that no longer resolves is placed in Held arrivals for correction; see From approval to execution and auditing requests.

Rename a category

1. Select the category and change its name.
2. Update any CRM mapping or other integration that sends the category name before saving the change.

The new name appears in the portal, filters, and rule conditions. Existing records retain their category relationship.

Keep an active category out of the portal

1. Open the category and set Available in the portal to No.
2. Select Save.

The category remains active, keeps its event-creation mapping, and counts toward the 12-category limit, but requesters cannot select it in the portal. Use this setting for categories populated only through an integration. Retire a category that should no longer be used at all.

Check dimensions, currencies, and venue rules

Keep the dimensions used for routing, role scope, and reporting required on the relevant categories. A value the request does not contain cannot be used to route or group that request.

Venue lists, centralized selection, listed-venue requirements, and meal caps are configured per market. A meal-cap comparison runs only when the request currency from Budget band matches the market currency; Onomi does not convert the amount for that check.

Review those policies in Setting venue rules in Onomi 360 and Setting up budgets: categories, bands, and policies.

For the full request lifecycle, see How to set up and use meeting requests and approvals.

* Onomi 360 MeetingsEQ exclusive capabilities.