PLS-4: Tags & Rulesets: Categorization & Matching Logic
Last updated: October 7, 2026
Overview
Tags and rulesets are the foundation of automation in Housing.Cloud. Tags categorize students, rooms, and applications. Rulesets use those tags to automatically match compatible roommates and enforce housing policies. In this session, you'll create the tags and rulesets that will power YOUR housing cycle.
Who this is for: Super admins, application managers, housing directors
Duration: 60 minutes (live session) + 2-3 hours practice
Prerequisites: Complete 📄 PLS-3: Introduction to Housing Cycles
Why This Matters
In PLS-3, you explored a sample housing cycle and saw references to "tags" and "rulesets." Now you'll learn how to create these yourself.
Tags do three things:
Organize students by characteristics (Athletes, First-Years, Honors Students)
Control who can see specific cycles, meal plans, and room selection phases
Power automated roommate matching
Rulesets use tags to enforce your housing policies:
Match first-years only with other first-years
Assign students with accessibility needs to ADA rooms
Prefer matching students with similar sleep schedules
Building Toward Your Cycle: PLS-3 showed you a complete cycle. PLS-4 teaches you to create tags and rulesets. PLS-5 teaches you forms. In PLS-6, you'll combine everything into YOUR production cycle.
What You'll Build
By the end of PLS-4, you'll have:
3-5 tag categories (Sleep Schedule, Study Habits, Class Year, Gender Identity)
15-20 individual tags organized into those categories
1-2 complete rulesets ready to assign to your cycle
Session Modules
Module 1: Understanding Tags and Tag Categories (15 min)
Learn what tags are, where they live (profile, application, inventory), and how to create tag categories.
Read: 📄 PLS-4A: Understanding Tags and Tag Categories
Module 2: Applying Tags (20 min)
Learn five ways to apply tags: manual, bulk, form responses, profile fields, and inventory tagging.
Read: 📄 PLS-4B: Applying Tags: Manual, Bulk, Forms, and Profile Fields
Module 3: Tag Applicability Logic (10 min)
Learn how AND, OR, and Exclude logic controls who can access cycles, meal plans, and phases.
Read: 📄 PLS-4C: Tag Applicability Logic (AND, OR, Exclude)
Module 4: Building Rulesets (15 min)
Create hard rules (must match) and soft rules (should match) for roommate matching and room assignments.
Read: 📄 PLS-4D: Building Rulesets for Roommate Matching
Common Mistakes
Profile Tags vs Application Tags: Form responses create application tags (contextual to that cycle). Cycle and phase access control reads profile tags (permanent characteristics). For access control, use profile field mapping or manual tagging, not form questions.
Too Many Hard Rules: Hard rules are strict requirements. Too many hard rules can prevent auto-assignment from finding any matches. Use hard rules sparingly (1-3 max), soft rules for preferences (5-10).
Make Matching Tags Public: If you want students to see tags in the Roommate Finder (Sleep Schedule, Study Habits), mark those tags as Public. Private tags are admin-only.
What's Next
After completing PLS-4:
Practice: 📄 PLS-4 Self-Guided Practice: Tags & Rulesets Exercises
Plan: List the tag categories YOUR institution needs
Create: Build your real tags in production
Move to PLS-5: 📄 PLS-5: Building Forms for Applications & Roommate Matching