---
title: "Adding or deactivating taxonomies"
slug: "addingdeactivating-taxonomies"
tags: ["admin"]
updated: 2026-05-28T11:15:12Z
published: 2026-05-28T11:15:12Z
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.cirrusassessment.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Adding/Deactivating Taxonomies

You easily create Taxonomy terms (Taxonomies) manually in Cirrus:

- Go to Admin > Taxonomies
- Here you will see an overview of repositories with Taxonomies referred to as Taxonomy categories are setup for your environment:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/cdfc20c8-6721-4154-b0a1-9f49f139d107/Images/Documentation/Taxonomy-overview.png)![](/hc/en-us/article_attachments/205121489/2016-07-14_1345-taxonomies-overview-page.png)

- Select the Taxonomy Category you want to manually add Taxonomie terms to (or create a new one).
- The '**Add taxonomy**'-screen will open where you can add / change / deactivate taxonomy terms:

![](https://cdn.document360.io/cdfc20c8-6721-4154-b0a1-9f49f139d107/Images/Documentation/Taxonomy-detail.png)![](/hc/en-us/article_attachments/205157425/2016-07-14_1347-taxonomy-detail-page.png)

- The category (repository) has a title and a short description [A]
- You can add and delete rows (taxonomy terms) using the buttons [B]
- **Please note: enter taxonomy terms in the order you want to display them for your item authors. You cannot change the order of the terms at this point.**
- You can (temporarily) deactivate individual terms [C]

### **Deactivating taxonomy terms**

When you deactivate taxonomy terms the following applies:

1. [Library] You can no longer select it when creating / editing an item
2. [Library] On existing items nothing changes, i.e. it does not automatically get deselected
3. [Assessments: Blueprints]
  1. The taxonomy category will still be visible in the dropdown box used to select your taxonomy category
  2. De-activated taxonomy terms are still available in the blueprint matrix for question selection as deactivation does not mean that authors might not want to use them for assessment authoring.