Edit events and properties

Once you've created an event or a property, you can always alter it as needed. This article describes how to edit an event's category, display name, or activity status; the description or visibility status of an event or property; or a property's data type.

Change an event’s category

You can update an event type's category directly from the Events tab. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the checkbox next to the event name.

2. From the Categorize drop-down, select the category to which this event should belong.

NOTE: This only applies to active events that are included in your tracking plan. These can be identified by the green checkmark next to their names.

You can also change the event’s category from inside its right-hand fly-out panel. Click the event name to open the panel, then navigate to Event settings > Category and select the new category from the drop-down menu.

Change an event’s display name

You can update an event type's display name directly from the Events tab. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the event name to open the fly-out panel on the right side.

2. Click on Display Name not set and type the new display name over it.

This does not change the raw data; it only changes the event's display name within the Amplitude UI.

Change the description of an event or property

You can change the description for an event to help other members of your organization understand what an event represents. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click the event name to open the fly-out panel on the right side.

2. Click the field directly below the event name.

3. Type in a description of the event. 

You can change the description for an event property in two different ways. Since the same event property can apply to multiple event types, you can either add a description for the original event property, or for an event property that has been overridden for a specific event or property group. (If the latter doesn’t exist, the description will default to the global event property.)

NOTE: Event properties that are not overridden share the same original event property details.

To change the description for an overridden event property specific to an event, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Events table and click the event name. 

2. In the event details panel that opens, navigate to Details > Properties, and click the property you want to update.

3. Make sure the event property is overridden. If it is, Manage Override will be visible in the blue box within the details panel, and you can skip to step 4. Otherwise, click Override to apply the change only to a specific event or property group.

4. Click the field directly below the property name and type in a description of the property.

To change the original description for an event property, follow these steps: 

1. Navigate to Event Properties and click the property you want to update.

2. In the event property details panel that opens, click the field and type in a description of the property.

Change activity status for an event

You can specify whether an event should be considered an active or inactive event. A good way to think about the difference is that an active event is one the user actively engaged with, like clicking the Add to Cart button. An inactive event is one that happened to the user, without any specific action on their part. Some good examples of this would be events like Push Notification Sent or Message Received.

Setting an event as inactive will remove that event from any dashboard metrics counting active users and active events. Users who only trigger inactive events will not be counted as active users for that day, though they will count towards Amplitude’s new user definitions.

NOTE: When you change an event's activity status from active to inactive, Amplitude will apply that change immediately and retroactively, so you should expect to see changes in your historical data. Inactive events will still count against your event volume.

To change the activity status of an event, follow these steps:

1. Click the checkbox next to the event name. You can select more than one event if you want to change the status of multiple events at once.

2. Click the Edit Activity drop-down menu.

3. Select the new event status.

Change visibility status for an event or property

Setting an event’s or property's visibility status to hidden is helpful for properties you may want to track but do not want to appear on the dashboard in any charts—for example, inactive events like push notifications. Marking an event or property as hidden does not delete the raw data associated with it.

To change the visibility status for an event or property, follow these steps:

1. Click the checkbox next to the name. You can select more than one event if you want to change the status of multiple events or properties at once.

2. Click the Edit Visibility drop-down.

3. Set the new visibility status.

You can also change the visibility status of a single event or property from inside its details panel, which you can open by clicking on the name of the event or property. Then select the new status from the Visibility drop-down, under Event Settings.

In addition, an event property may have its visibility set to "required." 

1. Navigate to Event Properties and click the property you want to update.

2. In the event property details panel that opens, check the box next to Required under Planning.

You will see a message indicating the count of events that will be affected. The updated "required" status will then be visible under Event Properties.

Set or change a property's data type

Because it uses type checking for event and user property values, Amplitude can detect when event data it receives doesn’t match the specified type. You can set and edit the data type of an event or user property — for example, from a string to a Boolean. This can be useful as your data and analysis needs shift and expand over time.

To edit the data type of a user property, follow these steps:

1. Click the property’s name to open the details panel.

2. On the Rules tab, select the property’s new data type from the Type drop-down. Your options are:

• • String: A string value

  • Number: Numerical values (e.g. 12345)

  • Boolean: Values representing Boolean states ("true"/ "false", "yes" / "no", "0" / "1")

  • Array

  • Enum: One of a set of possible values. (e.g. property fruit is one of [apple, banana, strawberry])

  • Const: Set as a constant

  • Any: Any value