Locations Filter

About Locations

Locations is one of the three primary filters in the Jostle® platform. System Admins can use them to represent the physical locations of their organization. Each user can be assigned to multiple official Locations, and this can be done via:

• A user's Profile card in People (Profile card > Edit > Locations)
• The Create a New User/Edit User pages in Admin Settings > User Accounts and Data
• The Extract/Manage All User Data page in Admin Settings > User Data To/From Other Systems

Two additional methods, bulk uploading and user-controlled updating, are explained below.

TIPS

You can also automate the process of maintaining your Locations by using SFTP to connect with other systems. See this article for more details.

Locations (the filter) can be renamed by System Admins at Admin Settings > Filters and Badges > Configure Locations (NOTE—modified names cannot be translated into other languages). 

Locations are optional. If you have none defined, this filter will not appear in the platform. 

Table of contents:

1. Optimizing the Location filter hierarchy
2. Managing Locations
3. Assigning Locations via bulk uploading
4. Allowing users to update their own Location
5. Other Locations

1. Optimizing the Location filter hierarchy

Name

Each Location is required to be designated by a Name (formerly an "Alias"). This should be the common name that people use for that location. Something like “London campus”, “Georgia Street Office” or “Building 3”.

City, State/Province, Country

Locations can also have a city, state/province, and country associated with them.  These are optional, but if you do include them, they will auto-create a hierarchy in your Location Filter. This makes it easy, for example, to publish something to all locations in a certain country or city.

It is recommended that you take some time to get familiar with this setup so you can get your Location filter optimized for easy use. You can see the hierarchy created by the filter by looking at it in the People view filter panel:

Note that you can partially collapse the structure and produce a flatter hierarchy by placing city and state/province in the same field (e.g. entering "Vancouver, BC" in the City field). This helps provide a cleaner look if, for example, you have multiple Locations within a particular city or state/province:

And the fewer fields you use to define your Location, the flatter your list will be.

2. Managing Locations

Locations are managed by System Administrators at Administration settings > Filters and badges > Configure Locations. 

To add a new Location

1. On the Configure Locations screen, click the "+"
2. On the New Location modal, enter a Name for your Location (e.g., the common name used to refer to the location).
3. Fill in any of the Optional Information fields that you'd like to include to identify your new Location (External ID, Street address, etc.).The more information you add will determine how this Location appears in the filter hierarchy (explained above).
4. Click Save in the top corner.
5. Your new Location should now be showing on your Locations list.

To edit a Location

1. Open the action menu for the Location you wish to edit.
2. Select Edit from the menu.
3. Make your changes then click Save.

Export/Import of Locations

Click the three dots next to the "+" on your Locations list to open the action menu. From here you can choose to export or import your Locations data or edit your Locations filter name.

Export all Locations to CSV

Select this to download your current Locations data. 

This would be helpful if, for example, you wanted to make bulk edits to all your Locations via CSV (for example, to create a consistent hierarchy of Country, State, and City), and then import the CSV back to apply your updates. 

Import all Locations from CSV

Select this to import your updated CSV. On the Import Locations screen, check off your desired options, click Choose file to locate your CSV, and then Upload.

Edit Locations filter name

Select this if you want to change the name of the Locations filter and repurpose it for something other than locations.

TIP

If you haven't added any Locations data to your platform at all, you can use the blank CSV template found at the bottom of this page to enter your data upload it in bulk. However, this is not advisable for uploading new Locations if you already have existing Locations data entered in your platform, as you run the risk of accidentally removing those Locations if you don't check the proper settings before uploading or don't include them in your CSV (along with any new Locations you're adding). Better to use the Export Locations link and just add your new Locations to that CSV, and then re-import it.