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Setup Locations

In this tutorial we cover how to setup sites, locations, and coordinates so you can keep track of contents through the restoration process. From trucks, to vaults, to cleaning room, and more, you can setup locations to map your facilities and oper...

Written by Pal

What Are Locations?

Locations let you digitally map out the physical spaces where your contents move during a job. Think of them as checkpoints in your chain of custody. By setting up locations, you can track every step of an item’s journey — from the customer’s home, to your facility, to the cleaning room, and back again. This ensures you always have a clear record of where each item is at any point in time. It keeps your team organized and makes your chain of custody airtight.

Sites vs. Locations vs. Coordinates

  • Sites are the larger containers, representing physical facilities like warehouses or offices.

  • Locations live inside sites and represent specific rooms or zones (e.g., Cleaning Room, Storage Bay, Vaults, Trucks).

  • Coordinates are optional but helpful if you have 'locations' that can move around, like vaults.

Big Picture: How They Fit Together

Think of your storage setup like this:

  • Site → a physical facility

  • Location → a place within that facility

  • Coordinates → a visual way to map locations on a grid

Together, they let you model your real-world warehouse or yard directly inside ContentsPal.

Key Concepts Explained

Sites

A site represents a physical place, such as:

  • A warehouse

  • A storage facility

  • A contents yard

If you have multiple warehouses or facilities, each one should be created as its own site.

Locations

A location is where contents are actually stored or processed inside a site. Locations can include:

  • Vaults

  • Clean rooms

  • Trucks

  • Staging areas

  • Any other place where contents live

(Important: Locations do not have to be vaults.)

Coordinates

Coordinates are optional—but very powerful. They allow you to:

  • Place locations on a visual grid

  • Use aisles, bays, and levels

  • See exactly where contents are stored

  • Find items faster in large facilities

You can choose to use coordinates only where they make sense.

How to Set Up a Site

  1. From the main navigation, click Sites.

  2. On the site management screen, click Create site.

  3. Enter a name (for example, Main Warehouse).

  4. (Optional) Upload images such as photos or diagrams of your warehouse layout.

  5. Enable the Coordinate system.

  6. Enter the number of aisles, bays, and levels that match your real-world layout.

  7. Click Create site.

(Note: These settings create a grid that mirrors your physical space.)

Customizing the Grid Layout

Once your site is created with a coordinate system, you can fine-tune the grid to match your exact facility layout using the Grid Editor. Click the Configure Grid button (gear icon) on your site's management page to open it.

The Grid Editor lets you:

  • Adjust aisles, bays, and levels directly from the toolbar

  • Add walkways between rows or columns to reflect physical aisles in your facility

  • Block cells that aren't usable for storage (pillars, doorways, equipment areas)

All changes are previewed live and only saved when you click Save.

👉 For a full walkthrough, see the Grid Editor guide.

How to Add Locations

  1. Inside your site, click Manage locations.

  2. Click Add location.

  3. Choose to add:

    • A single location, or

    • Multiple locations at once using the batch option

  4. Enter a prefix (for example, Vault) and create multiple locations.

You’ll now see locations like Vault 1, Vault 2, and so on.

Assigning Coordinates to Locations

At first, locations exist—but they won’t appear on the grid until coordinates are assigned.

Option 1: Assign from the Grid

  1. Click a specific spot on the grid.

  2. Choose Assign existing location.

  3. Select the location (for example, Vault 1).

Once assigned, the location appears visually on the grid. You can hover over it to see details.

Option 2: Assign from the Location Settings

  1. Click Edit on a location.

  2. Enable Has coordinates.

  3. Select the aisle, bay, and level.

  4. Save your changes.

The location will now appear on the grid.

Navigating Locations Visually

As you add more locations:

  • Click a location in the table to highlight it on the grid

  • Switch between levels to see vertical placement

  • Quickly understand where everything lives in the facility

This is especially helpful in larger warehouses.

Locations Without Coordinates (That’s Okay!)

Not every location needs coordinates. For example:

  • Clean rooms

  • Trucks

  • Temporary staging areas

If a location doesn’t have coordinates:

  • It won’t appear on the grid

  • It’s still fully usable

  • You can still assign contents to it

(Tip: This lets you mix structured storage with more flexible spaces.)

Using QR Codes

QR codes let you run your warehouse by scanning instead of typing. There are two kinds, and setting each up is a one-time print-and-post job. You print both from a site’s locations in the web app using the Print QR Codes button.

The Print QR Codes menu on a site's locations, showing Location QR codes and Coordinate QR codes

Label your vaults — Location QR codes

Every location (vault) you create automatically has its own QR code. Scanning it in the mobile app opens that vault, so anyone can check items in and out or see what’s inside.

  1. Open the site’s locations in the web app.

  2. Click Print QR Codes → Location QR codes.

  3. Choose whether to print one, a selection, or all locations, pick a sticker layout, and print.

  4. Stick each code onto its vault — on the front face, roughly at eye level, where it’s easy to see and reach. The code stays with the vault wherever it goes.

Label the grid — Coordinate QR codes

If you’ve set up a grid for your site, you can also give every spot on it its own code. Unlike a vault code, a coordinate code marks a place, not a vault — it stays put while vaults come and go, so you always have something to scan for “put a vault here.”

  1. Open the site’s locations and click Print QR Codes → Coordinate QR codes.

  2. Print the sheet. Each label shows its coordinate, like A2-B5 (Aisle 2, Bay 5), so they’re easy to tell apart. They print in aisle order (A1, A2, A3…), so they come off the sheet in the order you’ll place them.

  3. Post each label at its spot on the grid. Walk the aisle and put the A2-B5 label at the front of Aisle 2, Bay 5 — on the rack upright, the shelf edge, or an end-of-bay marker — at a consistent, reachable height, so you can scan it standing there without climbing.

  4. Post one label per aisle-and-bay column — you don’t need one per level. You choose the level in the app when you scan, so a single label at the base of the column covers every level stacked above it.

Put them to work

Once your vaults and coordinates are labeled, relocating a vault is just two scans in Warehouse Mode on your phone: scan the vault, then scan the coordinate where it’s going — no typing coordinates, no menus. See Warehouse Mode for the full workflow.

Recap ✅

  • Sites = physical facilities

  • Locations = places within those facilities

  • Coordinates = a visual grid using aisles, bays, and levels

  • Grid Editor = customize walkways, block cells, and adjust dimensions to match your real layout (learn more)

You can use coordinates where they add value—and skip them where they don’t.

Once this setup is complete, managing and finding contents becomes dramatically faster and more organized 🚀

Next Steps

Once locations are set up, you’ll be able to:

  • Scan items into and out of locations.

  • View the full history of contents within each location.

  • Track jobs seamlessly across your chain of custody.

👉 In later tutorials, we’ll cover how to use locations during active jobs to scan items, move them, and view full histories.

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