With the development of mapping technologies, location has taken on a new importance in our lives. Concepts like proximity, distance and location are common in our everyday lives and our interactions with others. Rock has a very robust location strategy. It’s important that you understand all the possibilities as you set out to implement it in your organization.

Location Descriptors

When you create a location, you can define several location descriptors:

• Street Address: This is pretty obvious, the street address of the location.
• Latitude / Longitude Point: The lat/long point is simply the latitude/longitude of the address. You can set this by either providing an address and allowing Rock to convert it to a lat/long using the built-in address standardization service or you can reference the point using Rock’s location picker.
• Geo-fence: A geo-fence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area or boundary. Geo-fences are used by Rock to define things like regions for groups and to power features like mobile check-in. Rock allows you to draw these fences right in the address picker.

Types of Locations

There are two types of locations in Rock. Let’s take a look at each and see how they are used by Rock.

Positional Locations

Positional locations describe places you could point to on a map. By themselves they don’t tell you anything about the point, just its location on the map. They only find meaning when they are used by features like Families (to describe where they live) or Groups (where they meet).

Named Locations

Named locations have position and meaning. The meaning comes from giving the position a name. For instance, after install there's a Main Campus location that describes your organization’s campus.

Named locations can also have hierarchy. Think again to your organization’s campus. The campus itself is a location, but it’s also made up of sub-locations like buildings. Buildings have locations too - rooms. Having a hierarchy allows Rock to build rich location contexts into applications like check-in.

Named locations must be setup under Admin Tools > Settings > Named Locations before they can be used in the application.

Where Locations Show Up

Knowing the two types is one thing. Finding them in Rock is another. Here is where each kind of location actually lives.

Family addresses - A family's home address is a positional location stored on the family, not on the individual. You will see it on any family member's profile, and editing it there updates it for the whole family.

Group locations - A group's meeting place is set on the group itself, under Meeting Details in the Group Viewer. A group can have several, one for each location and schedule combination. If the group type allows it, you can also pick the home address of someone already in the group, which is how a small group that meets at the leader's house gets its address.

Named locations - Campuses, buildings and rooms are managed at Admin Tools > Settings > Named Locations. Anywhere Rock asks you to pick a room, it is pulling from that list.