Location Categories

Categories are a way to group Locations across your map regardless of their Location Type.

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While a Location can only belong to one Type, it can belong to multiple Categories — making Categories the right tool for flexible filtering and browsing in your app.

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Categories vs Location Types

It helps to understand how Categories and Location Types differ:

	Location Types	Categories
Purpose	Styling — controls how a Location looks on the map	Filtering — groups Locations for search and browsing
How many per Location	One (required)	Many (optional)
Controls Display Rules	Yes	No
Used for app filtering	No	Yes

A canteen, for example, might be of the Type "Canteen" but belong to both the "Food" and "Leisure" Categories. The Type controls how it looks; the Categories control how users find it.

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What Categories affect

Categories influence your app in two ways:

Search — when a user searches for a Category name, all Locations in that Category are returned as results, even if the Location's name doesn't match the search term.

Browsing — Categories appear as filter options in the app's search bar, letting users browse all Locations of a particular kind without typing. The order and visibility of Categories in the app is configured in Solution Details → App Settings → App Configuration.

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Subcategories

Categories support one level of nesting. A subcategory sits beneath a parent Category and adds a more specific filtering layer within it.

For example, a "Restrooms" Category could have subcategories for "Accessible", "Male", and "Female" — letting users drill down to exactly what they need.

Subcategory example

A few rules to be aware of:

• A Category assigned as a subcategory cannot also be used as a parent Category.

• A parent Category cannot be deleted without first removing all its subcategories.

• Subcategories are supported in the Web SDK via childKeys. Mobile SDKs do not currently support subcategories.

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Managing Categories

Categories are managed in Solution Details → Categories. Each Category has a name (translatable) and a key — a short unique identifier used to reference the Category in code and via the Integration API.

To assign Categories to a Location, open the Location Details editor and add them in the Categories field. A Location can have any number of Categories assigned.

Categories can also be assigned in bulk — select multiple Locations in the list view and use the bulk edit option to add or update Categories across all of them at once.

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Related concepts

• Location Types — how Locations are styled on the map

• Data Concepts — how Locations fit into the broader data hierarchy