Core Docs - Core Concepts - Intro to Locations

Rock Version: v20.0
Last Modified: 2026-04-06 3:59 PM

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:

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.