How to Build a Location Hierarchy

How to build a location hierarchy

Locations nest to any depth through a parent reference. The hierarchy is what makes a multi-site estate manageable.

Requirements

• Available on: All plans
• Roles: Owner, Admin

How nesting works

Each location can have a parent. That is the whole mechanism.

Manchester Campus
 ├── Building A
 │    ├── Floor 1
 │    └── Floor 2
 │         ├── Room 204
 │         └── Room 210
 └── Building B
      └── Workshop

Building it

Top down is easiest. Create the campus, then its buildings, then floors, then rooms. Each new location picks its parent from what already exists.

You do not have to build the whole tree before adding assets. Start with the depth you need — many organizations run happily on site → building.

Common patterns

Pick one and apply it consistently. The value is in the consistency, not the shape.

Depth

Two to four levels covers most organizations.

Going deeper costs you on every asset form, because someone has to pick the right leaf. Going shallower costs you on filtering, because "Building A" tells you less than you need.

The test: if nobody will ever filter at a level, that level does not need to exist.

Consistency across branches

Use the same levels everywhere. If Building A has floors and Building B goes straight to rooms, then "everything on floor 2" is a question you cannot ask across the estate.

Where a building genuinely has no floors, it is usually better to create a single nominal level than to leave the branch shallower than its siblings.

Reorganising

Locations can be re-parented as your estate changes. Assets stay where they are — they are attached to the location, not to its position in the tree.

Locations are archived, not deleted. Move the assets out before archiving.

Common mistakes

Encoding the hierarchy in names. "Manchester – Building A – Floor 2 – Room 204" as one location defeats the point. Nest them.

Mixing in departments. "Floor 2 – Finance" breaks when Finance moves. Departments are a separate structure.

Creating shelf-level detail. Bin-location tracking is a warehouse management problem; UniAsset is not a warehouse management system.

Building the perfect tree before adding assets. Time-to-first-asset matters more. Add depth when you need it.

Troubleshooting

Filtering by a parent returns nothing. Check the assets are actually filed against a descendant rather than against the parent.

I can't set a parent. Check the intended parent is not archived.

I can't create a location. It needs Owner or Admin.

The name is already taken. Location names are unique across the organization, not just within a parent. Include a distinguishing word.

My hierarchy has grown unmanageable. Archive the levels nobody filters on and move the assets up. Archiving is reversible.

Related articles

• How to create and manage locations
• How to move assets between locations
• Location reports
• Categories, locations and departments explained
• Organization structure best practices