The Locations section lets you code the locations of your company or your clients and associate geographic coordinates with each of them. Geolocation is calculated automatically from the location name, so you do not have to enter coordinates manually. You can however always refine the position on the map independently from the name: this matters especially when locations are used to publish job ads on external jobboards.

Accessing the section

Click on Application → User interface → Lists from the Setup menu, then search for and open the Locations list.

How automatic geolocation works

Once you select a location in the left-hand tree, you can place it on the map in three ways:

• Typing the name in the location's Name field: when you leave the field, you will be asked to confirm searching the name on the map. Clicking OK, the location will be searched and positioned automatically
• Searching a place in the search bar above the map: you will see suggestions to pick from
• Clicking directly on the map at the desired point

In every case, the Country and Region fields are filled automatically based on the resolved position. The two fields are read-only: you cannot edit them by hand because they are derived from the coordinates.

When the pin appears on the map

The red pin on the map appears if and only if both Country and Region have been resolved for the location. The pin is the visual signal that tells you "this location is geographically well defined":

• Pin present → the location has Country and Region filled, it is ready to be used (including for publishing on Indeed and other multiposting jobboards)
• Pin absent → at least one of the two fields is missing. The map still pans to the resolved point (the centroid), but the pin is not drawn to flag that the location is missing some information. You can refine the position with the search bar to get the missing Country or Region (see the "Location name and map position are independent" paragraph)

Examples:

• "Milan" → Country = Italy, Region = Lombardy → pin shown
• "United States" → Country = United States, Region = Kansas (geographic center) → pin shown
• "Australia" → Country = Australia, Region = Northern Territory → pin shown
• "Cyprus" → Country = Cyprus, Region = empty → pin not shown: the location sits on the island but the region is not unique
• "Europe" → Country = empty, Region = empty → pin not shown: the centroid falls in the Baltic Sea

The centroid: why a large area is pointed to a single spot

When you enter a generic name (a continent, a very large country, a whole region), the map cannot "highlight the entire area" because every location must have a single pair of coordinates. The position picked is therefore the centroid of the area, that is its geometric center.

Here are some practical examples:

This means that entering a name like "South America" is perfectly accepted by the platform: the system places the location at the geographic center of the continent, which lies in Brazil, and fills the fields accordingly.

When Country and Region stay empty

There are cases where the centroid of an area falls into a zone where no State exists, or into a zone where the State exists but no specific administrative region applies: open seas, remote deserts, international neutral zones, buffer zones between countries.

Some typical examples:

The most common example is Europe: its geometric center falls in the Baltic Sea, in international waters. No State exists there to link the location to, so Country and Region stay empty. For Cyprus, on the other hand, the Country is resolved (Cyprus) but the Region is not, because the center of the island falls in the UN buffer zone which is not administratively part of any Cypriot district.

In all of these cases the map still pans to the centroid, but the red pin is not drawn: the pin only appears when both Country and Region are known.

Why doesn't the platform pick a nearby Country?

Assigning a random Country from the closest ones (Sweden? Latvia? Lithuania? for Europe) would make the data false and misleading. Leaving the fields empty is the right choice: it tells you explicitly that no single Country can be associated with that name.

Location name and map position are independent

The name you give to the location and the spot the map links it to are not bound together: you can keep whatever name you prefer and, at the same time, manually pick a more precise geographic position. The Country and Region fields will be filled based on the position on the map, not based on the location name. As soon as both fields are filled, the red pin will appear on the map confirming the location is now well defined.

Practical example: you want to keep a location named "Europe" but you do not want it to remain without Country or Region. Do this:

1. Open the "Europe" location by clicking on it in the tree
2. Use the search bar above the map (not the location's Name field!) to search for a representative place, for example "Brussels" or "Berlin"
3. Pick one of the suggestions
4. The map moves to the new point, Country and Region update (Belgium / Brussels-Capital, or Germany / Berlin), the red pin appears, but the location name stays "Europe"
5. Save

The same mechanism works by clicking directly on the map at the desired point.

Why a precise position matters: publishing on jobboards

When a job ad is published on external jobboards (for example Indeed and the other multiposting portals), these portals use the Country and Region fields of the ad's location to categorise the offer geographically. Candidates search for jobs by filtering exactly on Country and Region, so:

• A location with empty Country and Region makes the ad hard to find for candidates filtering by geographic area
• A location with Country and Region that do not represent the actual workplace can make the ad show up in the wrong results

A simple rule of thumb: if the location has the red pin on the map, it is ready to be used on jobboards. If it does not, refine the position with the search bar before linking the location to an ad.

Saving always works, even with empty fields

You can save a location even if Country and/or Region are empty. This lets you code wide geographic areas without being blocked. Remember though that, if the location is used for publishing on jobboards, it is preferable to give it a precise position as explained above: the missing pin is the way the platform reminds you that the location is incomplete.

Updating coordinates for all locations at once

If you have edited the name of several locations and want to recalculate all of their coordinates together, you can use the Associate GPS coordinates command available in the actions bar of the Locations list.

The command searches every location of the list on the map and updates coordinates, Country and Region based on the current name. Warning: this action overwrites any manual position you had set by decoupling name and map. Use it only if you want all locations back to automatic name-based geocoding.