Managing Device Locations in Big Block

When you’re using the Big Block system, you have a few options for how to handle “location” information for your devices. This is completely optional, so if you already have your own way of matching devices to their physical locations, feel free to continue using that. If you do decide to let Big Block handle location details, here are the main approaches:

1. Maintain Location Information Yourself (No Big Block Location Data)

• You can skip storing any location data in Big Block.
• Each device is known to Big Block only by its unique DeviceID, and you track which physical spot in your facility the device belongs to.
• This means all your API calls are made directly to DeviceIDs—no location concept is used within Big Block.

2. Use Big Block to Maintain Location Information

If you want Big Block to store and manage location data for you, there are two ways to do it:

(A) Simple “locationoverride”

• Every device has a locationoverride field you can set in the Device API or via the Big Block GUI.
• This is ideal for 1:1 setups: one device that is permanently tied to one location.
• When you specify locationoverride, the location name will appear on the device’s display (no arrows, though, unless you manually send an arrow command).
• Limitation: Because it’s just one field, locationoverride only supports one location per device. There’s no automatic arrow or multi-location setup built in.

(B) LocationAliases (Multi-Location with Automatic Arrows)

• For more advanced scenarios—like a single device representing multiple sub-locations (e.g., multiple shelves on a single cart)—you can use LocationAliases.
• A single device can have multiple aliases, each representing a different spot (top shelf, bottom shelf, left bin, right bin, etc.).
• Automatic arrows come in handy here: When you send an API command to a particular alias, Big Block knows which arrow to display based on that alias’s configuration (e.g., “Above,” “Below,” “to the Left of,” etc.).
• If you ever reassign a device to different sub-locations, you can update or remove those aliases without physically touching the device.

3. Enter Location Data in the GUI or via API

Regardless of whether you choose locationoverride or LocationAliases, you can:

• Manually enter these in the Big Block web interface.
• Programmatically manage them via the API (often recommended for production environments to keep everything automated).

For many businesses, the API approach is more scalable:

• You can script bulk changes if your layout changes frequently.
• You can programmatically assign different location labels or directions to a single device.