Location Groups: Virtual Functional Areas and Compliance Grouping

Group locations virtually by what they are allowed to hold — cold storage, hazmat, one client’s goods — with putaway rules, member locations and mappings, without changing the physical zones of the warehouse.

A location group (the pages call it a VLG) is a virtual layer on top of your locations: it groups locations by a shared job or a shared rule — for example a cold-storage group, a hazmat group, or a group reserved for one Client. Do not mix it up with a zone: a zone is a physical area of the warehouse and a location belongs to one zone, while a location group is a virtual, rule-based grouping maintained in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups. The two sit side by side and answer different questions — the zone says where a location is, the group says what that location is for.

Step 1: Create a location group#

1. Open WMS → Master Data → Location Groups and click “+ New location group”. The list above it can be filtered by VLG name, group type, tag and Client (fill in the filters, then click Search; Reset clears them).
2. Fill in the VLG name (required) and pick a group type: Zone, Aisle or Area. This type is only the group’s own label — it does not move any location into a different physical zone.
3. Optionally pick the supported pick type (Piece Pick, Case Pick or Pallet Pick) and the Client this group belongs to. Leave the Client empty if the group is shared.
4. Set the maximum number of partial pallets allowed per product, and optionally link a staging location group. Then keep going down the same form — the putaway rules, tags and arrangement rows below are all part of the same group.

Everything for one group lives on this single form in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups: Basic Info at the top, then Putaway Rules, Tags and Arrangement in their own sections. You save once with Create (or Update when editing) — there is no separate page for the rules.

Step 2: Set the putaway rules#

• Disallow mixing products on the same location — turn this on when one location in the group should hold one product only.
• Disallow mixing lot numbers on the same location — keeps different batches apart inside the group.
• Skip occupied locations on putaway — putaway suggestions pass over locations that are already taken in this group.
• Enable depleted locations — lets locations that have run empty in this group be used again in putaway.

Step 3: Add tags and location tags#

The Tags section of the same form in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups holds two different fields. Tags are free labels on the group itself — the list page can filter by them. Location Tags say which tags a location must carry to belong to this group’s world, and at least one location tag is required: the form will not save without one. Type a tag and press Enter to add it.

Step 4: Set the arrangement percentages#

The Arrangement section at the bottom of the form in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups says how work in this group is shared out. A new group starts with one row: level Customer, from 01-01 to 12-31, category Primary, 100%. Adjust the rows you need, or click Add Arrangement for more.

• Arrangement level: Customer or Warehouse — the level the percentage applies to.
• Time range from / to: month and day (for example 01-01 to 12-31 for the whole year).
• Category: Primary or Secondary, plus the Client the row belongs to (on Customer-level rows) and the percentage itself.

Step 5: Add member locations#

1. Open the group from the list in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups (click its name) and switch to the Member Locations tab next to Basic Info.
2. Click “+ Add Locations”, pick the warehouse, search by location code if the list is long, and tick every location that should join this group.
3. Confirm with Add. The members list now shows each member’s location code, its own zone and its location type. To take a location out again, use Remove on its row and confirm.

Look at that members list in WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → open a group → Member Locations once more: every member keeps its own physical zone, shown right next to its code. Joining a group does not move the location or rewrite its zone — the group is a rule layer over the physical layout, which is exactly why a cold-storage group can collect locations that physically sit in different parts of the building.

Step 6: Map groups to clients, product characteristics and ABC class#

1. Select the warehouse at the top of the page first, then open WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → Mappings and click “+ Add Mapping”.
2. Pick the location group. Pick a Client, or leave it empty to mean “all clients”.
3. Tick the product characteristics this group is mapped for: Hazmat, Refrigerated, Frozen, Fragile, High value and Oversize. Optionally set an ABC class (A, B or C), then save.
4. To change a mapping later, use Edit on its row — you can adjust the characteristics, the ABC class and whether it is active. The group and Client of an existing mapping stay as they are; to map a different pair, delete the old mapping and add a new one.

Docklify features used in this article#

• Location group list with name / group type / tag / Client filters — WMS → Master Data → Location Groups (/wms/master/location-groups)
• Location group form: basic info, putaway rules, tags and arrangement percentages in one form — WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → New / open a group (/wms/master/location-groups/new)
• Member Locations tab: add or remove the locations that belong to a group — WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → open a group → Member Locations
• Location Group Mappings: link a group to a Client (or all clients), product characteristics and an ABC class — WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → Mappings (/wms/master/location-groups/mappings)
• Group history and delete on the edit page — WMS → Master Data → Location Groups → open a group → History / Delete