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Bin/Shelf SubLocations User Guide
Bin/Shelf SubLocations User Guide

Learn how to set up and use bin and shelf sub-locations for your inventory in Kojo!

Sarala Conlan avatar
Written by Sarala Conlan
Updated over a week ago

Kojo Warehouse Locations versus Sublocations

Kojo has locations and sublocations. A location is the inventory location like a warehouse, yard, or shipping container. Sublocations are the places within the location that inventory is stored within, like a bin or shelf. To begin, you must set up a location first before adding sublocations!

Feel free to click on a section from the table of contents listed here to go straight to that section:

Table of Contents

Adding & Editing Sublocations

  1. Browse to Admin > Settings > Locations

  2. Make sure you have an inventory location setup. Click on the inventory location to bring up its detail page.

  3. On this page, you can add new sub-locations by clicking “Add New Sublocation”

    1. The sub-location ID is required. You can enter any letters or numbers you like. You cannot input spaces or other characters like dashes.

    2. The description will be shown on the Inventory Location detail view. You can type out a description for this sub-location. As of now, the description will not be shown to Warehouse Users.

    3. The Parent Sublocation allows you to give the sublocation a parent which it will be nested under. Read more on setting up your sub-location hierarchy below.

  4. A sublocation can have as many levels as you need, with “parents” or “children”. For example, within your warehouse you could have rows, then shelves, and on the shelves, bins. You could set up your sublocations with a hierarchy with parents and children, or you could set up your sublocations to be flat.

    1. Hierarchy Setup Example: Say you have rows, then shelves, then bins. Add the highest level parent for each row first, e.g. for Row 1 you would add “R1” without a parent. Then add the shelves on the row, e.g. for Shelf 1 you would another sub-location “S1” with the parent being “R1”. Then you would add the bin sub-location for Shelf 1, e.g. Bin 1 as “B1” with the parent as “S1”. This approach is best if you change your sub-location hierarchy, such as pallets.

    2. Flat Setup Example: Say you have rows, then shelves, then bins. Rather than creating a full hierarchy, you could set up your sub-locations as flat. For Row 1 – Shelf 1 – Bin 1, you could add a sublocation with an ID of “R1S1B1” without any parents. This approach is best if you don’t change or move sublocation parents around.

    3. Whether you choose a hierarchy or flat approach, your sublocations will be easily searchable. More on searching below.

  5. To edit a sublocation, click on its name in the list. You can change the sublocation ID, description or parent.

Searching Sub-locations

If you set up your sublocations with a hierarchy as mentioned above, then you can enter a dash - between the sublocations for easier searching. For example, if you have row 1 “R1”, shelf 1 “S1”, and bin 1 “B1” as three separate nested sublocations, you could search the full path by entering the highest level sub-location followed by a dash as, “R1-S1-B1”. The search will prefill as you type, showing children related to the parents, e.g. entering “R1” will show all the children sublocations of Row 1.

Adding a Sublocation to an Inventory Item

On both Tools and Material, you can move an item into a sublocation.

  1. For Material: On the Material Inventory List page, found by browsing to Warehouse > Inventory, you can move multiple items into a sublocation

    1. Select your items and choose “Transfer to another location or sublocation”

    2. Choose “Move selected items into sublocation of current location”

    3. Choose either “Move items into one sublocation” if the items will go into one sublocation, or “Move items into multiple sublocations” if each item will go into more than one sublocation.

  2. For Tools: On the Tool Inventory List page, found by browsing to Warehouse > Inventory > Tools tab, you can move multiple items into a sublocation

    1. Select your items and choose “Transfer to another location or sublocation”

    2. Choose “Move selected items into sublocation of current location”

    3. Choose either “Move items into one sublocation” if the items will go into one sublocation or “Move items into multiple sublocations” if each item will go into a different sublocation

Inventory List Pages – Viewing Items by Sublocation

Material Inventory

  1. You can view the sublocations and location for material inventory on the Material Inventory List page. Each line item has a dropdown next to the location in the Location column. This will show you all the locations and sublocations for that item.

  2. You can also view the sublocation for material inventory on that item’s detail page.

Tool Inventory

  1. You can view the sublocation for tool inventory on the Tool List page. The sublocation will be listed next to the inventory location.

  2. You can also view the sublocation for tools on the tool’s detail view page.

Bulk Upload Inventory with Sublocation

You can also bulk upload your list of inventory by sublocation.

If you have inventory in Kojo already:

  1. Export your inventory list by sublocation (even though you don’t have it setup yet)

  2. In your spreadsheet software, select all the references to “General Stock” in the “Job” column and delete the text so that the cell is now blank. Here is guide on how to do this in Excel.

  3. For each item, under the Sublocation column change “No Sublocation” to that item’s sublocation full ID path. For example, if it is in Row 1 with an ID of “R1” - Shelf 1 with an ID of “S1” - Bin 1 with an ID of “B1”, you would add the sublocation full path ID of “R1-S1-B1” with - dashes between the sublocation IDs.

    1. If an item is in more than one sublocation then duplicate the row and repeat the step above for each sublocation.

  4. Once all sublocations have been added, you can upload the file.

  5. When mapping your upload, leave the destination column blank like below:

CAUTION: Make sure to add all sublocations to an item. Only the item’s sublocations on the upload will be saved for that item. All preexisting sublocations for that item will be removed if they are not on the final file, including “No Sublocation”. For example, if an item has 50 quantity in “No Sublocation” prior to upload, then on the upload you do not have a have row in the file for “No Sublocation” but you do have a row of 75 quantity for sublocation “A1-B1-C1”, the system will remove the “No Sublocation” qty of 50 completely and add a quantity of 75 for sublocation “A1-B1-C1”.

If this is your first time adding inventory to Kojo:

  1. For each item, add a sublocation. For example, if it is in Row 1 with an ID of “R1” - Shelf 1 with an ID of “S1” - Bin 1 with an ID of “B1”, you would add the sublocation full path ID of “R1-S1-B1” with - dashes between the sublocation IDs.

  2. If an item is in more than one sublocation then duplicate the row and repeat the step above for each sublocation.

  3. When mapping your upload, leave the destination column blank like below:

  4. Once all sublocations have been added, you can upload the file.

Warehouse Mobile: Receiving: Adding Sublocations

Warehouse mobile users have the ability to add sublocations for each item while receiving. Users can add as many sublocations as needed per item.

Warehouse Mobile: Picking: Sublocations

  1. When you go to pick items, the sublocations for that item will be listed.

  2. Once you mark an item as picked, you’ll be able to select which sublocation you are pulling items from.


If you have any additional questions, please reach out directly to your CSM or to our Support Team at support@usekojo.com.

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