Store and Category Manager interface is available if you have the Power Add-on installed (for WPSLP users) or have the MYSLP Professional level or higher. You will see a tab “Categories” in your Store Locator Plus User Interface.
Under side menu MYSLP/StoreLocatorPlus menu
Once you open the Category Tab you can begin to add categories and slugs or edit existing. Set Markers and Icons per category (optional) if you want those to appear in place of map markers. A Bulk action drop down to delete some or all categories is at the top of the category box.
Settings/Search
You can choose to show the categories that you have created in a drop down menu as part of the search form. There are additional category selector options available for WPSLP premier subscribers or MYSLP Enterprise subscribers (example see Checkbox selector). You can add text as a label that will display at the top of the categories drop down menu, or you can leave blank. You can also add text for the category select box that will appear in front of the category drop down on the user interface.
Hide Empty Categories Setting
For WPSLP Power add-on users . Do NOT turn this on unless you have Pages enabled.
Settings/Results
If you want the category icons to appear in results list check off Category Icons
Store Locator Plus Radius Behavior is set to “always use” in the base plugin or Advance level subscription for SLP SaaS
For additional options you would need Professional level and /or higher for MySLP/SLP SaaS or the Experience add-on for the WPSLP plug-in which allows you to extend the functionality beyond the basic “Always Use” setting. This setting impacts how the radius selector is employed and how locations are filtered before being displayed to the user.
The map radius is set under the Settings /Search tab and the results (after search) is found under the Settings/Results tab”Initial Search radius”. The search radius selection options presented to the user in the drop down menu is set under the Settings / Search tab panel.
Pagination is a bonus feature when you have the Premier subscription or or MYSLP Enterprise Customers. The setting is under the Settings/ Results tab when the Premier add-on pack has been installed and activated. When Results Pagination has been enabled a new interface class is activated within the plugin that utilizes JavaScript and modified AJAX listener responses to provide the pagination interface to the Store Locator Plus map interface. A previous/next page and an instructional label appears on the top left of the results listings. When users interact with the page buttons the application queries the database in real-time showing the latest location data available as the user pages through the list of locations available within a given radius.
Hide Street View is available as part of the Premier plugin included with the Premier Subscription for Store Locator Plus. The Street View icon , also known as “pegman” appears on all Google Maps by default. The Premier plugin allows you to turn this off.
Premier 4.5 Pegman ActivePremier 4.5 Pegman Inactive
Turning Street View On or Off
Go to the Store Locator Plus Experience Map tab and look for Hide Street View in the Appearance group.
Cluster Map Markers is available as part of the Premier plugin included with the Premier Subscription for Store Locator Plus or the Enterprise levelof MySLP. Cluster Markers show a single map marker graphic (circle with number inside it) when two or more (you set this number) markers are within close proximity to one another on the current map view. As a user zooms in on the cluster, the clusters break apart to show the individual markers. When zoomed out the individual location markers combine into a single marker graphic with the count of locations represented by the graphic shown in the center. You determine the default radius and minimum number of locations before cluster map marker is engaged. Your “center map at” and default radius setting will effect where the map center is located.
Turn On Cluster Markers
Go to the Store Locator Plus : Settings / Map and look under the Appearance section for “Enable Cluster Markers”.
Premier Subscribers have access to the Results Header option under the Settings / Results tab in Store Locator Plus. This allows the results listings to be formatted in a tabular output with column headers.
Results Header
Outputs the HTML + shortcodes before displaying results. You may attach the locations to an HTML element other than the default#map_sidebar div by adding id="add_locations_here" to one of your Results header elements (such as a tag). This works well with the Skywalk Rev 01 Plug-in Style for optimizing the table style results under the map.
Premier subscribers or MYSLP Enterprise level subscribers will see the following features under the Store Locator Plus Settings / Search Panel.
Premier settings to influence Google search
Show Address Guess
If checked, replace the address the customer typed into the address box with what Google thought they meant. This feature is useful if your site visitor is browsing “incognito: or the location sensor is not activated.
Country Influences Guess
When checked , SLP uses the selected Country Map Domain to influence how Google returns the location based on what they think the user meant when entering a search address. Google returns the most searched locations based on an algorithm. This feature is coded to redirect the returned location based on your location data points.
Boundaries Influence Guess
Uses a search boundary to influence how Google guesses what the user meant when entering a search address.
Locations in your data set will show a rectangle that surrounds all of your locations.
Defined Boundary is a rectangle that you define with a map that will appear below.
The default is none, using standard Google address lookup rules.
These features are very useful, especially when you have a mix of some non – standard Zip/postal codes or addresses that otherwise might be hard to find with the basic Google MAP API query.
Importing locations with territories follows the same procedure as importing a standard locations file. As with all location files the format must be a proper CSV file exported using the UTF-8 character set with no special or non-printable characters.
Your CSV file should add the following five columns to the file. Make sure you add the field names to the top of each of these new columns as listed here:
territory_distance_unit
territory_distance_north
territory_distance_south
territory_distance_east
territory_distance_west
Within each column you will want to have the following values:
territory_distance_unit can be ‘miles’, ‘km’, or be blank. If this is not set to ‘miles’ or ‘km’ it will assume the territory is not enabled for this location.
territory_distance_north , south, east, and west should be the distance north, south, east, or west from the location that is part of its territory.
The territory boundaries will automatically be calculated for each location during the import.
Once a location is setup with a territory the map markers that are sent back from the server during a user search will include a ‘in_territory’ property set to ‘1’ if the user’s location is within the territory and ‘0’ if not. An additional ‘in_territory_class’ property will also be set to either ‘in_territory’ or a blank string. Both settings are part of the ‘data’ property of the location marker.
Before you can use the territories features of the Premier add on, you will need to enable the feature under the General / Data tab. This is off by default to reduce the data storage and processing overhead of Store Locator Plus for sites that do not need territory services. Go to the General / Data tab and check off “Enable Territory Bounds” and click save. This will create the necessary data fields and enable territory settings and features within the application.
SLP 4.5 Premier 4.5 General Data Tab
If you later disable this feature any of the existing location territory data will be retained until you delete the location. However the location search process will no longer restrict search results to locations within a territory nor output data related to locations being inside or outside of a territory; assuming those features are enabled in the Experience settings.
Location Data
Locations will now show several new fields when managing a location.
Premier 4.5 Editing A Location Territory
Territory Distance Unit – what is the distance unit used with this location to determine the territory coverage. None disables the territory.
Distance North – how many miles to the north of the location is the northern boundary of the territory.
Distance South – how many miles to the south of the location is the southern boundary of the territory.
Distance East – how many miles to the east of the location is the eastern boundary of the territory.
Distance West – how many miles to the west of the location is the western boundary of the territory.
When the location is saved the Territory Bounds is calculated. Editing the location will show the location point as well as the territory it covers.
User Experience Settings
Under the experience tab there is a setting the dictates how locations are shown to the user.
If you check of the Only Show If In Territory checkbox under the Experience / Results tab in the Functionality group the list of locations shown to the user will only include the locations where the user’s address is within the location’s territory. The radius is still used to limit the results that the server processes. If the radius is hidden and set to a default value, caution should be taken to set a reasonable radius. Checking if a point lies within a territory can be time consuming. First limiting the locations to a reasonable list by first filtering those within a certain distance of the user can sped up processing.
For example, if none of your territories are more than 100 miles from the location you can reasonably set the default radius to be all locations within 100 miles. This will limit how many locations need to have their boundaries tested to see if the user’s address is within. This will improve your territory matching performance.
