Places Library
The Places Library holds your organization's places as collections: your stores, your property listings, your venues. You import a collection once, from a file, a Google Sheet or a feed, check where each place landed, and publish it. Every map of your organization can then show it, as pins, as a store locator or as a listings page, and Kaleidr AI on those maps answers questions from it.
A collection is not a dataset on a map. A dataset belongs to the one map you added it to; a collection belongs to the organization, and you update it in one place for every map that shows it.
| Datasets on a map | Places Library collections | |
|---|---|---|
| Belongs to | The map you added it to | The organization |
| Holds | Any table, geographic file or image overlay | Places: one point per row, with a name |
| Updated by | Replacing the dataset on each map | One import, on every map that shows the collection |
| Private columns | No: visitors receive every column | Yes: a column marked Private never leaves Studio |
| Store locator and listings layouts | No | Yes |
| Plans | Free, Pro and Enterprise | Free, Pro and Enterprise |
Find the Library
Sign in to Kaleidr Studio and choose Data in the left rail. The Library lists your organization's collections, with each one's record count, when it was last published, whether it refreshes on a schedule, and how many maps show it. The strip at the top shows how many collections and places your plan allows and how many you use.
Owners, admins and members can create, import and change collections. Viewers can open them and read their places.
Collections
Choose New Collection, pick a type and give it a name. The type decides which fields the import assistant offers first and how a place's card looks:
| Type | For | Fields offered first |
|---|---|---|
| Stores | Retail locations. The Retail kit. | Name, address, category, hours, time zone, phone, website, action link, your ID, status |
| Listings | Properties for sale or rent. The Property kit. | Name, address, price, currency, beds, baths, photo, status, action link, phone, your ID, description |
| Venues | Hotels, restaurants and attractions. The Hospitality kit. | Name, address, category, hours, phone, website, photo, description, action link, your ID |
| Stops | Scheduled stops, such as a food truck's route or pickup points. The Location kit. | Name, address, hours (the service windows), time zone, status, vehicle, service dates, description, your ID |
| Vehicles | A fleet's vehicles, shown live on a map. See Live tracking. | None: vehicles are added to the fleet in Studio, not imported |
| Custom | Any other places | Name, address, category, description, your ID |
Every type can also hold columns of your own. A Stores, Listings, Venues or Stops collection starts with its kit's card, filters and actions, which you can change. A Vehicles collection takes no import: its vehicles are managed in Studio's Fleet section.
A Stops collection's Hours are its service windows. A stop whose Status is paused runs on no day; a
Vehicle column names the vehicle that serves the stop; a Service Dates column lists the only dates it runs.
See Stops schedules.
Import your data
Choose Import Data on a collection. The Import Assistant has five steps.
1. Add Your Data
Bring the data in one of three ways:
| Source | What to give | Refreshable |
|---|---|---|
| A file | CSV, TSV, Excel, ODS, GeoJSON, KML, GPX or a zipped shapefile | No: import a new file to update |
| A Google Sheet | The sheet's link, starting https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/. Share the sheet as "Anyone with the link can view" first; a sheet that asks for a sign-in cannot be read. A link to one tab reads that tab. | Yes |
| A feed | An https:// address of a CSV, JSON or GeoJSON file | Yes |
- A place is a point. A map file must hold points; lines and areas are refused. Image overlays such as GeoTIFF are not places and are refused too.
- Each row needs a name, and an address or coordinates. A row with coordinates is placed exactly where they say. A row with only an address is placed from the address.
- Download Sample Sheet gives you a filled-in example for the collection's kit, with the columns the kit card reads.
2. Match Columns
Studio shows one row per column of your data, with sample values, and the field it matched the column to. A chip says how:
| Chip | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Matched | The column name is a known name for the field, such as "Latitude" or "Store Name". |
| Close Match | The column name is close to a known name. |
| Suggested by AI | Kaleidr AI suggested the field for a column the names did not settle. It reads your column names and the first five rows to suggest a match, and never writes or changes your data. The suggestion counts toward your organization's Kaleidr AI usage. |
Check each row and change any field that is wrong. A column can be:
- A standard field of the type, such as Name, Address, Hours or Price. Standard fields are always public.
- A custom column, with your own label, and Public or Private.
- Ignore, to leave the column out.
Street, city, region, postal code and country columns are joined into one address. Latitude and longitude can be two columns, or one column with both, in either order. Choose the Time Zone the collection's opening hours are written in.
Private columns stay with you. A private column is kept for you in Studio, and is never sent to a visitor's browser or read by Kaleidr AI. To keep a standard field such as a phone number private, match it as a private custom column instead.
3. Place Pins
Studio places every row on the map. Rows with coordinates keep them. Rows with an address are placed from the address only, never from the place's name, so two branches of the same brand cannot land on each other.
Studio then shows how many rows were Placed, how many Need Review and how many were Not Found, and a review list beside a map:
- Accept Pin keeps a pin Studio placed with low confidence.
- Fix Pin lets you drag the pin, or click the map, to where the place is.
- Remove leaves the row out of this import.
A row with no pin cannot be published. Fix it, remove it, or choose Skip Unplaced Rows to publish without those rows.
4. Clean Up
Studio suggests changes, grouped by kind, and changes nothing until you accept:
| Kind | What it finds |
|---|---|
| Duplicates | Rows with the same ID, or the same name at the same place. Accepting keeps the first row. |
| Hours | Opening hours written in another way, such as Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; Sat 10-4, rewritten in one form. Hours Studio cannot read are reported on the row and left empty. |
| Categories | Spellings of one category that differ in case, spacing or plural, merged into the collection's existing categories. |
| Websites | A web address without https://, completed. |
Choose Accept or Keep Original for each, or Accept All. Every change needs a decision before you publish.
5. Publish
Publishing replaces the collection's places with this import. Every map that shows the collection shows the new places the next time it loads. A place keeps its identity across imports, so a link or card that points at one store still points at it after you refresh the data.
After publishing you can choose Add to Map, and for a Google Sheet or feed, Set Refresh Schedule.
Keep it up to date
The Refresh fold of a collection imported from a Google Sheet or a feed reads that link again:
- Refresh Now, on every plan, reads the link with the column matches you used last time. If the sheet's columns changed, the import stops at Match Columns for you to check.
- A schedule, on Pro and Enterprise, refreshes at the interval you choose, no more often than your plan allows (see Limits). With Publish Automatically on, a refresh publishes by itself unless it needs review, or changes the number of places by more than half, in which case it waits for you.
- Repeated failures pause the schedule. The fold shows the last run and its result.
Columns, card, filters and actions
Open a collection to change how it appears. Each part is a fold:
- Records: every place, with search. Private columns are marked.
- Columns: each column's label, Public or Private, its Card Slot and its order. A change of visibility applies to every map that shows the collection.
- Card & Filters: a live Card Preview, the Visitor Filters a store locator or listings page offers, and the Place Actions on each card.
The card shows a place when a visitor selects it. Card slots choose what goes where: Title, Subtitle, Image, Price, up to three Badges, up to four Detail Rows, and a Credit line. A field a place does not have is left out of its card, never shown empty. A Stores card shows Open Now or Closed, worked out from the place's hours in its time zone. A Listings card shows the credit line, such as "Listing courtesy of" a broker and agent, directly under the price.
Visitor filters, in the order you set:
| Filter | Visitors can |
|---|---|
| Search | Type a name, an address or a category. |
| Category | Choose one or more categories. |
| Price | Set a minimum and a maximum. |
| Beds / Baths | Choose 1+, 2+, 3+ or 4+. |
| Open Now | Show only places open at this moment. Places with no hours are hidden while it is on. |
Place actions, up to four on each card:
| Action | What a visitor gets |
|---|---|
| Link | A button that opens a page of yours in a new tab, such as "Shop" or "Schedule a Tour". Write the address once with {id} where each place's ID goes; a place's own Action Link replaces it. Addresses must start with https://. |
| Directions | A route drawn on the map from where the visitor is, or from a place they search for, and buttons that open directions to the place in Apple Maps or Google Maps. |
| Call | A phone link to the place's phone number. |
| Request | A button such as Reserve, Schedule a Tour or Request Pickup that opens a request form. The request reaches your organization's inbox. See Booking requests. |
Add a collection to a map
Two ways, with the same result:
- In a map's Data panel, choose Add from Library and pick a collection.
- On a collection, choose Add to Map and pick a map.
The collection becomes a layer of the map, which you style like any other. Listings draw as price labels; the other types draw as dots. A map can show several collections, and a collection can be on any number of your organization's maps.
When the map is published, its visitors see the collection's public columns and nothing else. Updating the collection updates every map that shows it, with no re-publish.
Kaleidr AI answers from it. On a published map with Control Tower on, the Ask Kaleidr panel answers questions such as "closest store with parking" from the collection's places and their public columns, and the panel says that its answers are generated by AI. See Chat on a published map.
Embed it as a store locator or a listings page. The locator and listings layouts show the map beside a
searchable list of the collection, with its filters and cards. See
Place layouts.
Kits
Four collection types come with a kit: a card, filters, actions and a viewer layout that work together, and a sample sheet to start from.
| Kit | Collection type | Layout | Filters | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | Stores | locator | Search, Category, Open Now | Directions, Call, Shop |
| Property | Listings | listings | Price, Beds, Baths | Schedule a Tour, Contact Agent |
| Hospitality | Venues | guide | Search, Category, Open Now | Book, Directions, Reserve |
| Location | Stops | live | Search, Open Now | Directions, Request Pickup |
The kit templates in the template builder create a map that already holds a sample collection in this shape, and write the embed code with the kit's layout. Replace the sample places with your own by importing into that collection. The sample collection counts toward your collection limit; at the limit, the map is created without it. The Location template holds sample stops and no fleet: add your vehicles in Studio's Fleet section. The Reserve and Request Pickup actions appear once your organization takes requests.
Delete a collection
Delete Collection is at the bottom of a collection. If any of your maps show the collection, Studio lists them first, and Delete Anyway deletes it anyway. Deleting a collection permanently deletes its places and its imported files. The maps that showed it keep working, without it.
When an organization is deleted, its collections are deleted with it.
Limits
| Limit | Free | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collections | 3 | 25 | Set in your agreement |
| Places in one collection | 1,000 | 25,000 | 100,000 |
| Places across all collections | 3,000 | 250,000 | Set in your agreement |
| Scheduled refresh | None: Refresh Now only | Daily at most | Hourly at most |
| Size of one file, sheet or feed | 32 MiB | 64 MiB | 64 MiB |
On every plan, a collection holds at most 100,000 places and 100 columns, and a cell holds at most 2,000 characters. A limit stops new work only: an organization above a limit keeps what it has published.
On a published map, address searches and directions are each limited to 20 a minute for one visitor and 2,000 a day for one map. They do not count toward your Kaleidr AI usage.