Working with Locations

Locations are names of places to which you assign one or more access points.

When a badge connects to an access point, the Vocera Voice Server is able to report the corresponding location. The location names also appear in the Badge Status Monitor, replacing the MAC address of the access point.

The Locate, Where Is?, and Where Am I? voice commands allow users to find the physical location of a particular user or member of a group within a site. If you configure locations for your system, the Genie can respond with information about a user’s whereabouts (“Roswell Adams is near the First Floor Cafeteria,” for example). If you do not configure locations, the Genie will answer with the MAC address of the access point instead, which is not useful to most badge users (“Lucy Crysek is near access point zero zero four zero nine six four five B D four E,” for example).

Important: By default, every access point on your network is associated with the Global site. If your deployment implements multiple sites, assign a location name to each access point and associate each of these locations with a site. Otherwise, the Vocera Voice Server always thinks that the Global site is your current site.

To configure locations, it is important that you:

After you create locations, you can define adjacent or nearby locations as Neighbors. When a user issues a command to locate the nearest group member, the Vocera Voice Server searches only the current location of the requester, plus the locations you have defined as neighbors. Thus, the system uses neighbors to determine who is nearest to a particular location.

However, the badge, like other wireless devices, does not always associate with the access point that is physically closest. Depending upon building construction, a badge can associate with an access point situated on a different floor. The badge can only offer approximate user locations; consequently, general location names may be more useful than specific ones.