Multi Campus Admin Guide

Multi-Campus Admin Guide

Proclaim's Location System lets a single installation serve multiple campuses or congregations. Each campus is represented by a Location record, and content (messages, series, podcasts, servers) is tagged with a location so that campus-specific admin users see only their own data.

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Quick Start (7 Steps)

1. Enable the feature — Admin Center → Advanced tab → enable Location Filtering
2. Create locations — Admin → Locations → New (one per campus)
3. Create user groups — Joomla → System → User Groups — e.g. "Campus A Staff", "Campus B Staff"
4. Run the setup wizard — the CPanel dashboard shows a prompt when the feature is enabled but not configured yet; click Run Setup Wizard
5. Map groups to locations in the wizard
6. Assign location to existing content — edit messages/series/podcasts and set the Location field
7. Test — log in as a campus-level user and verify you see only that campus's content

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Understanding the Three-Source Access Model

When Proclaim determines which locations a user can access, it unions three sources:

Source	Description
Group Locations	Locations mapped to the user's Joomla groups in the setup wizard
Teacher Locations	Locations derived from linked teacher records (planned for a future release)
Unrestricted Locations	Locations that have no group mapping — visible to all authenticated users

Super administrators always see all locations regardless of mapping.

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Component Configuration

Go to Admin Center → Advanced tab:

Setting	Description
Location Filtering	Master on/off switch for the entire location system
Location Group Mapping	JSON config managed by the setup wizard; maps location IDs to Joomla group IDs

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Creating and Managing Locations

Navigate to Components → Proclaim → Locations.

Each location record has:

• Location Name — Display name (e.g. "Downtown Campus")
• Published — Unpublished locations are hidden from all dropdowns
• Access — Standard Joomla access level (independent of the location system)

Tip: Unpublishing a location hides it from dropdowns but does not remove content associations. Re-publish to restore visibility.

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Assigning Group Mappings via the Wizard

The setup wizard (Admin Center → Run Setup Wizard) presents a form where you select a Joomla user group for each location. Save to write the mapping to component parameters.

To re-run the wizard at any time, navigate to Admin → Location Wizard directly, or click the CPanel prompt (shown when the mapping is empty).

To dismiss the CPanel prompt without configuring mappings, click Dismiss in the wizard — this sets a location_system_dismissed flag in component params.

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Understanding Location vs. Access Level

These are two independent mechanisms that can be used together:

Field	Purpose
Access Level	Standard Joomla visibility — controls whether anonymous, registered, or specific view-level users can see content on the frontend
Location	Campus isolation — controls which admin users can see and edit the record in the backend

For most multi-campus deployments, set Access Level = Public (or a suitable registered level) and rely on Location for backend campus isolation.

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Server Location Support

Servers (media hosting providers) can also be assigned a location:

• No location (shared) — the server appears in server dropdowns for all campus users
• Specific location — only users at that campus see the server when adding media files

Set the location on a server record in Admin → Servers → Edit.

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Assigning Location to Content

Location fields appear on the edit forms for:

• Messages
• Series
• Podcasts
• Servers

Select the appropriate campus from the Location dropdown. Leave it blank to make content visible to all campuses.

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Common Tasks

Adding a New Campus

1. Create the location record (Admin → Locations → New)
2. Create a Joomla user group for the new campus
3. Go to the setup wizard and add the new group → location mapping
4. Create users and assign them to the new group

Restricting Existing Content to a Campus

1. Open the content list (e.g. Messages)
2. Use the Location filter dropdown to find unassigned records
3. Select records → Batch → Set Location

Batch-Updating Locations via CSV

The CSV Import tool (Admin Center → CSV Import) accepts a location column. Enter the location name exactly as it appears in the admin list. If the name doesn't match any existing location, the row is imported without a location assignment.

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Module Location Filtering

The mod_proclaim module has three location-filtering modes:

Mode	Description
All Locations	No location filtering (default)
Specific Location	Always shows content from one selected campus
Current User's Locations	Dynamically shows content the visitor is authorized to see (requires the location system to be enabled)

Configure these in the module's Filters tab.

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Smart Search Integration

When the Smart Search Finder plugin is enabled and content is indexed, location names are indexed as a Location taxonomy. Visitors can filter Smart Search results by campus using the taxonomy sidebar.

Reindex content after assigning locations: Admin → Smart Search → Index.

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Troubleshooting

A user can't see any messages:

• Verify their user group is mapped to at least one location in the setup wizard
• Check that the messages themselves have a location assigned
• Check that the location is published

A user sees content from another campus:

• Confirm location filtering is enabled in Admin Center → Advanced
• Verify the group-to-location mapping is saved (re-run the wizard)
• Super administrators always see everything — test with a non-super-admin account

The CPanel wizard prompt won't go away:

• It appears whenever filtering is enabled AND the mapping is empty AND it hasn't been dismissed
• Run the wizard and save a mapping, or click Dismiss

Empty admin lists show a "No locations accessible" warning:

• The logged-in user's groups are not mapped to any location
• Ask a super admin to update the mapping in the setup wizard

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Best Practices

• One group per campus — create a dedicated Joomla group (e.g. "Campus A Staff") rather than repurposing existing groups
• Leave shared content unassigned — content with no location is visible to all campus users
• Use unrestricted locations sparingly — any location with no group mapping is visible to all authenticated users
• Test after mapping changes — log in as a campus user after editing the wizard to confirm the right content is visible
• Keep location names short — they appear in dropdown menus throughout the admin