Overview
The Enable Buildings setting activates the Buildings feature in Classter, allowing institutions to define an additional level of organizational structure beneath their main Locations.
A Location represents the primary physical or organizational division of your institution — for example, a campus, a school, a city office, or a faculty. A Building is an optional sub-division within that Location — for example, a specific block, wing, annex, or facility that sits within the main site.
This setting is disabled by default. When it is turned on, Building management options appear throughout the system and an extra layer of classification becomes available in areas such as classrooms, staff profiles, timetables, sessions, grading, and inventory.
Setting details:
Setting ID: Enable_SubLocations
Display label: Enable Buildings
Type: Yes / No (checkbox)
Scope: Per institution (company); not period-specific
Module: Core
Navigation path: Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Building Settings
What This Setting Does
When Enable Buildings is turned on, Classter activates a second tier within the Location hierarchy called Buildings. Staff members responsible for configuration can then create named Buildings and link them to one or more Locations.
Once Buildings are active, relevant forms and lists throughout the application display a Building field or filter so that users can associate records more precisely with a physical area inside the main site.
When Enable Buildings is turned off, all Building-related fields are hidden. The system operates with Locations as the only physical organizational level, and no Building data is presented or required.
Where It Is Used
When this setting is enabled, Building fields and filters appear in the following areas of Classter:
Locations — A Building section appears on the Location record. Administrators can assign one or more Buildings to each Location directly from the Location form.
Grades (Programs) — The system uses a triple connection: Location — Building — Grade. Each Grade can be linked to a specific Building within its Location.
Grade Levels — Grade Levels can be associated with one or more Buildings to indicate the physical area where teaching for that level takes place.
Classrooms — Every Classroom must be assigned to a single Building. The list of available Buildings is automatically filtered by the Classroom’s Location. Classrooms can also be browsed and filtered by Location or Building.
Teachers and Employees — Staff profiles include a Building assignment field, allowing the institution to record the Building where a teacher or employee is primarily based.
Sessions and Timetable — The session list and timetable views provide a Building filter so users can browse sessions by the Building where they are held.
Term Grades — Grade entry and reporting pages include Building information for contextual filtering.
Groups — Group forms and lists can be filtered by Building.
Financial Management — Financial documents and lists can be filtered by Building.
Inventory — Inventory items can be assigned to one or more Buildings. This helps track shared assets across different areas.
Library — The library module uses Building assignment for classification and filtering.
HR Management — HR records reference Buildings when they apply to staff assignments.
Admission — When the admission-specific Building filter is also enabled, applicants can view and select a Building during the online admission process.
Signature Templates and Documents — Document generation can reference the Building associated with a student or group record.
Business Logic / Behavior
Classter organizes physical structure in two tiers when this setting is active:
Location (first tier) > Building (second tier)
This two-level structure threads through academic and administrative data. For example, a Classroom does not belong directly to a Location; it belongs to a Building, which in turn belongs to a Location. The system always resolves the chain upward when generating reports or applying filters.
Building-to-Location relationship
By default, each Building belongs to one Location only. A companion setting controls whether a Building can be shared across multiple Locations. See Section 7 (Notes) for details on that related setting.
Classroom assignment is mandatory when Buildings are enabled
Once Enable Buildings is turned on, every Classroom record in the system must be assigned to a Building. This is enforced by the system. The available Buildings in the Classroom form are automatically narrowed down to only those Buildings that belong to the Classroom’s selected Location.
Grade triple-connection (Location — Building — Grade)
When Buildings are active, the system links each Grade to both a Location and a Building. If the Location is removed from a Grade, the Building mapping for that Grade is also automatically removed.
Filters throughout the system
Building-based filters become available in many list views (sessions, absences, financial records, HR records, inventory, etc.) as soon as this setting is enabled. If it is disabled, those filters do not appear and users see only Location-level filtering.
K-12 vs Higher Education mode
The Enable Buildings setting works the same way in both K-12 mode and Higher Education mode. There is no functional difference in what the setting does between the two operating modes.
The only visible difference is in terminology. In Higher Education mode, the system’s Locations are often labelled with institution-specific names such as Faculties or Departments. As a result, terms like ‘Allow a Building to be added to multiple Locations’ may appear with the institution’s own Location label (for example, ‘Allow a Building to be added to multiple Faculties’) rather than the generic word ‘Locations’. The feature and its rules remain identical in both modes.
Scope and configuration level
This setting is configured per institution (company). It does not vary by academic period, user account, or user role. When enabled for an institution, the Buildings feature is active for all users of that institution.
Example
Example — Secondary school with multiple buildings on a single campus
Greenhill Academy operates as a single institution on one campus (one Location: ‘Greenhill Campus’). The campus has three separate buildings: the Main Block, the Science Wing, and the Sports and Arts Centre. The administration team wants to track which building each classroom is in, so that timetable coordinators and teachers can immediately see where a session is being held.
Before enabling the setting:
All classrooms are listed without any building reference.
The timetable shows room names only, with no way to filter by building.
Staff records have no building assignment field.
After enabling the setting and creating the three Buildings:
Each classroom is assigned to its building (e.g., Room 101 → Main Block, Lab 3 → Science Wing).
In the timetable, coordinators can filter sessions by building and immediately identify all sessions scheduled in the Science Wing on a given day.
Teachers’ profiles show the building they are primarily based in.
Inventory items such as projectors can be assigned to a specific building, making it easier to locate shared equipment.
Grade 10 Science is linked to the triple connection: Greenhill Campus — Science Wing — Grade 10 Science, making it clear where that grade’s sessions take place.
Example — Higher Education institution with shared facilities
Northgate University has two Faculties (Locations): the Faculty of Business and the Faculty of Engineering. Both faculties share a common Library Building and a Conference Centre Building. In addition, each faculty has its own dedicated building.
By enabling Buildings and also enabling the companion setting ‘Allow a Building to be added to multiple Locations’, the administrator can:
Assign ‘Library Building’ to both the Faculty of Business and the Faculty of Engineering.
Assign ‘Conference Centre’ to both faculties.
Assign ‘Alderton House’ only to the Faculty of Business.
Assign ‘Fletcher Hall’ only to the Faculty of Engineering.
Staff, classrooms, and inventory items can then be assigned to their exact building, and any list or report in Classter can be filtered by building, giving the administrative team a granular view of resources across the institution.
When to Use
When to enable:
Your institution occupies more than one building, wing, or physically distinct area within a Location, and you need to distinguish between them in day-to-day operations.
Timetable coordinators need to know which building a classroom is in when scheduling sessions.
You manage shared facilities (e.g., a laboratory or sports hall) that are used by multiple different academic divisions, and you want to track asset and room assignment at the building level.
Staff records need to reflect a primary base within the campus for reporting or communication purposes.
You want to filter lists, reports, or financial records by a physical sub-area of your institution.
When to disable (or leave disabled):
Your institution operates from a single building or a single open-plan site and a further sub-division would add no practical value.
You have only one Location and all classrooms and staff already belong clearly to that Location with no need for finer grouping.
You prefer a simpler configuration and the additional Building field in forms would cause confusion for your staff.
Notes
Related settings
The following settings are directly related to Enable Buildings:
Allow a Building to be added to multiple Locations (Main Settings > General Settings > Basic Customization > Building Settings — Allow_SubLocations_To_Be_Added_To_Multiple_Locations)
This setting is in the same settings group as Enable Buildings. When set to Yes, a single Building can be assigned to more than one Location. This is useful for institutions with shared facilities that serve multiple campuses, faculties, or schools. When set to No (the default), each Building can only belong to one Location.
Enable Buildings filter in Admission (Admission / Admission Settings / Application Management — Admission_Enable_SubLocations_Filter)
When this admission-specific setting is also turned on, and Enable Buildings is active, the online admission form presents an additional Building selection step to applicants, allowing them to indicate or choose their preferred Building within a Location.
Prerequisites
Before enabling this setting, ensure the following is in place:
At least one Location must already be configured in Main Settings > Locations. Buildings are always linked to one or more existing Locations, so Locations must exist first.
After enabling the setting, go to Main Settings > Dropdown Lists > System and Buildings to create the Building records that will be used across the system.
If Classrooms already exist before Buildings are enabled, review and update each Classroom record to assign the appropriate Building, as the Building field becomes required once the setting is active.
Terminology note
Classter uses configurable terminology. The word ‘Building’ is the default label for a SubLocation. Your institution may have renamed this entity to another term such as ‘Branch’, ‘Annex’, ‘Wing’, ‘Department’, or another custom label. The setting behaviour described in this article is the same regardless of the label your institution uses. Similarly, ‘Location’ may appear in your system as ‘Campus’, ‘Faculty’, ‘School’, ‘City’, or another customised term.
Impact on existing data
Enabling this setting does not delete or change any existing data. It only makes new Building-related fields visible in forms and lists. Existing records that predate the activation of Buildings will not automatically have a Building assigned; these should be reviewed and updated as needed by the relevant administrators.
Disabling the setting after it has been used
If the setting is turned off after Buildings have already been configured and linked to records, the Building fields and filters will be hidden from the interface. The underlying associations in the data are retained and will reappear if the setting is re-enabled. It is advisable to consult with your Classter system administrator before disabling this setting if Buildings are already in active use across the institution.
