News

New Location Import Interface

Store Locator Plus® continues to upgrade the outdated 2002 style PHP interfaces that were inherited with our WordPress framework to modern React interfaces. Our latest updates focus on replace the mix of old JavaScript and PHP code on the Location Import interface.

Updated locations import interface

Separate Upload / Import Progress Meters

The new interface has a clear separation between the file upload process with its own progress meter and the import processing. The import is designed to separate the file upload process from the file import process. The import process is asynchronous, which means the user can go to other parts of the app to continue working, then come back at any time to the import page and see how their location imports is progressing.

Updated import progres meter.

Sidebar: For smaller files with a couple of hundred of locations this may not seem important. For our customers that are uploading files with 35,000+ locations it is critical that the file upload process is distinct from the processing of the file. While uploads that large can take up to an hour, depending on the user’s connection speed, the import is more challenging. For our customers that do not use our SaaS platform, they can be running on slower smaller web hosting platforms. Importing 35,000 locations will break those servers as they run out of memory or “time out” during the 2-3 hour import process (our SaaS servers are far larger and faster than most self-WordPress sites; if you are doing large location imports you may want to switch to our SaaS platform). The Store Locator Plus® import process manages this by detecting pending timeout issues and keeps track of the current line being imported. If a timeout is imminent the import will stop on the last record processed and queue up a new import request to pick up the process where it left off. That allows the memory and processor to “take a breath” – preventing server crashes and getting those large import files fully loaded without additional user intervention.

Remote File Imports

Remote file location import interface

Remote file imports allow user to load CSV files that are hosted on a different server. This is often used for companies with a separate CMS or inventory management system that exports their locations on a nightly basis to a private URL. The remote file imports can be setup to read those remote files on a regular basis, keeping the list of locations in Store Locator Plus® in sync with external services.

This section now has its own interaction panel with related messages and processing details.

Recent Uploads – new feature

Recent location import files

A new Recent Uploads section allows users to see the list of recent CSV file imports. From here the files can be re-imported (without uploading), downloaded, viewed, or deleted.

Viewing the file shows the details of the most recent import as well as a summary of the first 20 records in the file. To view the complete file, the user can download the CSV file.

Uploaded location file details.

CSV Processing Settings

The shared CSV processing settings are shared between the uploaded CSV, remote processing, and re-import actions. The setting can be accessed via the settings icon on the top right of the Import panel.

Location Import Settings

Load Locations From WordPress

This feature is now part of the Professional and Enterprise accounts and is included in the Import tab as a new section.

This feature allows users to load locations from a WordPress site they own that has the Store Locator Plus® plugin installed.

New Location Cards View

Location Cards Filter

Our August 2026 user experience updates continue for Store Locator Plus® with a new Cards viewing mode for Locations. The Cards view provides a vertical scrolling column of location cards. This provides a quick view of the location data alongside a map preview to help ensure the location is where you expect it to be.

This feature replaces the SaaS-only Card listing that was in need of a refresh. We opted to include this in the WordPress plugin as well, but be aware this view can use up Google API charges when viewing this mode for users of the WordPress plugin. For the SaaS users, there are no additional charges.

Location Cards Features

  • Filter Locations
    The location cards view provides a filter interface that allows for stacked filter selections to limit the cards that are displayed.
  • Search Locations
    The search feature is a multi-field text search that matches full or partial text across multiple location fields.

Both feature mimic the functionality of the new Location List table view that went into production last month.

Location Cards Fitler

Getting the Location Cards

Store Locator Plus® SaaS users will automatically see the new Cards view under the Locations page later this month.

WordPress plugin users will need to update to the latest Store Locator Plus® plugin. Look for the plugin version at or above v2608.04.XX for this new feature. If you’ve not updated the plugin recently you may need to update any associated add on plugins including Power, Experience, and Premier plugins. Keep in mind that all plugins require your WordPress server to be running PHP 8.2 or higher.

A New Location Management Interface

Our user interface overhaul of Store Locator Plus® continues with a new location management interface. We’ve finally replaced the 1980s style location management interface Store Locator Plus® inherited from WordPress. The old PHP, HTML, and JavaScript table has been replaced with a modern React alternative. The new location management interface comes with all kinds of new ways to organize, sort, and filter your existing location data.

The new location management interface is available for both our WordPress and our SaaS users. SaaS users don’t need to do anything to get the new updates, they will be available next time you login to your SaaS account. WordPress users will need to upgrade their existing plugins to the latest release to get these new features.

Filter Locations

Complex location filters coming in the August 2026 release of SLP.

Complex filters can be built on locations. All of the filters we had with the previous filters drop down menu are still available, plus dozens of additional options.

The filters apply across the entire data set with response times that are vastly improved over the prior versions. Large sets of locations can now be filtered with ease.

Built a wide variety of logic combinations for any location data field.

Data matching options include:

  • contains | does not contain
  • equals | does not equal
  • starts with
  • ends with
  • is empty | is not empty
  • is any of

All fields can be combined with AND or OR logic to display specific locatio

Improved Quick Search

The revised quick search feature.
Searching across all fields for the 2059 text (found it in the latitude field in this example).

We’ve completely retooled the quick search feature in the new location management interface..

It still searches across multiple fields, but it now searches across all text fields in the location set not only the name and primary address fields. And it is fast. Much faster than past iterations.

Change The Column Layout

A menu of new column layouts.
The name column pinned to the left, the other data scrolls under it.

A myriad of options are now available for how you see your data on the locations list.

  • Sort columns in any combination.
  • Drag columns to reorder them.
  • Pin columns to the left or right of the table.
  • Hide columns.

The best part is Store Locator Plus® remembers your customization between sessions. No more re-sorting or changing column layouts every time you log back in or visit a different page. We’ve added a notification with an easy reset button in case you ever need to quickly get back to the default 

Change The Row Density

Row density options.

While more row management options (like grouping, ordering, etc.) are coming – for now we’ve given the basic option to set the height of the display with several row density options available: Compact, Standard, and Comfortable.