Concepts

These are the nouns DropAFinder uses everywhere. Read this once and the rest of the documentation reads faster.

The hierarchy in one diagram

Account                             "your DropAFinder login"
  └── Workspace(s)                  "tenant container"
        ├── Locations               "individual points on a map"
        ├── Categories              "named groupings of Locations within a Finder"
        ├── Tags                    "free-form labels on Locations"
        ├── Custom Fields           "typed attributes on every Location"
        └── Finders                 "embeddable widgets backed by Locations"

Free, Base, and Growth accounts have one implicit Workspace; Professional and Enterprise accounts can have several. Everything else lives inside a Workspace.

The vocabulary

Workspace

A container for everything you build. On Free, Base, and Growth plans, you get one Workspace and don’t really need to think about it. On Professional and Enterprise plans, you can have several — useful if you manage finders for multiple brands, clients, or business units. See Workspaces.

Location

A single point on the map. A Location has an address, a coordinate pair, optional contact info (phone, website), an optional image, free-form tags, and any Custom Field values you’ve defined for the Workspace. This is the data backbone — finders show Locations.

Finder

A configured embeddable widget. A Finder is the thing you copy a <script> snippet for and paste into your website. Each Finder has:

• A public token (the “finder key”) that identifies it to the embed
• A design (theme, typography, layout, language)
• A set of Locations (attached directly or via Categories) that supply the location list
• A field layout (configured via the Field Composer) that controls what data appears on each location card
• Refinements (filters/facets visitors interact with)
• Authorized URLs (origin allowlist)

You can have many Finders backed by the same data, each with its own appearance — for example, a “near me” finder for your homepage and a more detailed “all stores” finder for a dedicated page.

Category

A named grouping of Locations within a Finder. Categories let you segment your location dataset into logical buckets — for example, “Restaurants,” “Hotels,” and “Attractions” within a travel finder. A Location can belong to multiple Categories. Categories are Workspace-scoped, so the same Category can be reused across Finders. See Categories.

Tag

A free-form, Workspace-scoped label applied to Locations. Tags have a slug auto-generated from their name. Tags can power refinements — a “filter by tag” facet on the visitor side.

Custom Field

A Workspace-level definition that adds a typed attribute to every Location. Where Tags are free-form labels, Custom Fields are structured: each definition has a name and a type, and every Location can carry a value for it. Use Custom Fields when you want refinement filters or per-Location detail views built around consistent data.

Supported types: text, textarea, number, select, url, email, image.

Field Composer

The no-code tool inside the Finder Builder for choosing which fields appear on location cards and where. Fields — both built-in (address, phone, distance) and any Custom Fields you’ve defined — are placed into six zones on the card: Header Left, Header Right, Body Left, Body Right, Footer Left, Footer Right. Each field can be toggled on or off, reordered within its zone, and configured with display options specific to its type. Field Composer is available on eligible plan tiers. See Field Composer.

Refinement

A filter or facet shown to visitors using the embedded finder. Refinements include built-in options (radius from current location, country, tag) and Custom-Field-driven options (e.g., a select field for store type, a URL field for booking links).

Authorized URL

A domain on the allowlist for embedding a Finder. The widget refuses to render on origins not in the list. You configure this from the Finder Builder’s Launch section. Add your production domain plus any staging environments.

Finder key

The public token in the embed snippet’s finder-key attribute. It identifies which Finder the widget should load. The key is intentionally public — it grants read access to one Finder’s design and Locations and the ability to post analytics events for that Finder. It does not grant write access or access to other Finders.

Process

Long-running jobs (CSV imports, AI Imports, AI Improvements) are tracked as Processes. The dashboard’s job tray and progress indicators read from these.

Concept relationships at a glance

Where to next

• Build your first finder: Create your account
• Tour the editor: Finder Builder
• Bulk-load data: Add locations