Item Locations
Track where evidence and storage items are physically located and use locations throughout intake and chain of custody workflows.
Item Locations allows you to keep track of where you are physically storing items in your lab and keep that record associated with your evidence and storage items in Monolith. When you assign a location to an evidence or storage item, Monolith tracks where that item sits and updates it automatically as the item moves through the chain of custody process.
Offices and Item Locations
Item Locations are organized by Office.
Each Office can maintain its own Team location, Location Groups, and individual locations to reflect how evidence and storage items are handled at that facility.
If your organization has multiple offices, use the Office selector at the top of Item Locations to switch between their location structures.
See Offices for information about creating and managing Offices in Monolith.
View your item locations
In the left-hand navigation, open Evidence Management.
Click Item Locations.
This page shows the locations configured for the selected Office. If your organization has multiple Offices, use the Office selector at the top of the page to switch between their location structures.
How locations are organized
Item Locations uses a simple hierarchy so you can recreate your physical storage in Monolith and get a digital picture of where everything is:
Item Locations is the overall section.
A Group represents a physical storage area, such as a long-term storage room or evidence locker.
Inside a group, each individual location appears as a tile. Tiles map to the rows, shelves, bins, or however else you organize that space in reality.
Switching views
You can view your item locations in two ways, using the view toggle near the top of the page:
Tiles is the default view. It shows each group with its locations laid out as tiles, giving you a visual picture of your storage.
Grid shows the same locations in a table, with columns for type, office, and the number of evidence and storage items in each. This is useful for scanning details across all of your locations at once.
Team locations
Alongside any Location Groups you create, each Office has a Team location that Monolith creates automatically.
The Team location is populated with users assigned to that Office through Organization > Team Management.
You cannot create a Team location using Create Group, but you can rename the existing Team location.
You can assign evidence and storage items to a user within the Team location. When you do, the Current Location shows that user's name, and the Location Path identifies the Office, Team location, and user.
In Grid view, the Type column identifies whether a location belongs to a Group or the Team location.
See Team Management for information about assigning users to Offices.
See what is stored in a location
Click any tile to open it. Monolith shows a list of everything currently stored there, including both evidence items and storage items. Use the back navigation to return to the locations view.
Assign a location to a new evidence item
You assign a location as part of the intake process when creating an evidence item.
Open the New Evidence Item window.
In the Intake Details section, find the Received By box.
Choose the location you want to assign from your set-up item locations.
Complete the rest of the intake details and save the item.
Once intake is complete, scroll down to the Evidence Overview. You will see the Current Location (for example, a specific shelf) along with the full Location Path.
Add a location to an existing item
If you open an evidence item and no location appears in the evidence details, intake has not been started for that item yet. You can assign a location by entering intake details directly from the item.
Open the evidence item and go to its Chain of Custody actions.
Click the COC Actions dropdown and select Enter Intake Details.
In the window that opens, choose a location from the dropdown in the Received By box, the same way you would for a new item.
Assign a location to a storage item
Storage items work the same way as evidence items.
Open the Storage Items tab and create a New Storage Item.
Assign one of your item locations.
Click Create Storage.
To confirm the assignment, view the storage item. In the box on the left-hand side you will see the Current Location and the Location Path, just as you do for evidence items.
Location Path and chain of custody
The Location Path gives you the full context for where an item lives. When you have multiple item locations within an office, the path shows:
the office
the group
the specific tile (for example, the shelf) where the item is stored
Any time an item moves through the chain of custody process, Monolith updates the Current Location and Location Path to reflect where that item currently sits. This applies to both evidence items and storage items. Because locations are used throughout intake and chain of custody workflows, configuring them before active evidence intake helps keep physical location information consistent.
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