Overview
Pathways is Pladia Empower's advanced wayfinding feature, designed to make it easy for visitors to find their way through your Venue. By creating a Pathway that establishes all possible routes throughout your facility, you enable step-by-step directions that reflect your layout.
Pathways helps visitors navigate confidently from point A to point B. Since this solution is browser-based and hardware-free, you don't need costly beacons or GPS networks to guide visitors. Instead, the visitor tells the PWA their current location (Point A) by scanning a nearby Object or searching for a nearbt Space or Object.
Dive Deeper: This article focuses on setting up Pathways in the Empower Console. If you're curious how visitors use them in the Empower PWA, learn more about the Pathways visitor experience
Before You Begin
Before creating your Pathways, you will need to set up the spatial foundations of your Venue in the Console. This ensures that your Pathway is aligned with your content and structure.
Make sure the following are in place:
Venue, Buildings, and Levels – Your venue’s layout should be fully defined.
Spaces – All public-facing rooms or areas should be added as Spaces. This is critical, as directions will be provided from Space to Space.
Maps – Upload a floorplan for each level, making sure maps are aligned across floors. This supports accurate Pathway creation.
Objects – Place any Objects you want visitors to receive directions to directly on the map within the appropriate Space.
Create a New Pathway
Navigate to Pathways from the left-hand menu in the Console.
Click the New Pathway button. This will open the Pathways tool.
Give your Pathway a clear name that reflects the venue or layout it covers.
If your venue includes multiple buildings or levels, use the Building Selector and select the desired level.
Click Start Drawing Path to enable Drawing Mode. Each click on your map will place a new node.
Begin drawing your path by clicking on the point where you want your pathway to begin. We recommend beginning near a main entrance.
Once you place a node, adjust the Accessibility settings. Wheelchair Accessible routes are currently supported in the PWA.
Tip: If you find it tricky to turn Drawing Mode on and off or are making unintentional connections often, try holding down the ⌘ (Command) key on your keyboard while drawing. Release the key when you're done placing nodes to avoid unintentional connections.
Advanced Path Drawing
Continue drawing: Add nodes at each point where the direction changes, like turns or intersections.
Set Directionality: Set path directionality using the Connections dropdown. To limit movement to one direction—such as along a one-way corridor—open the dropdown and choose which direction is allowed.
Mark Level Transitions: If a node represents a staircase, elevator, or other connector between levels, use the Level Transition dropdown to indicate the levels this connection applies to. This ensures accurate, multi-level directions.
Work Level-by-Level: Draw all possible visitor paths on each level. Use level transition nodes (which appear on multiple levels) as anchor points to connect adjacent floors.
Placement Accuracy: Place nodes at room entry and exit points to improve routing accuracy. We recommend placing a node just inside the room’s entrance and a node just outside the room’s exit.
Connecting Your Pathway To Your PWA
Navigate to App Settings from the left-hand menu in the Console.
In the Details tab, scroll down to the Maps section.
Click the + button to add your Pathway.
Click Publish to save your changes.
Confirm Your Changes
Once you complete the release process for your Pathway, it will be live and the Empower PWA can use it to give visitors clear, step-by-step directions.
For your directions to work correctly, all destination points—whether an Object, Space, POI, or Tour—must also be Published and Released via the Releases page.
You're all set! Contact Customer Success if you have any further questions.