Creating a location or opening an existing location is the first task to perform in the Design Explorer view, because a location gives you access to the instances involved in the design of your application. The location concept can then be related to the database concept
The newly created location is displayed in your Design Explorer view. Clicking it reveals the entity branches, with no instance. There are various ways of loading instances into the location.
For explanations, see Loading the local workspace.
To open another location, right-click the line which represents the location and select Open.