Event Schema for Disrupted Events and Listings’ Temporarily Closed Field for COVID-19

Google recently added some new schema properties to help with disrupted events. Our Events addon from version 2.0.0.17 now support these new properties.

We have added a new predefined field called “Event Disruption” if you have events that have been disrupted you should add this custom field. You can add this custom field under Events > Settings > Custom Fields > Predefined Fields

Adding the Field

ADVANCED NOTE: With the release of GD core 2.0.0.82 there is a new option when adding a field called “DB Default value“, this sets the value in the database for all listings when initially adding the field. It is highly recommended to leave this blank. However, if for example ALL your events have been canceled you could set this to cancelled (lower case and two L’s). It is not needed to set a value if your event is still running as normal but if you want to show a notice on each listing that it is still running as normal and be able to advanced filter events still running then you can set this to scheduled.

Adding the field is the same as all others. The options values should not be changed, these are specific for the event Schema.

Advanced Search Filtering

This field is filterable and can filter any type of disruptions. If you wish to be able to filter by “No Disruption” it is best to set the “DB Default ” value of the field to scheduled when adding the field so that all current listings inherit this status (this can also be done via export / re-import to update).

Showing an Event Status

By default, the event status will show in the archive item, details and map bubble templates.

You can also add your own badges to help inform users. A general badge to show users the status:

[gd_post_badge key="event_status" condition="is_not_empty" badge="Status: %%input%%" bg_color="#0073aa" txt_color="#ffffff" alignment="left"]

Or even status specific badges such as once for cancelled:

[gd_post_badge key="event_status" condition="is_equal" search="cancelled" icon_class="fas fa-exclamation-circle" badge="%%input%%" bg_color="#ff0000" txt_color="#ffffff" alignment="left"]

Schema Markup

Both the Schema properties eventStatus and eventAttendanceMode have been implemented and markup is all automatic. If your event has been moved online then the website field will be used as the event URL in the schema.

The setting are explained to users when adding/editing a listing, but for reference;

• Cancelled – Set this when the event is cancelled.
• Postponed – If the event has been postponed to a later date, but the date isn’t known yet
• Rescheduled – If the event date has been changed from the original.
• Moved Online – If the event has been moved online, in this case the website URL will be used as the event attendance URL.

New features to manage the COVID-19 emergency

With the continuing world Covid-19 crisis, we are adding features to help directory owners. GeoDirectory 2.0.0.82 included new Google schemas for Event disruption and a pre-defined field to let event owners set a disruption status. Below we will go over two of the main features in this version:

Temporarily Closed Field

In your custom post type (CPT) settings page under custom fields, you will see a new pre-defined custom field called “Temporarily Closed” this field will;

• Dynamically set all business hours to closed. This means you can leave the current business hours as is and on the frontend, they will display as closed and the schema data will also show closed.
• Using the GD Notifications widget which is placed on the details page by default, this will show a message in a warning box stating that the business is closed. You can customize the message shown by editing the “placeholder” text in the custom field, %s can be used to show the CPT name. eg: “This %s is closed due to Government guidelines regarding Covid-19” the %s will be replaced with the CPT name.

As suggested in the Event disruption examples, this field can be used to filter businesses to show closed ones last or used to show custom badges.

150 New Schema Types

Note: Schema data is embedded data on your webpage that search engines can read to know specific information about a post. For example, when you see a rating or a price in a google search, this data is from schema data on the page.

Google recently added the new schema type CovidTestingFacility which can be used to list a Covid-19 testing center. We decided now was a good time to refresh our list of schema types. Our old list of 93 schemas was hand-picked to be most relevant to a directory. Now many years later, some new ones have been added and some are more fitting. We have also converted the select field into a search field so its easier to search the 243 schema types.