Search By Date Row
Last updated: October 5, 2023
Starting October 2023, we renamed our Activity Search row to Search By Date. The name change matches the name of the row to the feature’s functionality.
Setting Up
Log into the wordpress admin and go to a page you would like to add Search By Date to.
Click ‘Add Row’ and select ‘Search By Date’
-If you update the page at this point, you will get the default version of Search By Date on the front end of your page. It’s already working! Continue on for options to fit your particular page and site.
Add an ‘Search By Date Title.’ Note – text in this field will follow Global Heading settings.
Add ‘Sub Heading Text.’
-This is a great place to give the user some instructions or describe what search by date does. “Pick a date range to view live availabilities,” or “See what tours are available during your visit to Rome.”
Add a ‘No Results Message.’
-Encourage the user to do another search or find an activity on the site a different way.
Select taxonomies for the ‘Front End Filter’ to select optional taxonomies for front-end users to filter their search by. Each taxonomy will have a corresponding dropdown with optional terms to filter on. Note – A single taxonomy will show as a dropdown in the search by date bar; multiple taxonomies will show in a filter bar at the bottom of the search by date bar.
Use ‘Searchable Activities Filter’ to scope the activities the search can pull from to narrow down the possible search results (i.e. only activities in a single language, only activities bookable online, etc.). Filtering by Taxonomy Terms will also affect the options a front-end user sees in the ‘Front End Filter.’
-‘All Activities’ will allow all activities with availability to appear in the search results.
-Use ‘Filter by Taxonomy Terms’ and then hit the ‘x’ next to taxonomy terms to exclude activities with that term from the search results, or select terms from the dropdown to add them back to the search results. Note – Each activity should have at least one term selected for each taxonomy, otherwise it will not appear in any ‘Filter by Taxonomy Terms’ search.
-Use ‘Manual Selection’ to add each activity that you wish to include in the scope of the search from the ‘Manually Select Searchable Activities’ dropdown.
Switch to the ‘Display Options’ tab.
Select Search By Date Display Options.
-Check “Show 3 days of availability on page load” to show results without requiring a search. The start date is determined by the first button: usually today, tomorrow, or this weekend.
-To show call to book availabilities, check the box next to “Show call to book availabilities in search results.” Note – By default, Activities that are set to call to book, or only have call to book availabilities during the search dates, will not appear in the search results. In other words, only availabilities that can be booked online will appear.
-Check “Display a grid of searchable activities” to show a grid of activities on load. This is a grid of activities, not availabilities.
-Check “Hide the “Learn More” button on activities.” to hide learn more buttons. Note – clicking anywhere on the activity card aside from the book now button will still take you to the activity page, but only the learn more button will open the activity page in a new tab (so that the search results are not lost)
-Check “Hide the “Book Now” button on activities.” to force users to look at the activity page. This is not the intended use of Search By Date and should be used sparingly. Note – Call to book buttons will also be hidden if this checkbox is checked.
-Check “Show results in list view” to convert the grid into a list.
-Select “Show multiple availabilities as individual times” to add buttons with the times of the availabilities. This is great for activities with multiple availabilities in one day because these buttons will lightframe directly into an availability instead of a calendar list of availabilities. Note – When you select this option, you will also see the option to show both start AND end times, or to show public headlines (from the dashboard) instead of times on the buttons. The latter will be most useful for lodging activities.
Under “Quick Search Buttons” select up to 3 buttons from the list, including “Today,” “Tomorrow,” “This Week,” “This Weekend,” “This Month,” and any date ranges defined in Company settings. Note – By default, Search By Date Row will show the “Today,” “This Week,” and “This Month” buttons. Be sure to check the dash and coordinate with the AM to make sure that the buttons you choose produce a good amount of availabilities.
Add a background and Custom Classes and IDs as you would on other rows.
Using the Front End
A default SearchBar might look like this:
Note the following:
“ACTIVITIES” will be replaced with the ‘Activities Label’ in Activity Settings.
The button color is pulled from the primary color
Button roundness will follow ‘Corner Rounding’ settings in Styles.
The “TODAY,” “THIS WEEK,” and “THIS MONTH” buttons will show results upon clicking them. If you use the date picker, however, you must pick a start date and an end date, click apply, and click search to show results.
Note – the start date and end date can be the same to only search one day.
Search By Date will show a maximum of three days of availabilities at a time. If the search included more than three days, use the page changer at the bottom of the results to see more dates.
Note – the page changer color pulls from the secondary color.
When on the last page of results, the right arrow will become a ‘+’. Clicking the ‘+’ will load three more days of availabilities to the end of your search.
Best Practices for Search By Date Row
This Row is more in sync with the Dash than anything else on FareHarbor Sites up to this point. That means you will need to be more aware of how the dash is set up and how your search results will be affected by the dash items as well as WP settings.
Item and Flow IDs
Ideally, each activity page would only have one ID. This will yield the best lightframe results (You open directly into an availability or a date with multiple availabilities).
Otherwise, activities with multiple IDs will lightframe into a booking flow calendar and the user will have to reselect the date and specific activity they want to book into.
Please also note that a default booking flow in the dash will override any calendar with multiple items and any booking flow IDs listed in the back end of the activity. If it is necessary to use multiple item IDs on one activity page, communicate with the AM about the default booking flow in the dash.
Results
Search By Date will produce the best results on sites with lots of activities and lots of availabilities. If you decide to use Search By Date on your site, try a few searches and see if you are getting valuable results. If you are getting lots of No Result Messages, or are getting the same result for each day, the Search By Date is likely more distracting than helpful on your site.
By default, Search By Date will not show activities with only ‘call to book’ availabilities, so if most activities are call to book, it will not yield a lot of results. If you have to show ‘call to book’ availabilities to get results, then reconsider using Search By Date. Remember our goal is to get people to book online, saving clients’ time and producing booking fees.