Local Organizing Map

Overview

ControlShift's local organizing map shows all of your organization's events and groups in one place. We think of the local organizing map as the big front door through which your supporters can find opportunities to get involved in their local communities.   

Organizations can access their local organizing map by adding /local to their platform's URL. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local.

The local organizing map will include all of your organization's Approved listed groups and all upcoming events that have been moderated to Good. If your organization is using MobilizeAmerica or EveryAction, it's also possible to include events from those systems on ControlShift's local organizing map. 

When someone searches for their location, we'll automatically zoom the map (and filter the event list in the sidebar) to show the events and groups that are closest to their entered location. 

There are various filters available for searches. Users can choose to include only events or groups, can choose to exclude virtual events, and search for specific event types or labels from the filters list directly below the search box.

External (Ingested) Events

We want this local organizing map to serve as a single point of entry for supporters who want to get involved in the work your organization is doing. To that end, the local organizing map can also include information about your organization's events in MobilizeAmerica and/or NGPVAN/EveryAction. 

These external events will initially look like native events to your supporters. We'll include information about these events' times, dates, and locations in the sidebar listing of events. Physical events from these third-party systems will also be plotted on the map. 

When users search for their location, external events will be included in the search results and in filtered lists. These events will not appear any differently than native ControlShift events. When a user clicks to RSVP to an external event, they'll be sent to that third-party site to complete their RSVP.

To start pulling external events onto the map, follow the instructions for NGPVAN/EveryAction and MobilizeAmerica. 

URL Parameters

Admins can also add URL parameters to pre-filter the map for users. Some filters that are currently available:

• Filtering the map by calendar association by adding ?filter[calendars]=["foo"]  to the end of the URL (where foo is the slug of the calendar). For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[calendars]=["national-day-of-action-against-fracking"]
• Filtering by location by adding ?filter[location]=foo  to the end of the URL (where foo is the location parameter (a city or postcode). For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[location]=dc and https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[location]=20008
• Filtering for physical events only by adding ?filter[local_only]=true . By default, the sidebar list of events will include physical and virtual events, but adding this filter will remove virtual events. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[local_only]=true.
• Filtering to only show events by adding ?filter[types]=["event"] , which removes groups from the sidebar and map. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[types]=["event"]
• Filtering to only show groups by adding ?filter[types]=["group"] , which removes events from the sidebar and map. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[types]=["group"].
• Filtering to only show events or groups in a set geographic area by adding ?filter[geography_slugs]=foo  for supported areas. For example: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[geography_slugs]=NY or https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[geography_slugs]=NSW.

• It is also possible to combine these filters together by separating the different filters with & . For example, to show past and upcoming dc-based events in the anti-fracking calendar used above, the URL would look like: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter[upcoming_only]=false&filter[calendars]=["national-day-of-action-against-fracking"]&filter[location]=dc.

Please note: we've included the " , [ , and ]  in these examples for ease of readability. However, the punctuation will often become HTML-ified when shared. For example, the final example link becomes: https://demo.controlshiftlabs.com/local?filter%5Bupcoming_only%5D=false&filter%5Bcalendars%5D=%5B%22national-day-of-action-against-fracking%22%5D&filter%5Blocation%5D=dc.

Embeds

In addition to sending people the local organizing map page, it's also possible to embed the map (with or without the sidebar) or just the list of events and groups  on external sites. To get started go to the org admin homepage > Settings > Local Map. From that page you can choose what should be included in the embed and copy the embed code.