An Action in schema.org represents a verb or activity that can be performed on a piece of structured data. Multiple types of actions are supported and they can all be defined with similar structured data.
Go-To Actions
If you add markup to your content with schema.org entities, you can add Go-To actions for them. For example, to make an EmailMessage
entity have a ViewAction
Go-To link, populate the email's potentialAction
property, as in the following example:
JSON-LD
< scrip
t
t
ype=
"application/ld+json"
> {
"@context"
:
"http://schema.org"
,
"@type"
:
"EmailMessage"
,
"potentialAction"
:
{
"@type"
:
"ViewAction"
,
"target"
:
"https://watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
,
"name"
:
"Watch movie"
},
"description"
:
"Watch the 'Avengers' movie online"
}
< /scrip
t
>
Microdata
< div
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/EmailMessage"
>
< div
itemprop
=
"potentialAction"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/ViewAction"
>
< link
itemprop
=
"target"
href
=
"https://watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
/
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"name"
content
=
"Watch movie"
/
>
< /
div
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"description"
content
=
"Watch the 'Avengers' movie online"
/
>
< /
div
>
Note that the markup above is automatically ignored by other email clients that do not support schemas in emails.
Mobile Deep Linking
Go-To actions can also link directly to content in native mobile apps on Android
and iOS
. To deep link to
an app, include additional target
URLs encoded with the android-app://
and ios-app://
schemes as shown below:
JSON-LD
"target"
:
[
“<web
url>”
,
“a
n
droid
-
app
:
//<android package name>/<scheme>/<host>/<path+query>”,
“ios
-
app
:
//<App store ID>/<scheme>/<host><path+query>"
]
Microdata
< link
itemprop
=
"target"
href
=
"<web url>"
/
>
< link
itemprop
=
"target"
href
=
"android-app://<android package name>/<scheme>/<host>/<path+query>”/>
< link itemprop="
target
" href="
ios
-
app
:
//<App store ID>/<scheme>/<host>/<path+query>"/>
Extending the previous EmailMessage
example:
JSON-LD
< scrip
t
t
ype=
"application/ld+json"
> {
"@context"
:
"http://schema.org"
,
"@type"
:
"EmailMessage"
,
"name"
:
"Watch movie"
,
...
i
nf
orma
t
io
n
abou
t
t
he
movie
...
"potentialAction"
:
{
"@type"
:
"ViewAction"
,
"target"
:
[
"https://watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
,
"android-app://com.watchmovies.app/http/watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
,
"ios-app://12345/movieapp/watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
]
}
}
< /scrip
t
>
Microdata
< div
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/EmailMessage"
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"name"
content
=
"Watch movie"
/
>
...
information
about
the
movie
...
< div
itemprop
=
"potentialAction"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/ViewAction"
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"target"
content
=
"https://watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
/
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"target"
content
=
"android-app://com.watchmovies.android/http/watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
/
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"target"
content
=
"ios://12345/movieapp/watch-movies.com/watch?movieId=abc123"
/
>
< /
div
>
< /
div
>
If the user doesn't have your app, the action takes the user to the web URL you provide.
In-App Actions
In-App Actions are handled in-place, inside Gmail, without sending the user to another website. In-App Actions are declared like Go-To Actions , but contain extra information that makes it easy for user-agents (such as Gmail) to handle the action inline.
Instead of declaring an action with a target
, you need to declare an HttpActionHandler
for the action with the proper configuration.
For instance, you can add a confirm button to emails requiring users to approve, confirm, and acknowledge something. Once the user clicks on the button, an HTTP request will be issued from Google to your service, recording the confirmation. ConfirmAction
can only be interacted with once.
The following example adds a ConfirmAction
button to an email about an expense report:
JSON-LD
< scrip
t
t
ype=
"application/ld+json"
> {
"@context"
:
"http://schema.org"
,
"@type"
:
"EmailMessage"
,
"potentialAction"
:
{
"@type"
:
"ConfirmAction"
,
"name"
:
"Approve Expense"
,
"handler"
:
{
"@type"
:
"HttpActionHandler"
,
"url"
:
"https://myexpenses.com/approve?expenseId=abc123"
}
},
"description"
:
"Approval request for John's $10.13 expense for office supplies"
}
< /scrip
t
>
Microdata
< div
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/EmailMessage"
>
< div
itemprop
=
"potentialAction"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/ConfirmAction"
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"name"
content
=
"Approve Expense"
/
>
< div
itemprop
=
"handler"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/HttpActionHandler"
>
< link
itemprop
=
"url"
href
=
"https://myexpenses.com/approve?expenseId=abc123"
/
>
< /
div
>
< /
div
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"description"
content
=
"Approval request for John's $10.13 expense for office supplies"
/
>
< /
div
>
Expiring Actions
In many cases, actions are only relevant for a limited period of time. Actions associated to entities with known dates, like travel reservations, will automatically expire. Gmail doesn't display the action after the trip has passed.
Expirations can also be explicitly added to actions. For example, an action to clip a coupon or save an offer code might only be valid for a limited time. To set the time window for when an action is displayed, set the startTime
and endTime
properties of the action:
JSON-LD
< scrip
t
t
ype=
"application/ld+json"
> {
"@context"
:
"http://schema.org"
,
"@type"
:
"EmailMessage"
,
"potentialAction"
:
{
"@type"
:
"ConfirmAction"
,
"name"
:
"Save coupon"
,
"handler"
:
{
"@type"
:
"HttpActionHandler"
,
"url"
:
"https://my-coupons.com/approve?couponId=abc123"
},
"startTime"
:
"2015-06-01T12:00:00Z"
,
"endTime"
:
"2015-06-05T12:00:00Z"
}
}
< /scrip
t
>
Microdata
< div
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/EmailMessage"
>
< div
itemprop
=
"potentialAction"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/ConfirmAction"
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"name"
content
=
"Save coupon"
/
>
< div
itemprop
=
"handler"
itemscope
itemtype
=
"http://schema.org/HttpActionHandler"
>
< link
itemprop
=
"url"
href
=
"https://my-coupons.com/approve?couponId=abc123"
/
>
< /
div
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"startTime"
content
=
"2015-06-01T12:00:00Z"
/
>
< meta
itemprop
=
"endTime"
content
=
"2015-06-05T12:00:00Z"
/
>
< /
div
>
< /
div
>
Further Reading
For more details about Actions, see:
