OpenActive - Upshot - Integration
Upshot enables the opening up of sport and physical activity data through OpenActive.
What is OpenActive?
OpenActive is community-led initiative stewarded by the Open Data Institute (ODI) and supported by Sport England with the aim of helping people get active using open data.
What is open data?
Open data means making information such as when and where sport and physical activities take place openly available, so more people will be able to find out about local opportunities. Upshot has teamed up with OpenActive to allow you to share any sport and physical activity session you organise directly through your Upshot account, to enable third party booking systems, activity finders, apps, websites and campaigns to display these for people to find and book.
What data is published through the OpenActive feed?
- Activity Name
- Session Date
- Session Time
- Session Duration
- Session Location
- Additional Session Information
- Activity Description - specified on the 'Edit Activity' page
- OpenActive Activity - specified on the 'Edit Activity' page
How does an organisation activate the integration?
Contact support@upshot.org.uk and we can turn the integration on for you.
How does an organisation specify the sessions they want to share to the feed?
Sessions are not shared automatically. Organisations can specify the sessions they want to share from within their Upshot account. This is done by ticking the box 'Share to OpenActive' (highlighted below) either when creating a session or editing it. More about Adding Sessions here.
How, and why, does an organisation specify the OpenActive Activity category within Upshot?
Selecting an OpenActive Activity category is highly recommended as this improves the ability of those external organisation using the feed to filter and specify the sessions they would like to use. I.e. if an organisation selects an OpenActive Activity of 'Archery' on Upshot then activity finders looking for Archery sessions are potentially more likely to pick this up.
When the integration is in place, this can be specified via the drop down presented under the Edit Activity page. The definitions, and full list, of the OpenActive Activity categories can be found here.
Is it possible to specify sessions are paid and not free?
It is not possible to distinguish between paid and free sessions on Upshot and have that data automatically identified in the feed. We would recommend only using the integration for free sessions to thus avoid any confusion when activity finders highlight your sessions.
Is it possible to provide additional information around a session such as logistics or other key information so that is published to the feed?
Yes, organisations can use the Additional Session Information tool to outline any additional information they would like to highlight.
Are there some examples of external Activity finders using OpenActive data?
Please find some examples of activity finders utilising OpenActive data: