In schema.org, an action represents an activity that can be performed on a piece of structured data. Gmail supports multiple types of actions, and you can define each 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 give an EmailMessage entity a ViewAction
go-to link, populate the email's potentialAction property, as in the following
example:
JSON-LD
<script type="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"
}
</script>
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>
Other email clients that don't support schemas in emails automatically ignore this markup.
Mobile deep linking
Go-to actions can also link directly to content in 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 in the following examples:
JSON-LD
"target": [
"<web url>",
"android-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
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "http://schema.org",
"@type": "EmailMessage",
"name": "Watch movie",
... information about the 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"
]
}
}
</script>
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-app://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
Gmail handles in-app actions in place without sending the user to another website. You declare in-app actions like go-to actions, but include extra information that helps email clients (such as Gmail) handle the action inline.
Instead of declaring an action with a target, declare an HttpActionHandler
for the action with the proper configuration.
For example, you can add a confirm button to emails requiring users to approve,
confirm, or acknowledge something. When the user clicks the button, Google
sends an HTTP request to your service, recording the confirmation. Users can
only interact with a ConfirmAction once.
The following example adds a ConfirmAction button to an email about an expense
report:
JSON-LD
<script type="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"
}
</script>
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 with entities with known dates, like travel reservations, automatically expire. Gmail doesn't display the action after the trip has passed.
You can also explicitly add expirations 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
<script type="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"
}
}
</script>
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: