Closures

A closure restricts access to one or more of your locations and tells visitors what's closed and why. Use closures when a place is genuinely closed or has limited access — a trail washed out by a storm, a campground shut for the season, an area evacuated for wildfire.

If you want to share news or conditions that don't close anything, use an alert instead.

You'll find Closures under Outreach in the Manager sidebar.

Closures Versus Alerts

A closure restricts access. Use it when a place is actually closed or has limited access. A closure always applies to one or more specific locations and, on its own, doesn't notify your followers.

An alert is a communication. Use it to share news, conditions, hazards, or announcements that don't necessarily close anything. Alerts can apply to specific locations or your whole organization, can include images and documents, and they notify followers.

The two work hand in hand: a closure restricts access on the map, and an alert is what tells people about it. When you create or end a closure, Manager offers to create a matching alert — see Ending a Closure and Creating an Alert From a Closure.

What You Can Close

A closure can apply to any combination of:

• Areas
• Trails
• Points of interest
• Outings

Every closure must affect at least one location. There are no organization-wide closures — use an alert for organization-wide announcements.

Creating a Closure

1. Go to Outreach → Closures and select Create Closure (or New Closure).
2. Fill in the Details section:
• Reason Type (required) — why the place is closed. This sets the icon and how the closure reads to visitors. See Reason Types below.
• Name (optional) — a short label, like "River Trail Bridge Washout." If you leave it blank, the closure is identified by its reason and locations.
• Description (optional) — a plain-language explanation for visitors.
• Emergency (optional) — check this to flag a high-urgency closure. Emergency closures stand out in the list and default any alert you create from them to the Emergency level.
3. Fill in the Timing section:
• Duration Type (required) — Temporary, Permanent, or Scheduled. See Duration Types.
• Scope Type (optional) — Full (the whole place is closed) or Partial (access is restricted but not entirely cut off).
• Starts At (optional) — when the closure takes effect. Leave it blank to start immediately.
• Ends At (optional) — when the closure lifts. Required for scheduled closures. Leave it blank for an open-ended closure you'll end manually.
4. In Affected Locations, search for and add the areas, trails, points of interest, or outings this closure covers. Add at least one.
5. Select Create Closure.

After you create a closure, Manager asks whether you'd like to notify visitors. Choose Create Alert to send a notification (pre-filled from this closure), or skip it for now.

Good to know: all times are shown in your organization's time zone.

Reason Types

The reason classifies the closure and drives its icon and visitor-facing messaging:

Safety · Weather · Wildlife · Maintenance · Fire · Flood · Seasonal · Damage · Event · Other

Pick the one that best fits. When in doubt, use Other.

Duration Types

• Temporary — closed for now, with no fixed end. You can add an end date or end it manually when the place reopens.
• Permanent — closed indefinitely, with no end date.
• Scheduled — closed for a defined window. A scheduled closure must have an end date, and it can have a start date in the future.

A scheduled closure with a future start shows as Upcoming until its start time arrives.

Closure Status

Manager calculates a closure's status from its dates — you don't set it directly:

• Active — currently in effect and restricting access.
• Upcoming — scheduled to start in the future.
• Ended — its end date has passed, or you ended it manually.

The Closures list has two tabs: Active shows what's currently affecting visitors; History shows ended and upcoming closures.

Finding a Closure

On the Closures list you can search by closure name, description, or affected location, and filter by:

• Location type (area, trail, point of interest, outing)
• Reason type
• Duration type
• Emergency only

You can also sort by start or end date.

To see closures for one specific place, open that location and go to its Closures tab.

Editing a Closure

Open the closure and select Edit. You can change any field, including which locations it affects. Save your changes when you're done.

Ending a Closure

When a place reopens, end its closure so it stops showing as closed:

1. Open the closure and select End Closure.
2. Confirm. Manager sets the closure to end now and marks the affected locations as reopened for visitors.
3. Manager then asks whether you'd like to notify visitors. Choose Create Reopening Alert to send a "reopened" notification (pre-filled from the closure), or Not Now to skip it.

A reopening alert is a great way to bring visitors back — it tells everyone following the location that it's open again.

Tips

• Lead with the reason. It's the one required classification and it shapes how visitors read the closure.
• Use Scheduled for known windows (seasonal closures, planned maintenance) so the closure turns on and off automatically.
• Pair closures with alerts. A closure restricts access on the map; an alert is what actually notifies your followers. Create the alert when prompted so people know.
• End closures promptly. An open-ended temporary closure stays active until you end it manually.