The Advanced Settings page gives you control over the filter system, button visibility, and the built-in contact form including spam protection options.
Accessing Advanced Settings
- Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard
- Navigate to Groups → Settings
- Click the Advanced tab
Facet Settings
Facets are the filter controls that appear on the group archive page and in the [cp-groups-filter] shortcode. These settings control which attribute filters are available to visitors.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Kid Friendly | Enabled | Show or hide the Kid Friendly checkbox filter |
| Wheelchair Accessible | Enabled | Show or hide the Wheelchair Accessible checkbox filter |
| Meets Online | Enabled | Show or hide the Meets Online checkbox filter |
| Show/Hide Full Groups | Hide | Controls the Group is Full filter. Hide: enabled, full groups hidden by default. Show: enabled, full groups shown by default. Disable: no filter shown. |
| Groups Per Page | 40 | Number of groups displayed per page (range: 10–100) |
How Full Groups Work
When the full groups filter is set to Hide (the default), groups marked as full are hidden from the listing. Visitors can click a “Show Full Groups” toggle to reveal them. When set to Show, full groups appear by default and visitors can hide them.
Button Settings
Control which action buttons appear on group cards and detail views:
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hide Registration | Unchecked | Hide the registration button on all groups |
| Hide Details | Unchecked | Hide the details/view details button on all groups |
| Contact Action | Use Contact Action | Controls the contact button behavior |
Contact Action Options
- Use Contact Action: Uses the Contact Action field from each group (a URL or email address)
- Use Contact Form: Displays the built-in contact form (see Contact Form Settings below)
- Hide: Hides the contact button entirely
Contact Form Settings
These settings configure the built-in contact form. The contact form appears when Contact Action is set to Use Contact Form, or when a group’s Registration Action is an email address. The form lets visitors send messages directly to group leaders from the group modal or single page.
Email Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Show Leader Email | Unchecked | Display the group leader’s email address inside the contact form |
| From Email | Site admin email | The “From” address on outgoing emails |
| From Name | Site title | The “From” name on outgoing emails |
| CC | Empty | Email addresses to CC on all contact form submissions (comma-separated) |
| BCC | Empty | Email addresses to BCC on all contact form submissions (comma-separated) |
Individual groups can also have their own CC addresses set in the group editor, which are combined with the global CC setting.
Spam Protection
CP Groups includes multiple layers of spam protection for the contact form:
Rate Limiting (Throttling)
- Throttle Emails: Enable rate limiting to prevent abuse
- Throttle Amount: Maximum number of submissions per day from the same person (range: 2–10, default: 3)
- Tracks submissions by both IP address and email address
Staff Email Blocking
- Block Staff Emails: Prevent submissions from email addresses that contain your site’s domain name (enabled by default)
- For example, if your site is
example.com, submissions from[email protected]are blocked
Honeypot Field
- Enable Honeypot: Adds a hidden field that bots fill in but humans do not
- Submissions with the honeypot field filled are rejected with an error
reCAPTCHA v3
- Enable reCAPTCHA: Adds Google reCAPTCHA v3 verification to the form
- Site Key: Your reCAPTCHA v3 site key from the Google reCAPTCHA console
- Secret Key: Your reCAPTCHA v3 secret key
- Submissions are verified server-side with a minimum score threshold of 0.5
Troubleshooting
If your advanced settings are not behaving as expected:
- Verify that WordPress cron is running properly if rate limiting does not reset daily
- Check that your reCAPTCHA keys match the domain registered in the Google console
- Test the contact form in an incognito window to rule out caching issues
For more help, see the Troubleshooting guide.