J-BusinessDirectory - Directory structure including use of types

Hi. So I am trying to work out what the best directory structure for me to setup is. Primarily the directory is composed of one class of professional (by name) as well as businesses were they might work at (some might work independantly).

Each professional has sub-areas where they work in, e.g.

===
professional 1
      skill area #a
      skill area #b
      skill area #c

professional 1, linked with business '2'
===

I was originally thinking to setup a category structure based on skill areas, e.g. skill area #a, skill area #b, skill area #c, etc but it seems to me that to a user, results will seem very repetitive/redundant, given that many professionals will have an entry in each category. So instead, I am thinking to use a single category for professionals and businesses, but setup multiple types, so the structure would then be:

===
Category: professionals/businesses

Entry: professional 1
                with type: skill area #a
                with type: skill area #a
                with type: skill area #a

professional 1, linked with business '2'
===

Question: Does this second way (using types) seem a good way to set things up?

One reservation I have, is that I haven't seen a search page on the demo or showcase, which has check boxes for types (as would be quite typical when a property equivalent to types is fundemental). I am meaning search options like this: https://tinyurl.com/y4h62m8r

I see types are listable in the left sidebar in the listings display, but only one can be selected at a time - and only on search results (i.e. results shown on listing pages).

Please, your comments and guidance appreciated :)
And has anyone setup or seen a search page with selectable types on it?

thank you :)

Well hope things going well with this set up. :) would be interesting to see when ready.

I think you can also check to use tags maybe I dont know how advanced they are for JBD but that could also be a complimentary categorisation.

If you go to this demo https://demo.cmsjunkie.com/j-businessdirectory/templates.php?template=j-network&layout=home/home-map you have something there "More filters".

I guess thats the filter structure you want to use in similar way?

Thank you, and of course :)

I can't locate any ref to tags in the documentation. Please, is there somewhere you can point me to.

But I see there is comething called attribute categories though: https://www.cmsjunkie.com/forum/different-fields-for-different-categories/. Maybe these are what I am looking for.

Yes, something like those filters you ref, though available on an intial search. Also, I'm not sure how many 'casual users' of a directory would find that filter option.