Show related posts on single.php, grouped by taxonomy terms, with Advanced Custom Field post object selected

Question

I have posts of custom taxonomy called Areas with terms such as Articles, Presentations, News etc. These terms are applied to the normal post-type "post".

Under a custom-post-type called "Company", I added an Advanced Custom Field Post Object with the field name associated_items to select posts related to this Company.

Currently I have this function on my single-company.php which shows the posts selected in ACF field associated_items...

<?php $post_objects = get_field('associated_items');?>
<?php if( $post_objects ): ?>
        <div class="relatedposts">
            <h3>Related Posts</h3>
            <?php foreach( $post_objects as $post): ?>
            <?php setup_postdata($post); ?>
                    <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'excerpt' ); ?>
            <?php endforeach; ?>
        </div><!-- div.relatedposts -->
    <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
<?php endif; // end if( $post_objects ) ?>

The above code only outputs the posts selected in the ACF custom field associated_items but in chronological order whereas I'd like it to be grouped according to taxonomy terms, for example like the following:

Posts related to the Company

Articles

• a post under the area "Articles"
• another post under the area "Articles"
• and another post under the area "Articles"

Presentations

• a post under the area "Presentations"
• another post under the area "Presentations"
• and another post under the area "Presentations"

News

• a post under the area "News"
• another post under the area "News"
• and another post under the area "News"

Many many many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I'd recommend creating 3 separate ['associated_items'] fields instead of 1.

For Example:

• ['associated_articles'] & "Filter for taxonomy term: Articles"
• ['associated_presentations'] & "Filter for taxonomy term: Presentations"
• ['associated_news'] & "Filter for taxonomy term: News"

Note: Filtering for the taxonomy term, limits the related posts available to choose from as well, which results in a better user experience

Then change the code above to be used for each field.
For Example:

<h2>Posts related to the Company</h2>
<?php $assoc_articles = get_field('associated_articles');?>
<?php if( $assoc_articles ): ?>
    <div class="relatedposts">
        <h3>Articles</h3>
        <?php foreach( $ass_articles as $article): ?>
        <?php setup_postdata($article); ?>
                <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'excerpt' ); ?>
        <?php endforeach; ?>
    </div><!-- div.relatedposts -->
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

<?php $assoc_presentations = get_field('associated_presentations');?>
<?php if( $assoc_presentations ): ?>
    <div class="relatedposts">
        <h3>Presentations</h3>
        <?php foreach( $assoc_presentations as $presentation ): ?>
        <?php setup_postdata($presentation ); ?>
                <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'excerpt' ); ?>
        <?php endforeach; ?>
    </div><!-- div.relatedposts -->
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

<?php $assoc_news = get_field('associated_news');?>
<?php if( $assoc_news ): ?>
    <div class="relatedposts">
        <h3>News</h3>
        <?php foreach( $assoc_news as $news_item ): ?>
        <?php setup_postdata($news_item ); ?>
                <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'excerpt' ); ?>
        <?php endforeach; ?>
    </div><!-- div.relatedposts -->
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

I'm assuming you are using the above code sample because you prefer it. However, if all you need is a link to the post, you don't actually need to setup_postdata()... you could simply use the $post->ID and then just loop through the results using something like:

<?php foreach( $assoc_news as $news_item ): 
$news_ID = $news_item->ID; ?>
<li><a href="<?php get_permalink($news_ID ); ?>"><?php get_the_title($news_ID ); ?></a></li>... etc

I hope that helps.