Tag: Simple Staff List Plugin

No doubt you’ve heard that people generally will buy from those they already know, like and trust.

Are you looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to grow your business online? Then something you can do, is help visitors get to know, like and trust your business better.

If your site uses the WordPress CMS, a simple way to help people get to know you better is to add a staff list plugin that lets you add information about your key partners, your faculty, or your staff members.

In this step-by-step tutorial, we show you how to create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain list of staff members to your site using free plugins.

How To Easily Add An Employee Directory In WordPress

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a WordPress plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress

(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)

Simple Staff List lets you build a basic staff directory list for.

First, let’s install and activate the Simple Staff List plugin.

Log into your WordPress dashboard and in your admin menu section, select Plugins > Add New …

(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)

In the Plugins panel, search for “simple staff plugin”. This brings up the Simple Staff Plugin in your search results area.

Click on Install Now …

(Plugins  – plugin search results)

Click on Activate Plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see that a new menu will show up in the WordPress menu called Staff Members …

(Staff Members menu)

All of the settings for the Simple Staff List plugin are configured and managed from the Staff Members menu.

How To Configure The Plugin

Depending on how many people are in your organization and how you want to structure your staff directory, you could just begin to add new staff details at this point, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual group members.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by configuring your directory categories. In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members Menu – Groups)

This brings you to the Groups settings panel …

(Groups section)

Note: Configuring directory groups is just like configuring WordPress categories …

(Groups are like WordPress categories)

Add a new group by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your category name
2. Slug – Enter the slug of your group category name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
3. Parent – Use this drop-down menu if you plan to set up a directory hierarchy
4. Description – Enter the category description here (optional)
5. Click Add New Group when done to create a new directory category …

(Groups screen)

If you are a business that employs many people, the ability to create groups can be very useful. For example, you can create categories for partners, project teams, faculties, etc.

Create as many groups and nested groups as you need by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to organize these into a directory hierarchy …

(Nested categories)

Remember to click the Add New Group button after entering each new item …

To change Groups for an individual item, hover over a category title and click on the Edit link …

Your selected category will display in the Edit Group page. Select a new group from the Parent dropdown menu …

(Edit Group settings)

Click Update when done …

To change the Group name or slug, hover over the group name and click on the Quick Edit menu feature …

Click on Update Group  to save your changes …

Add as many groups as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …

You can add as many nested categories as you like …

(Nested groups)

Once you have finished setting up your groups, the next step is to start to add your people to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

From your admin menu, choose Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members – Add New)

The Add New Staff Member settings …

(Add New Staff Member settings)

This section provides you with an easy-to-use interface for adding your staff member profile and includes the following fields:

Name Section (1)

• Name: Add your staff member’s name
• Permalink: You can change your employees’ slug (you will see this section after your first save).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Add a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: The employee’s position
• Email: Add the staff member’s email address
• Phone Number: Your employee’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Add your employee’s Facebook address (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Enter the person’s Twitter username (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Add a profile description for your staff or team member here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can add formatting to the content entered in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign your employee to a specific group (see above to learn how to set up your groups).

If you click on the Screen Options tab …

(Screen options tab)

You can enable additional features …

(Enable additional fields in screen options tab)

Now that you know what each section does, enter each staff member’s details …

(Add Staff Member settings)

After you are done entering details, assign your item to a directory group in the Groups box located in your sidebar …

(Groups feature)

Note: If you did not set up categories before starting to add new staff members, you can add a new group in this screen by selecting Groups > + Add New Group …

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

A field for creating a group name will display, with a dropdown menu that lets you assign your new entry to a parent group. Enter your new group and click on the Add New Group button …

The new category will be created. Make sure that the checkbox is ticked …

(New group added via Groups section)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when adding or making changes to employee details. To edit a group entry, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section of the tutorial above for details).

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After filling in your employee’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

You can edit the person’s profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in the WP admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

We have created a detailed tutorial on using the admin toolbar here:

• An Overview Of Your WordPress Dashboard

Note: If errors shows up like the one shown in the screenshot below, check that you have set up your permalinks correctly …

(Not found error – Check your permalinks)

We have written a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here:

• Configuring WordPress Permalinks

Repeat the above process to continue adding new entries to your staff directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After you are done adding employee details to your directory, you can view and edit details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members on your menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all the staff profiles and their details …

(Staff Members list)

If you need to edit an individual’s entry, hover over their list name, and a menu will appear.

Click on Edit if you need to edit their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete a listing from your directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by selecting View …

(Edit Staff Members profile info)

If you have many employees, your list can grow quite large.

You can use the Search Staff Members search field to locate listing items if necessary …

(Search members)

You can specify which fields to display in this section. To hide or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab …

(Screen Options tab)

Selecting a checkbox displays the field and unchecking a box hides the field. You can also select how many staff members are shown per page. Click the Apply button when finished to save your preferences …

Staff Members – Order

Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you set the order that your staff entries appear on your directory pages.

Select Staff Members > Order on the WordPress admin menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To reorder your items, click and drag the item to the new position …

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your list will automatically be reorganized …

(Reordered listings)

After adding all member listing details to your directory, the next step is to make your directory show to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order in which entries display on your directory pages.

Click Staff Members > Order in the WordPress admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the item to a desired position …

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your staff list will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list items)

After adding your members’ details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory display on your site.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

Simple Staff List lets you create the style and layout of your employee directory entries using template tags and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Templates Menu

To customize the style and layout of your staff list, select Staff Members > Templates from the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This opens the Templates screen …

(Customize your directory template)

To customize your directory listings, insert any of the allowable template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.

For example, here is the Default Staff Loop Template …

(Default Plugin Template)

The This code displays your listing as shown below …

(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template Listing)

Notice that no Facebook or Twitter URLs are showing in the above listing. To make these fields show up in the directory, we will need to include the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags in the template loop, as shown below …

(Use template tags to customize your listings page)

Here is what your listings page should now look like …

(Directory listings with social media links added)

Note: If you want to customize how your directory looks but don’t want to mess with template tags or are not sure what to do, please contact us for help.

Usage Menu

In addition to being able to customize your listing templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your listings differently using modified shortcodes.

In your main menu, choose Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This brings up the Usage screen …

(Usage Shortcode section)

This screen lists all different shortcode variations that you can use with this plugin.

For example, a useful shortcode variation you can decide to use to display a list of members belonging only to a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”property managers”])

Or, you can display listings in ascending or descending order by inserting the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”ASC”] (ascending).

Options Menu

Choose Staff Members >Options on your main menu …

(Staff Members – Options)

This brings up the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – customizable options)

Here you can change labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member title

Finally, you can also export your staff members info by going to the menu and clicking Tools > Export …

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need plugin support, visit the Simple Staff List plugin site and request help from the plugin developer.

Additional Employee Directory Plugins For WordPress

Simple Staff List isn’t the only for creating a directory of your team members. For example, here are other free WordPress plugins you can use:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

This plugin helps you collect your team information and showcase it anywhere on your site in beautiful grids, columns and tables. This premium plugin features over a dozen presets and provides editors that make it easy to edit and update your directory.

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Responsive Templates)

For more details go here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

Staff Directory lets you easily display a list of staff/faculty/team members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for companies, schools, etc.

The plugin lets you insert custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot source: Staff Directory website)

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staff Directory – WordPress Plugin

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

The Faculty And Staff Directory plugin was developed to provide a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college or university.

The plugin also installs a widget that allows you to feature a profile in a widget area.

Learn more here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Company Directory

(Company Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

The Company Directory plugin lets you easily add your staff to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and customizable single views, plus as fields like job title, email address, phone, image and member bio, allowing you to present your company and capabilities.

Visitors will be able to click through from your list, grid, and table views to learn more about each staff member in a customizable single view …

(Display your staff and faculty members in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)

This plugin also uses simple shortcodes.

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WP Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays employees, partners or just a single person in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.

With the Employee Spotlight plugin, you get two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees, and two responsive views which adjust to the screen in the viewer’s device.

Detailed information about  each employee can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …

(Responsive layout with employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from Employee Spotlight website)

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Employee Spotlight

Staffer

(Staffer – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

Staffer uses custom post types for staff/employee management and supports the display of staff members via a shortcode, allowing you to easily create and manage a staff directory on your website …

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot sourced from Staffer plugin website)

Staffer works immediately with almost all WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.

Go here to learn more:

• Staffer – Plugin For WordPress

If the directory plugins listed above aren’t what you’re looking for, search the WordPress plugin directory or go online and search for:

• Add Staff Directory To WordPress
• WordPress Staff Plugin
• Staff Directory WordPress Plugin
• Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
• etc.

Hopefully, now you know how to add a simple and easy-to-update list directory of employees or faculty members to your website using free WordPress plugins.

Images of models used to portray sample staff members in this tutorial were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

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