Tag: Simple Staff List Plugin

Something that’s been proven to work in business, is that people generally buy from those they already know, like and trust.

If you are searching for inexpensive ideas to sell more products online, then something you can do, is help visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

Adding a directory of staff to your website is a great way to let visitors learn more about the team working behind the scenes in your business.

This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to add a simple and easy-to-maintain staff directory to your web site.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your Site

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

Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin)

Simple Staff List lets you staff members.

First, let’s install and activate this plugin.

Log into the administration and in your admin menu section, select Plugins > Add New …

(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on Install Now …

(WordPress Plugins  – Add Plugins screen)

Activate the plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After your plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu entry will be added to your main WP menu section called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

All of the options and settings for this plugin are configured and managed in the Staff Members menu.

Configuring Simple Staff List

Depending on the size of your business and how you want to structure your employee directory, you can start adding new staff members at this at this stage, or create different groups (i.e. categories) to place yourstaff into.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by setting up your categories. From your WordPress dashboard menu, choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

The Groups screen opens on your browser …

(Groups settings screen)

Note: Setting up groups works in the same way as configuring categories in WordPress …

(Groups work just like WordPress categories)

Add a new group by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Enter your category name here
2. Slug – Enter the URL-friendly version of your 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 nested categories
4. Description – Enter a category description here (optional)
5. Click Add New Group when finished to create a new group …

(Groups area)

If you are a medium to large organization, the ability to create categories can be very useful. For example, you can create a category for founders, developers, departments, etc.

Create as many groups and nested groups as you want by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to assign these to a hierarchical structure …

(Nested categories)

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

To edit or reassign Groups for an entry, hover over a category title and click on the Edit link …

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

(Edit Group settings)

Click Update to save your changes …

To change the Group name or slug, hover your mouse over the group name and choose the Quick Edit menu feature …

Click on Update Group  when done …

Continue adding categories to this section until you are done creating your directory structure …

You can add as many nested groups as you like …

(Nested categories)

After you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, the next step is to begin to add your people to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

In your admin menu, click on Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

The Add New Staff Member screen …

(Add New Staff Member settings screen)

This area provides an easy-to-use interface for adding and editing your staff member information and includes the following fields:

Name Section (1)

• Name: Enter the employee’s name
• Permalink: Modify each staff members’ slug (this section appears after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: The staff member’s role
• Email: Type the person’s email
• Phone Number: The employee’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Add the person’s Facebook URL (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Add the person’s Twitter username into this field (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 member here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can use HTML in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign an employee or team member to a group (see the previous section to learn how to set up your groups).

Click on the Screen Options tab at the top of the screen …

(Screen options tab)

You will see options to enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options tab)

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

(Staff directory settings)

Once you have entered each staff member’s details, assign the new item to a directory group in the Groups section located in your sidebar …

(Groups section)

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

(Groups - + Add New Group feature)

A field will display allowing you to enter a new group name, with a drop-down menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Enter your new category and click on Add New Group …

The new group will be added. Remember to tick the check box to assign a list item to the group …

(New group)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when a staff member’s details are being added or modified. 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 the person’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

To edit your member profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in the WordPress admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

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

• Using Your WordPress Control Screen

Note: If ’not found’ page errors shows up like the one shown in the screenshot below, check that your site permalinks have been configured correctly …

(Check your permalinks if you get ’page not found’ errors)

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

• Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO

Repeat the above process to add new entries to your directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering employee details into your directory, you can view and edit details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members on the menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table listing all the staff members and their details …

(Staff Members list)

If you need to modify an individual’s entry, hover over their listing, and a submenu will appear.

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

(Editing Staff Members profile)

Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your table can grow quite large.

Use the Search Staff Members search box to find 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 at the top of your page …

(Staff Members Screen Options)

Tick or untick the checkboxes to show or hide specific fields. You can also select how many staff members are shown per page. Click the Apply button when finished to save your settings …

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to specify the order that your employee profiles display on your directory pages.

Select Staff Members > Order in your menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)

Your list will be automatically reorganized …

(Reordered list entries)

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

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to set the order that entries show on your directory pages.

Click Staff Members > Order on your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To reorder your listings, click and drag the item to the new location …

(Rearrange staff listings using drag and drop)

Your directory will be automatically reordered …

(Reordered list items)

Once you are done adding all of your staff details to the directory, the next step is to add your directory on your site.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

Simple Staff List lets you customize the layout and style of your employee directory listings 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 your menu …

(Staff Members – Templates)

This brings up the Templates page …

(Simple Staff List Templates page)

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

For example, below is a screenshot of the default template used for displaying listings …

(Default Staff Loop Template)

The above code displays the listing shown below …

(Default Plugin Staff Loop Template Listing)

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

(Use template tags to customize your directory page)

Here is what your directory will now look like …

(Directory with social media links added)

Note: If you want to customize how your staff directory looks but don’t want to mess around with code or are not sure how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for help.

Usage Menu

As well as allowing you to customize your directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.

In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This brings up the Usage page …

(Simple Staff List plugin shortcodes)

This screen provides a list of all different shortcode variations that the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to use.

For example, a useful shortcode variation you can insert in your page to display only members of a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”sales reps”])

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

Options Menu

In your WordPress admin menu, select Staff Members >Options …

(Staff Members – Options)

This brings up the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – Options settings)

Here you can change some of the labels used in the plugin

You can also export your staff members details from the Tools > Export screen …

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need plugin help or support, go to the plugin plugin site and request help from the plugin author.

Other Employee Directory Plugins For WordPress

Simple Staff List isn’t the only plugin you can use to display a listing of your employees in WordPress. Here are a few other free plugins you can check out:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Plugin)

The Modern Team Staff Directory 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, visit the plugin site here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WordPress 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.

You can also set up custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot sourced from Staff Directory website)

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

This plugin provides 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 profiles in a widget area.

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Company Directory

(Company Directory – WP Plugin)

The Company Directory plugin lets you add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including list and table views, plus as fields like position title, email, phone number, image and staff bio, allowing visitors to get to know your company and capabilities.

Visitors can click through from your list, grid, and table views to read more about each employee in a customizable single view …

(Display your staff and faculty members in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot source: Company Directory website)

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays team members, founders or just one individual person in a four-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.

With Employee Spotlight, you also get two sidebar widgets which display featured and recent employees selected in the editor, plus two responsive views which adjust to the screen in the viewer’s device.

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

(Responsive layout with circle grid. Screenshot source: Employee Spotlight plugin website)

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Employee Spotlight – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

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

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

Staffer works with many popular WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Staffer

If the above plugins 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 Directory Plugin
• WordPress Plugin Staff Directory
• Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
• etc.

Congratulations! Now you know how to add a simple employee directory to your WordPress site with no coding skills required, so you can showcase the people in your business, team, or organization.

Images of persons used to display staff members were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

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