Tag: Staff List

Something often said in business, is that people often tend to buy from businesses they know, like and trust.

If you are looking for quicker and simpler ways to sell more products or services online and get people to engage more with your site, then help visitors get to know your organization better.

Adding a directory to your site can lead to increased trust, boost your online credibility and get interested prospects buying from you.

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to add a simple team members directory to your WordPress site using free WordPress plugins.

Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your Site

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

Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin)

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

The first step is to install and activate the plugin.

Log into the WordPress dashboard and from the admin menu section, click on Plugins > Add New …

(WordPress Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on the Install Now button …

(Plugins  – plugin search results)

Activate the plugin …

(Activate plugin)

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

(Staff Members menu)

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

How To Configure The Simple Staff List Plugin

Depending on how many people are in your business and how you want to structure your directory, you could start to add new staff details after installing the plugin, or create various groups (i.e. categories) to place yourstaff into.

Staff Members – Groups

To configure your groups go to your WP dashboard menu and choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members Menu – Groups)

This brings up the Groups settings screen …

(Groups screen)

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

(Groups work like WordPress categories)

Create new groups by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your group category name
2. Slug – Type in 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 section if you plan to set up a directory hierarchy
4. Description – Enter your group description here
5. Click the Add New Group button when finished to set up the new directory group …

(Groups section)

If you are a larger organization, being able to create groups can be very useful. For example, you can create a category for investors, developers, faculties, etc.

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

(Nested groups)

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

To edit or reassign Groups for individual items, hover your mouse over a category title and select the Edit link …

The selected group open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new category from the Parent drop-down menu …

(Edit Group settings)

Click the Update button when done …

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

Click on Update Group  after making changes …

Continue adding group names in this section until you are done creating your directory structure …

You can add as many nested categories as you like …

(Nested groups)

Once you are done setting up your groups, the next step is to begin to add names to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

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

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

This brings up the Add New Staff Member area …

(Add New Staff Member area)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: Your employee’s name
• Slug: Here you can change the slug associated with your staff member if required (you will see this section after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo in this section

Staff Member Info Section (3)

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

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Type a profile description for your employees here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can add formatting to the content entered into this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: Assign the individual to a specific group (see above to learn how to set up your groups).

If you click on the Screen Options tab at the top of the screen …

(Screen options tab)

You will see options to enable additional features …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

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

(Add New Staff Member fields)

After you have finished entering each staff member’s details, assign your new entry to a directory group in the Groups feature in your sidebar …

(Groups section)

Note: If you did not set up categories before adding new staff members, you can create a group now by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

A field for entering your group name will appear, with a drop-down menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new group and click on the Add New Group button …

A new category will be added. Make sure that the check box is ticked …

(New group added)

Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or making changes to a staff member’s details. To edit a group item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section above for details).

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

Click View Post …

To make changes to the employee’s profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in the WordPress admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

If you need help using the WP admin toolbar, refer to this tutorial:

• The WP Control Panel Explained

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

(Not found error? Check your permalinks)

If you need help setting up permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO

Continue adding new details to your directory directory as described above.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

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

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all your directory items and their details …

(Staff Members details)

If you need to edit individual details, hover your mouse over their listing, and a submenu will appear.

Click on Edit to edit their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also remove someone from your employee directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …

(Editing Staff Members profile details)

If you have added many names to this section, your table can get quite long.

Use the Search Staff Members search feature to locate a member if necessary …

(Search members)

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

(Screen Options)

Placing a tick in the item’s checkbox displays the field and unselecting it hides the field. You can also select how many staff members are listed per page. Click the Apply button when done to save your preferences …

Staff Members – Order

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

Click Staff Members > Order on your main menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the entry to its new position …

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be rearranged …

(Reordered list)

Once you are done adding members’ details to your directory, the next step is to display the directory to your site users.

Staff Members – Order

The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you specify the order in which listings show on your directory pages.

Select Staff Members > Order in the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To reorder your listings, click and drag the entry to a desired position …

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your list will be automatically rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

Once you are done adding all of your staff details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory display to your visitors.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

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

Templates Menu

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

(Staff Members – Templates)

This opens the Templates page …

(Customize your directory template)

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

For example, here is the Default Staff Loop Template …

(Default Template)

The This code displays your directory listing as shown below …

(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template Listing)

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

(Template tags can be added to the Staff Loop Template to customize your directory page)

Here is what your staff list should now look like …

(Directory with social media links)

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

Usage Menu

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

In your main menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This brings up the Usage screen …

(Usage shortcodes)

This screen lists all the shortcode variations that the plugin lets you use.

A useful variation you can add to your page, for example, to display only members belonging a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”Asia Pacific Region”])

You can also display listings in ascending or descending order by adding the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”ASC”] (ascending).

Options Menu

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

(Staff Members – Options)

This opens the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – customizable fields)

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

Finally, you can also export your staff members info from the Tools > Export page …

(Export Staff Members info)

If you need any help with the Simple Staff List plugin, visit the plugin plugin website and contact the plugin developer.

Other Employee Directory Plugins

Simple Staff List is not the only plugin you can use. For example, here are other plugins you can check out for adding an employee directory on your website:

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

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

With Staff Directory, you can easily create a directory of staff/team/faculty members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, teams, etc.

You can also set up custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot source: plugin website)

Go here to learn more:

• Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory)

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

The plugin also includes a widget that allows you to feature profiles in a widget area.

More info:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory – WordPress Plugin)

With Company Directory, you can easily add your employees, team or faculty to your site. Different layouts are included, including list and single views, plus as fields like job title, email address, phone, photo and staff 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 employee in a customizable single view …

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

This plugin also uses simple shortcodes.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight)

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

With this plugin, you also 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 team member can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …

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

Go here to learn more:

• Employee Spotlight

Staffer

(Staffer – WordPress Plugin)

The Staffer 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 onsite staff directory …

(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.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staffer – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

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

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

Hopefully, now you know how to add an easy-to-manage simple faculty members directory to in WordPress without editing code.

Images used to portray staff members were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

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