Tag: WordPress Plugin Staff Directory

Business experts have successfully shown over the years that people will mostly buy from people they know, like and trust.

If you are looking for quicker, easier and cheaper ideas to sell more products online and get people to stay longer on your site, then help visitors get to know, like and trust your organization better.

Adding a directory of staff or faculty members to your site can help humanize your business.

This tutorial will show you how to add a simple and easy-to-update staff directory to your website.

How To Add A Staff Directory

In this tutorial, we will install, activate and configure a WordPress plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress

(Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin)

Simple Staff List is free and lets you easily create a simple staff directory for.

First, let’s install and activate the plugin.

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

(Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on the Install Now button …

(Plugins  – plugin search results)

Click on Activate Plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After installing and activating your plugin, you will see that a new menu entry will be added to your main WordPress menu section called Staff Members …

(Staff Members menu)

This menu is where you will manage and configure all of the settings for the Simple Staff List plugin are configured and managed from this menu.

Simple Staff List – Plugin Configuration

Depending on how many people are in your business and how you want to structure your directory, you can just begin to add new entries at this point, or create several groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual members.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s configure your directory categories. In your WP dashboard menu, choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members Menu – Groups)

This loads the Groups screen …

(Groups section)

Note: Adding directory groups is very similar to creating categories …

(Groups are like WordPress categories)

Add a new group by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your group category name
2. Slug – Enter the slug of your group name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
3. Parent – Use this section to set up nested categories
4. Description – Type in a category description in this field
5. Click Add New Group when finished to set up a new group …

(Groups settings)

If you work with a business that employs many people, the ability to set up different categories can be very useful. For example, you can create categories for founders, project teams, 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 hierarchical structure …

(Nested groups)

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

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

The selected item’s details will display in the Edit Group screen. Select a new category from the Parent dropdown menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click Update to save your changes …

To change 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 groups in this section until you have created your directory structure …

You can add as many nested categories as you like …

(Add nested groups to your staff directory)

Once you are done setting up your groups, you can begin to add names to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

In your WordPress admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

This brings you to the Add New Staff Member settings screen …

(Add New Staff Member settings area)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: The employee’s name
• Slug: Edit the slug associated with each employee if you want (this section appears after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Add a photo in this section

Staff Member Info Section (3)

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

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

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

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: Assign the person to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up 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 …

(Add Staff Member settings)

After you have entered your staff member’s details, assign your entry to a directory group in the Groups box in your sidebar …

(Groups box)

Note: If you have not set up your directory groups before starting to add new staff members, you can add a new group in this screen by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …

(Groups > + Add New Group)

A field for creating a group name will display, 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 Add New Group …

Your new group will be created. Make sure that the check box is ticked …

(New group added via Groups section)

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

***

After typing in your team member’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

You can make changes to the staff member’s profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in your admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – WP admin toolbar)

For a detailed tutorial on using the admin toolbar , go here:

• Your WP Control Area Explained

Note: If a page error like the one shown in the example below shows up, check that you have correctly set up your site’s permalinks …

(Page error? Check your permalinks)

We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here:

• Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO

Continue adding new members to your staff directory directory as described above.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

Once you have finished adding staff members to your directory, you can view and edit details by selecting Staff Members > All Staff Members on the main menu …

(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all your employees and all details you have added with each entry …

(Staff Members details list)

If you need to make changes to an individual’s entry, hover over their name, and a submenu will appear.

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

(Edit Staff Members profile)

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

You can use the Search Staff Members search box to locate entries if necessary …

(Search Staff Members search box)

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

(Staff Members Screen Options tab)

Placing a tick in the item’s check box displays the field and unselecting it hides the field. You can also select how many staff members are shown per page. Click Apply when finished to update your settings …

Staff Members – Order

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

Choose Staff Members > Order on the menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To rearrange the order of your listings, click and drag the item to its desired location …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be reorganized …

(Reordered listings)

Once you are done adding employees’ details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory show to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to set the order in which your employees display on your directory page.

Choose Staff Members > Order on the main menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

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

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list items)

Once you have added all of your staff details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory display to your visitors.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

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

Templates Menu

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

(Staff Members – Templates)

This opens the Templates screen …

(Templates screen)

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

For example, here is a screenshot of the Default Staff Loop Template …

(Default Plugin Template)

The The code shown above will display your directory listing as shown below …

(Default 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] tags in the template, as shown in the example below …

(Use template tags to customize your directory page)

Here is what your staff list 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 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 directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.

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

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This brings up the Usage page …

(Simple Staff List shortcodes)

This screen lists all different shortcode variations that you can use with the Simple Staff List plugin.

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

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

Options Menu

Choose Staff Members >Options in the menu …

(Staff Members – Options)

This brings up the Options page …

(Simple Staff List – customizable options)

This section lets you change labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member titles

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

(Export Staff Members information)

If you need plugin help or support, go to the plugin plugin site.

Other Employee Directory Plugins

Simple Staff List is not the only WordPress staff directory plugin you can use. Here are some other free plugins you can look at:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

Modern Team Staff Directory 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)

More info:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

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

The plugin also lets you insert custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot source: plugin website)

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory)

This plugin provides 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 a profile in a widget area.

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Company Directory

(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

With Company Directory, you can easily add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and single views, as well as fields like job title, email address, phone number, photo 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 employee in a customizable single view …

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

This plugin uses shortcodes.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Company Directory – WP Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight)

Employee Spotlight displays employees, founders or just one individual member of your team in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.

This plugin includes two sidebar widgets which display featured and recent employees, and 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 employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)

Go here to learn more about the plugin:

• Employee Spotlight – Plugin For WordPress

Staffer

(Staffer – WordPress Plugin)

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

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: plugin website)

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

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staffer – WP Plugin

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

Congratulations! Now you know how to add a simple staff directory to your WordPress site, so your web visitors can get to know you and the people in your team better.

Images used to depict staff members in this tutorial were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com

***