Tag: WordPress Plugin Staff Directory

Many business and marketing experts have successfully shown that people will buy from businesses they already know, like and trust.

Are you looking for inexpensive ideas to grow your business online? Then help your visitors get to know you, your team and your business better.

Adding a faculty member directory to your website can generate increased trust, increase your credibility online and get more prospects considering using your services.

This tutorial will show you how to create a simple and easy-to-manage employee directory in WordPress.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: How To Add A Staff List Directory

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a no cost plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin)

Simple Staff List lets you easily display information about your staff on your site.

First, let’s install and activate this plugin.

Log into the admin and navigate to Plugins > Add New …

(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)

In the Plugins panel, 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)

Click the Activate Plugin link …

(Activate plugin)

After installing and activating the plugin, you will notice that new entry will display on the WordPress menu section called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

This menu is where you will manage and configure 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 employee directory, you can just start adding new staff members at this at this stage, or create different groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual staff members.

Staff Members – Groups

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

(Staff Members – Groups)

This takes you to the Groups settings panel …

(Groups section)

Note: Configuring groups works just like categories …

(Groups are like WordPress categories)

Create a new group by entering the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your category name
2. Slug – Enter the URL-friendly version 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 groups
4. Description – Type in a group description in this field
5. Click the Add New Group button when done to set up your new directory group …

(Groups settings)

If you work with a medium to large organization, the ability to set up different categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for partners, project teams, departments, etc.

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

(Nested categories)

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

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

Your selected group will display in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent group category from the Parent drop-down menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click the Update button to save your changes …

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

Click on Update Group  when done …

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

Add as many nested categories as you like …

(Add nested groups to your staff directory)

After you have finished setting up your hierarchical structure, you can start to add staff details to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

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

(Staff Members – Add New)

This brings up the Add New Staff Member area …

(Add New Staff Member settings area)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: The staff member’s name
• Permalink: Modify each employees’ slug (this section appears after your first save).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Add a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: Your employee’s position
• Email: Type in the person’s email address
• Phone Number: Enter your employee’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Enter your employee’s Facebook URL (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Enter your company’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. As this uses the built-in WordPress Text Editor, you can use HTML in this section.

Groups Section (5)

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

Click on the Screen Options tab …

(Screen options tab)

You will see options to enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

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

(Add Staff Member settings)

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

(Groups feature)

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

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

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

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

(Groups feature)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when a staff member’s details are being added or edited. To edit an item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section of the tutorial above for details).

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

Click View Post …

You can update your member profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in the WordPress admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

To learn more about using the admin toolbar, refer to this tutorial:

• The WP Dashboard Explained

Note: If you see ’not found’ page errors like the one shown below, check that you have correctly set up your permalinks …

(Check your permalinks if you get errors)

To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, see this tutorial:

• Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs

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

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering employee or team members into your directory, you can view and edit details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members in your menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table listing all your directory items and the details you have added related to each entry …

(Staff Members details table)

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

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

(Editing Staff Members profile details)

If you have many entries, your table can become unwieldy.

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

(Search members)

The plugin also lets you specify which fields to display in this section. To hide or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab …

(Staff Members Screen Options)

Tick or untick the checkboxes to show or hide specific fields. You can also specify how many staff members are listed per page. Click Apply when done to save your screen options …

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to arrange the order in which entries display on your directory page.

Select Staff Members > Order on your menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Reorder employee listings using drag and drop)

Your directory will be automatically reordered …

(Reordered list)

After adding your employees’ details to the directory, the next step is to add the directory to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order in which your staff members display on your directory pages.

Click Staff Members > Order in your menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the entry to a desired location …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

After adding your staff listing details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory display to your site visitors.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

Simple Staff List also lets you create the layout and style of your directory items 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 dashboard menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This brings up the Templates screen …

(Simple Staff List Templates page)

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

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

(Default Staff Loop Template)

The This code displays your listing as shown below …

(Default Simple Staff List Template Listing)

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

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

Your directory details will now display with Facebook and Twitter links as as shown below …

(Directory listings with social media URLs)

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

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 menu, click on Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This brings up the Usage screen …

(Simple Staff List – Usage shortcodes)

This screen lists all different shortcode variations allowed by the plugin.

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

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

Options Menu

In your main menu, select Staff Members >Options …

(Staff Members – Options)

This opens the Options page …

(Options settings)

This section lets you change 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 plugin information)

If you need additional information about the Simple Staff List plugin, visit the Simple Staff List plugin site.

Other WordPress Plugins For Creating Simple Employee Directories

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

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

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)

More info:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WordPress Plugin)

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

The plugin lets you add custom fields …

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

More info:

• Staff Directory

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 profiles in a widget area.

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory

Company Directory

(Company Directory)

With Company Directory, you can easily add your employees, team or faculty to your website. Different layouts are available, including list and table views, as well as fields like job title, email, phone number, image and staff bio, allowing you to present 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 plugin website)

This plugin also uses shortcodes.

Learn more here:

• Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – Plugin For WordPress)

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

This plugin comes with two sidebar widgets which display featured and recent employees selected in the editor, plus two responsive views which adjust to the screen size of 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 source: plugin website)

Go here to learn more:

• Employee Spotlight – Plugin For WordPress

Staffer

(Staffer)

This plugin 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 website)

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

Go here to learn more:

• Staffer – Plugin For WordPress

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 Plugin
• WordPress Plugin Staff Directory
• Employee Directory WordPress
• etc.

Hopefully, this step-by-step tutorial has explained how to add a simple and easy-to-maintain employee directory to your WordPress site.

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

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