Business experts have successfully demonstrated that people often tend to buy from those they know, like and trust.
Are you looking for simple ideas to grow your business online? Then help your visitors get to know your business better.
If you use WordPress, a simple way to help visitors get to know you better is to add a WordPress directory plugin that lets you add information about your key partners, your faculty, or your staff.
In this tutorial, we explain how to add an easy-to-maintain simple faculty directory in your web site without messing around with code.
Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory To Your WordPress Site
In this tutorial, we will 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 basic information about your employee on your website.
The first step is to install and activate the plugin.
Log into the WordPress admin and from the admin menu, choose Plugins > Add New …
(WordPress Plugins Menu – Add New)
In the Plugins area, search for “simple staff plugin”. This will bring up the Simple Staff Plugin in your search results area.
Click on Install Now …
(WordPress Plugins – plugin search results)
Click on the Activate Plugin link …
(Activate plugin)
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will notice that new entry will appear on your WordPress menu bar called Staff Members …
(Staff Members)
All of the options and settings for this plugin are configured and managed in the Staff Members menu.
Simple Staff List – Plugin Configuration
Depending on the size of your organization and how you want to structure your staff directory, you can just begin to add new staff members at this at this stage, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual members.
Staff Members – Groups
Let’s set up your directory categories. From your dashboard menu, choose Staff Members > Groups …
(Staff Members – Groups)
The Groups settings panel …
(Groups settings)
Note: Configuring groups is just like setting up categories in WordPress …
(Groups work just like categories)
Create a new group by typing in the following information:
- Group Name – Enter your group name here
- Slug – Type in the slug of your category name. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
- Parent – Use this section if you plan to set up nested categories
- Description – Enter the group description in this field (optional)
- Click Add New Group when finished to set up a new group name …
(Groups screen)
If you are a business that employs many people, being able to set up different categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for founders, project teams, faculties, etc.
Create as many categories 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 groups)
Remember to click the Add New Group button after creating new items …
To edit or reassign Groups for specific items, hover your mouse over a category title and click on the Edit link …
The selected item will display in the Edit Group page. Select a new group from the Parent dropdown menu …
(Edit Group settings)
Click the Update button to save your changes …
To edit your Group name or slug, hover over the group name and choose the Quick Edit menu feature …
Click on Update Group when done to save your changes …
Add as many categories as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …
Add as many nested categories as you like …
(Add nested categories your directory)
After you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, you can begin to add your people to your directory.
Staff Members – Add New
From your admin menu, choose Staff Members > Add New …
(Staff Members Menu – Add New)
The Add New Staff Member settings …
(Add New Staff Member section)
This section provides you with an easy-to-use interface for adding and editing your staff member details and includes the following fields:
Name Section (1)
- Name: Your staff member’s name
- Permalink: Here you can edit each staff members’ permalink URL (you will see this section after your first save).
Staff Photo Section (2)
- Photo: Upload a photo of your staff member
Staff Member Info Section (3)
- Position: Your staff member’s role
- Email: Your employee’s email address
- Phone Number: Type the person’s phone number into this field
- Facebook URL: Add your company’s Facebook address (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
- Twitter URL: Type in your employee’s Twitter username (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)
Staff Member Bio Section (4)
- Staff Member Bio: Enter a profile description for your employee or faculty member here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can format content into this section.
Groups Section (5)
- Groups: You can assign the person to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up groups).
Click on the Screen Options tab …
(Screen options)
You can enable additional page settings …
(Enable additional fields in screen options)
Now that you know what each section does, enter each employee’s details …
(Staff directory settings)
Once you have entered details, assign your entry to a directory group in the Groups section in your sidebar …
(Groups box)
Note: If you did not set up groups before adding new staff members, you can add a new group by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …
(Groups > + Add New Group link)
A field will appear allowing you to enter a new group name, with a drop-down menu that lets you assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new category and click on Add New Group …
The new group will be created. Remember to tick the check box to assign the entry to the group …
(Groups section)
Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or making changes to new employee details. 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 entering your employee or 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 the admin toolbar …
(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using the admin toolbar here:
Note: If ’page not found’ errors shows up like the one shown in the screenshot below, check that your permalinks have been set up correctly …
(Page error? Check your permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using WP permalinks here:
Repeat the above process to continue adding new details to your employee directory directory.
Staff Members – All Staff Members
After you are done adding employee details to your directory, you can view and edit details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members in your menu …
(Staff Members – All Staff Members)
This brings up a table displaying all your directory entries and details you have added related to each entry …
(Staff Members table)
If you need to edit an individual’s entry, just hover over their list name, and a submenu will appear.
Click on Edit to make changes to their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details like name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete an entry from your employee directory by clicking on Trash, or view the entry on your site by clicking on View …
(Edit Staff Members profile info)
If you have many employees, your table can become unwieldy.
You can use the Search Staff Members search box to locate items …
(Search Staff Members search box)
The plugin also lets you specify which fields can display in this section. To show or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab …
(Staff Members Screen Options)
Tick or untick the checkboxes to show or hide fields. You can also choose how many staff members are listed per page. Click the Apply button when finished to save your preferences …
Staff Members – Order
The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you specify the order that your staff details show on your directory page.
Click Staff Members > Order on the main admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Order)
To reorder your items, click and drag the item to its desired location …
(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)
Your list will be automatically reorganized …
(Reordered list entries)
Once you are done adding all of your employees’ details to the directory, the next step is to make your directory show to your visitors.
Staff Members – Order
The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you specify the order that entries display on your directory page.
Click Staff Members > Order in the dashboard menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Order)
To rearrange the order of your items, click and drag the entry to its desired location …
(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)
Your list will automatically be reordered …
(Reordered list items)
After adding your members’ listing details to your directory, the next step is to display the directory to your visitors.
Simple Staff List – Additional Notes
The Simple Staff List plugin lets you customize 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 staff list, select Staff Members > Templates from your menu …
(Staff Members – Templates)
This brings up the Templates screen …
(Customize your directory template)
To customize your directory listings, reorganize any of the allowable template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.
For example, below is the Default Staff Loop Template …
(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template)
The The code shown above will display your directory listing as 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 show up in your directory, we will need to include the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags in the template, as shown in the example below …
(Template tags added to Staff Loop Template)
Your staff listings will now display as as shown below …
(Directory listings with social media URLs)
Note: If you want to customize your directory listings but don’t want to mess around with CSS styles and template tags or are not sure what to do, please contact us for help.
Usage Menu
As well as allowing you to customize your listing templates, the Simple Staff List plugin lets you display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.
In your main menu, choose Staff Members >Usage …
(Staff Members – Usage)
This brings up the Usage page …
(Usage Shortcode section)
This screen displays all different shortcode variations allowed by the Simple Staff List plugin.
A useful shortcode variation you can select, for example, to display a list of individuals belonging only to 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=”DESC”] (descending).
Options Menu
In your menu, select Staff Members >Options …
(Staff Members – Options)
This brings up the Options page …
(Simple Staff List – customizable options)
This section lets you modify labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member title
You can also export your staff members data by going to your main admin menu and choosing Tools > Export …
(Export Staff Members plugin info)
If you need plugin help or support, go to the plugin support page and contact the plugin author.
Additional WordPress Plugins For Creating Simple Staff Directories
Simple Staff List is not the only for displaying a directory of your team members. For example, here are other plugins you can use:
Modern Team Staff Directory
(Modern Team Staff Directory)
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)
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Staff Directory
(Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)
With the Staff Directory plugin, you can easily display a list of staff/team/faculty members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, teams, etc.
You can also insert custom fields …
(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot source: Staff Directory plugin website)
More info:
Faculty And Staff Directory
(Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Plugin)
This plugin was developed to provide a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college, school or university.
The plugin also installs a widget that allows you to feature a profile in a widget area.
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Company Directory
(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
Company Directory gives you an easy way to add your staff to your website. Different layouts are included, including list and table views, plus as fields like position title, email, phone, pic and bio, allowing you to present your company and capabilities.
Visitors can 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 source: Company Directory website)
This plugin uses a simple shortcode system.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
Employee Spotlight
(Employee Spotlight)
Employee Spotlight displays team members, founders or just one individual person in a 4-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, and two responsive views which adjust to the viewer’s screen.
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: plugin website)
For more details go here:
Staffer
(Staffer – WP Staff Directory Plugin)
The Staffer 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 plugin website)
Staffer works immediately with almost all WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
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 Directory Plugin
- Staff Directory WordPress Plugin
- Staff Directory Plugin WordPress
- etc.
Hopefully, this tutorial has explained how to create and add an easy-to-update staff directory to your web site.
Images used to display fictitious staff members were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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