Tag: WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Many business experts have successfully demonstrated that people generally buy from businesses they already know, like and trust.

Are you searching for simple ideas to grow your business online and get people to stay longer on your site? Then help your visitors get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

If you have a WordPress website, one way to easily help visitors get to know you better is to display information about your partners, your team, or your employees using a WordPress staff list plugin.

This step-by-step tutorial explains how to create an easy-to-manage directory of employees in your website.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding A Staff Directory

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.

First, let’s install and activate the Simple Staff List plugin.

Log into the WP administration and navigate to Plugins > Add New …

(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on Install Now …

(Plugins  – plugin search results)

Click the Activate Plugin link …

(Activate plugin)

After installing and activating the plugin, you will see that a new menu will display on your WordPress menu bar called Staff Members …

(Staff Members menu)

Here is where you will configure and manage all of the settings and options for your plugin are configured and managed in the Staff Members menu.

Configuring Simple Staff List

Depending on how many people are in your organization and how you want to structure your staff directory, you could just start to add new staff members at this point, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual employees.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s set up your groups. In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

This brings you to the Groups section …

(Groups settings)

Note: Setting up directory groups is similar to working with categories in WordPress …

(Groups are like categories)

Add a new group by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Enter your category name here
2. Slug – Type in 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 if you plan to set up nested categories
4. Description – Enter your group description in this field
5. Click the Add New Group button when done to create a new group name …

(Groups settings)

If you are a larger organization, having the ability to create groups can be very useful. For example, you can create a category for partners, developers, faculties, etc.

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

(Nested groups)

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

To edit Groups for specific items, hover your mouse over a category title and click on the Edit link …

Your selected item’s details open in the Edit Group page. Select a new category from the Parent drop-down menu …

(Edit Group settings)

Click Update when done …

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

Click on Update Group  when done …

Continue adding groups to this section until you have created your directory structure …

Add as many nested categories as you like …

(Add nested groups to your staff directory)

Once you have finished setting up your groups, the next step is to start to add staff details to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

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

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

This takes you to the Add New Staff Member settings area …

(Add New Staff Member section)

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: Your employee’s name
• Slug: You can modify the permalink URL associated with your employee if you want (you will see this section after your first save).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo here

Staff Member Info Section (3)

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

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: This section lets you assign your staff member to a 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 …

(Staff directory settings)

After you have entered details, assign your item to a directory group in the Groups box located in the sidebar …

(Groups section)

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

(Groups - + Add New Group)

A field for creating your new group name will display, with a dropdown menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Enter your new directory category and click on Add New Group …

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

(New group)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when new employee details are being added or edited. 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 entering your employee’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

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

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

If you need help using the dashboard admin toolbar, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Navigate Around The WP Administration Page

Note: If you have set up groups and get ’page not found’ errors like the one shown below, check that your site permalinks have been configured correctly …

(Not found error? Check your permalinks)

We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here:

• Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks

Repeat the above process to add new details to your staff directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering staff members into your directory, you can view and edit details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members in your WP admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table of all the directory items and their details …

(Staff Members list)

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

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

(Editing Staff Members profile info)

If you have many names added to this section, your table can become unwieldy.

Use the Search Staff Members search feature to locate entries if required …

(Search Staff Members search field)

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

(Screen Options tab)

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

Staff Members – Order

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

Select Staff Members > Order on your menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list)

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

Staff Members – Order

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

Select Staff Members > Order on the dashboard menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

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

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your staff list will be automatically reorganized …

(Reordered list items)

Once you have added member details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory show to your site users.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

Simple Staff List lets you edit the layout and style of your employee directory items 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 opens the Templates page …

(Customize your directory template)

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

For example, here is the default template used for displaying listings …

(Default Plugin Staff Loop Template)

The The code shown above displays your listing as shown below …

(Default Template Listing)

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

(Template tags added to Staff Loop Template)

Here is what your staff list should now look like …

(Staff profiles with social media URLs)

Note: If you want to customize how your directory looks but don’t want to mess around with code or are not sure what to do, please contact us for assistance.

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 WP admin menu, choose Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This brings up the Usage page …

(Simple Staff List – Usage Shortcode screen)

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

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

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

Options Menu

Choose Staff Members >Options on the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Options)

This opens the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – Options screen)

This section lets you modify some of the labels used in the plugin

You can also export your staff members data from the Tools > Export menu …

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need plugin support, visit the Simple Staff List support page and contact the plugin author.

Other WordPress Plugins For Creating Simple Staff Directories

Simple Staff List is not the only adding a listing of your team members. Here are a few other plugins you can use:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – WordPress 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 – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

This plugin lets you easily display a list of staff/faculty/team members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, teams, etc.

The plugin lets you add custom fields …

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

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staff Directory

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, school 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 this plugin:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

With the Company Directory plugin, you can add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and single views, plus as fields like title, email address, phone number, photo and member 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 staff member in a customizable single view …

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

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

More info:

• Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WP Plugin)

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 the Employee Spotlight plugin, you get two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees selected in the editor, plus two responsive views which adjust to the device screen size.

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

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

Learn more here:

• Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – Plugin For WordPress)

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

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: Staffer plugin website)

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

More info:

• Staffer – WP Plugin

If the directory plugins listed above 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.

Hopefully, now you know how to add a directory of staff members to your WordPress site using free plugins.

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

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