Tag: WordPress Staff Plugin

You have no doubt heard that people often tend to buy from those they already know, like and trust.

If you are looking for simple ways to sell more products or services online, then help your prospects get to know, like and trust you, your team and your business better.

If you own a WordPress-powered website, one way to easily help people get to know you better is to display information about your key people, your faculty, or your employees using a directory plugin.

This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add a simple and easy-to-update staff directory in your web site.

Adding An Employee Directory To Your Site: Plugin Tutorial

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

Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List)

Simple Staff List lets you easily build a simple staff directory list for.

First, let’s install and activate the plugin.

Log into the dashboard and in your admin menu, click on Plugins > Add New …

(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 your plugin has been installed and activated, you will see that a new entry will be added to your main WP menu bar called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

All of the settings for this 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 staff directory, you can begin to add new entries at this at this stage, or create different groups (i.e. categories) to assign yourstaff members into.

Staff Members – Groups

To set up your directory groups go to your WordPress dashboard menu and choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

The Groups settings panel …

(Groups area)

Note: Configuring groups is similar to creating categories …

(Groups work like categories)

Add a new group by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Type in your 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 drop-down menu if you plan to set up a directory hierarchy
4. Description – Enter the group description here
5. Click the Add New Group button when finished to create a new directory group …

(Groups settings)

If you work with a larger organization, being able to create categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for founders, project teams, faculties, 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 each item …

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

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

(Edit Group settings)

Click Update to save your changes …

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

Click on Update Group  when done to save your changes …

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

Add as many nested groups as you like …

(Nested categories)

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

Staff Members – Add New

From your WP admin menu, click on Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members – Add New)

The Add New Staff Member settings …

(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: Enter the staff member’s name
• Slug: Edit your employees’ slug (this section appears after your first save).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo in this section

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: Type the person’s position here
• Email: Add the person’s email address into this field
• Phone Number: Type the person’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Add the person’s Facebook address here (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Type in your staff member’s Twitter username here (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 use HTML into this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign the person to a group (see the previous section of this tutorial to learn how to set up groups).

Click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your 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 Staff Member settings)

Once you are done entering details, assign your item to a directory group in the Groups box located in the sidebar …

(Groups feature)

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

(Groups - + Add New Group feature)

A field will display allowing you to create a new group name, with a dropdown 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 group 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 modified. 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 the person’s details, click the Publish button …

Click View Post …

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

(Edit Staff Member link – WordPress admin toolbar)

If you need help using the admin toolbar, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• The WordPress Control Screen – A Tutorial

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

(Check your permalinks if you get a ‘page not found’ error)

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

• How To Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks

Repeat the above process to continue adding new members to your staff directory directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After you have entered all staff members to your directory, you can view and edit details by selecting Staff Members > All Staff Members on your WP admin menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a list displaying all the staff members and details you have added with each entry …

(Staff Members details list)

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

Click on Edit if you need to modify their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to edit details like name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also remove an entry from the directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …

(Editing Staff Members profile details)

Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your list can become unwieldy.

Use the Search Staff Members search field to find entries if required …

(Search Staff Members search feature)

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

(Screen Options)

Tick or untick the checkboxes to display or hide fields. You can also select how many staff members are listed per page. Click Apply when done to update your preferences …

Staff Members – Order

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

Select Staff Members > Order in your dashboard menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Reorder staff listings using drag and drop)

Your list will be automatically rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

Once you have added all of your employees’ listing details to the directory, the next step is to display your directory 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 entries appear on your directory pages.

Choose Staff Members > Order in the dashboard menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To rearrange the order of your items, click and drag the item to a desired location …

(Reorder items using drag and drop)

Your directory will automatically be reorganized …

(Reordered list)

Once you are done adding member listing details to the directory, the next step is to display your directory on your site.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

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

Templates Menu

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

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This brings up the Templates screen …

(Simple Staff List Templates screen)

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

For example, here is the Default Template …

(Default Staff Loop Template)

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

(Default Plugin Template Listing)

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

(Template tags can be added to Staff Loop Template)

Your staff profiles will now appear with Facebook and Twitter links as as shown below …

(Directory listings with social media URLs added)

Note: If you want to customize your directory but don’t want to mess around with code or are unsure of 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 allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.

In your main admin menu, choose Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This opens the Usage screen …

(Simple Staff List – Usage shortcodes)

This screen provides a list of all the shortcode variations that you can use with this plugin.

A useful shortcode variation you can add to your page, 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=”property managers”])

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

Options Menu

In the dashboard menu, select Staff Members >Options …

(Staff Members – Options)

This brings up the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – Options screen)

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

You can also export your staff members data by going to the menu and selecting Tools > Export …

(Export Staff Members plugin info)

If you need plugin support, visit the Simple Staff List plugin site.

Other Employee Directory Plugins For WordPress

Simple Staff List isn’t the only adding a directory of your team members in WordPress. For example, here are other free plugins you can use:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – WordPress Plugin)

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)

For more details go here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory 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, teams, etc.

You can also insert custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot source: plugin website)

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – WordPress Plugin)

The Faculty And Staff Directory plugin provides a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college or university.

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

Learn more here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory

Company Directory

(Company Directory)

Company Directory lets you easily add your employees to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and table views, plus as fields like position title, email, phone number, image and staff bio, allowing visitors to get to know your company and capabilities.

Visitors will be able to 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 sourced from plugin website)

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

More info:

• Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays employees, partners or just an 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, plus two responsive views which adjust to the screen size of 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 circle grid. Screenshot source: Employee Spotlight website)

Go here to learn more about this plugin:

• Employee Spotlight – Plugin For WordPress

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 an employee directory on your site …

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: Staffer website)

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

Go here to learn more:

• Staffer – WP Staff Directory Plugin

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

Congratulations! Now you know how to add a simple directory of staff members to your WordPress site, so you can showcase the people in your business, team, or organization.

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

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