Tag: WordPress Staff Plugin

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

If you are looking for quicker, simpler and cheaper ways to sell more products online and increase user interaction with your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for prospects to get to know, like and trust you and your organization better.

If you use WordPress, a simple way to help visitors get to know you better is to display information about your key partners, your faculty, or your employees using a WordPress directory plugin.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to easily create and add an easy-to-update directory of employees in your website using free plugins.

Tutorial: How To Add An Employee Directory

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a WordPress plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)

Simple Staff List lets you easily create a basic staff directory list for.

The first step is to install and activate the plugin.

Log into your dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New …

(Plugins Menu – Add New)

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

Click on Install Now …

(Plugins  – Add Plugins screen)

Activate the plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see that a new entry will appear in the main WordPress menu bar called Staff Members …

(Staff Members menu)

All of the settings for your plugin are configured and managed in this menu.

Configuring Simple Staff List

Depending on how many people are in your organization and how you want to structure your staff directory, you can just begin adding new staff entries after installing the plugin, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to individual staff members.

Staff Members – Groups

To configure your groups go to your dashboard menu and select Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members – Groups)

This brings up the Groups area …

(Groups settings)

Note: Adding groups works in the same way as configuring categories …

(Groups work like WordPress categories)

Add a new group by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Enter your group name here
2. Slug – Type in the URL-friendly version of your group. 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 nested groups
4. Description – Enter the category description here (optional)
5. Click the Add New Group button when finished to set up the new category …

(Groups settings screen)

If you are a larger organization, having the ability to create groups can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for partners, 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 organize these into a directory hierarchy …

(Nested groups)

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

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

The group details open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new group category from the Parent dropdown menu …

(Edit Group screen)

Click Update to save your changes …

To change the Group name or slug, hover over the group name and choose the Quick Edit menu feature …

Click the Update Group button to save your changes …

Add as many categories as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …

You can add as many nested categories as you like …

(Nested groups)

After you have finished setting up your hierarchical structure, the next step is to start adding your people to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

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

(Staff Members Menu – Add New)

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

(Add New Staff Member screen)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: Enter the employee’s name
• Slug: Modify your staff members’ slug (this section appears after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Upload a photo of your staff member

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: Enter the employee’s role
• Email: Add the person’s email address
• Phone Number: Type the person’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Add the person’s Facebook address (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Type in the employee’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 staff members here. As this uses the default WordPress Text Editor, you can use HTML in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign an employee or team member to a specific group (see the previous section of this tutorial to learn how to set up 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 page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

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

(Add Staff Member fields)

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

(Groups feature)

Note: If you did not set up your directory groups before starting to add staff member details, you can create a group now by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

A field for creating your new group name will display, with a drop-down menu that lets you assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new directory category and click on Add New Group …

A new category will be created. Remember to tick the check box to assign your listing to the group …

(Groups section)

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

***

After filling in your employee’s details, click the Publish button to add them to your staff directory …

Click View Post …

To update your member profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in the WP admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – WP admin toolbar)

We have created a detailed tutorial on using the WP admin toolbar here:

• How To Navigate Around Your WP Control Panel

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

(Page error? Check your permalinks)

We have written a detailed tutorial about using WP permalinks here:

• Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks

Keep adding more members to your employee directory directory until done.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

Once you have entered all staff members into your directory, you can view and edit their details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members on your menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a list with all the directory entries and their details …

(Staff Members details)

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

Click on Edit if you need to edit their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to update details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete a list item from the staff directory by clicking on Trash, or view the entry on your site by selecting View …

(Editing Staff Members details)

If you have many entries, your list can get quite long.

Use the Search Staff Members search feature to find a member …

(Search Staff Members search field)

You can specify which fields to display in this section. To hide or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab at the top of your page …

(Staff Members Screen Options tab)

Selecting a check box displays the field and unchecking a box hides the field. You can also choose how many staff members are shown per page. Click Apply when done to update your screen options …

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you arrange the order that entries appear on your directory pages.

Click Staff Members > Order in your main admin menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)

Your staff list will be automatically rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

Once you have added staff details to your directory, the next step is to add the 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 listings show on your directory pages.

Choose Staff Members > Order on the main menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Reorder listings using drag and drop)

Your list will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list items)

Once you have added staff listing details to your directory, the next step is to add the directory to your site users.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The plugin 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 layout and style of your staff list, select Staff Members > Templates from the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This opens the Templates screen …

(Customize your directory template)

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

For example, below is a screenshot of the Default Template …

(Default Plugin 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 URLs showing in the above listing. To display these fields, we will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags to the template loop, as shown in the screenshot below …

(Template tags added to Staff Loop Template)

Your staff listings will now display Facebook and Twitter links as shown in the screenshot below …

(Employee profiles with social media URLs)

Note: If you want to customize your directory but don’t want to mess around with editing code or are unsure of how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for assistance.

Usage Menu

As well as allowing you to customize your directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your listings differently using modified shortcodes.

In your dashboard menu, click on Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This opens the Usage screen …

(Usage shortcodes)

This screen lists all the shortcode variations that the Simple Staff List plugin lets you use.

For example, a useful variation you can add to your page 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=”technical engineers”])

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

Options Menu

Click Staff Members >Options on your main menu …

(Staff Members – Options)

This brings up the Options screen …

(Options settings)

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

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

(Export Staff Members information)

If you need plugin help or support, go to the plugin support page and request help from the plugin author.

Other Employee Directory Plugins

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

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

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)

For more details go here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

With the Staff Directory plugin, you can easily create a directory of team/faculty/staff members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for companies, schools, etc.

You can also create custom fields …

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

Learn more here:

• Staff Directory

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

This plugin 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.

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress

Company Directory

(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

With the Company Directory plugin, you can add your staff to your site. Different layouts are included, including grid and table views, as well as fields like job title, email address, phone number, pic and 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 employee in a customizable single view …

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

This plugin also uses a simple shortcode system.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Company Directory – WP Plugin

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.

With Employee Spotlight, you also get two sidebar widgets which 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 sourced from Employee Spotlight website)

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – Plugin For WordPress)

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 an employee directory on your site …

(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: plugin website)

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

More info:

• Staffer

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

Congratulations! Now you know how to add and create a simple employee directory to your WordPress site, so your web visitors can get to know you and your company better.

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

***