Tag: WP Staff Directory Plugin

It’s often said in business circles that people tend to buy from people they know, like and trust.

If you are searching for simple ideas to sell more products online, then help prospects get to know your organization better.

If you are a WordPress user, a simple way to help people get to know you better is to use a WordPress directory plugin that will let you display information about your key partners, your business team, or your employees.

In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to add an easy-to-update directory of employees to WordPress using a free plugin.

Step-By-Step Tutorial: Adding An Employee Directory To Your WordPress Site

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

Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress

(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)

The Simple Staff List plugin is free and lets you display information to visitors about your staff on your site.

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

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

(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 the Install Now button …

(WordPress Plugins  – plugin search results)

Activate the plugin …

(Activate plugin)

After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new entry will show up in your main WordPress admin menu section called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

This menu is where you will configure and manage all of the settings and options for this plugin are configured and managed in this menu.

Configuring The Plugin

Depending on how many people are employed in your business and how you want to structure your employee directory, you can just begin adding new employee details after installing the plugin, or create several groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to your staff.

Staff Members – Groups

Let’s start by configuring your groups. In your WordPress dashboard menu, choose Staff Members > Groups …

(Staff Members Menu – Groups)

This takes you to the Groups settings screen …

(Groups settings)

Note: Setting up directory groups works in the same way as adding categories in WordPress …

(Groups work just like WordPress categories)

Add new groups by typing in the following information:

1. Group Name – Enter your group category 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 – This section lets you set up nested categories
4. Description – Enter your group description (optional)
5. Click the Add New Group button when done to create a new directory category …

(Groups settings area)

If you manage a larger organization, the ability to assign people to different groups can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for partners, developers, 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 build a hierarchical structure …

(Nested groups)

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

To edit Groups for an individual item, hover your mouse over a category title and select the Edit link …

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

(Edit Group settings)

Click the Update button to save your changes …

To change your 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 …

(Add nested categories your staff directory)

After you have finished setting up your hierarchical structure, you can begin to add names to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

From your admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …

(Staff Members – Add New)

This opens up the Add New Staff Member settings area …

(Add New Staff Member settings screen)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: Your staff member’s name
• Permalink: Change the slug for your staff member if you want (you will see this section after saving your details).

Staff Photo Section (2)

• Photo: Add a photo in this section

Staff Member Info Section (3)

• Position: The employee’s position
• Email: Add your staff member’s email here
• Phone Number: The staff member’s phone number
• Facebook URL: Enter 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 into this field (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)

Staff Member Bio Section (4)

• Staff Member Bio: Add a profile description for your employee here. This uses the WordPress Text Editor, so you can format content in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: Assign the person 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 your screen …

(Screen options tab)

You can enable additional page settings …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

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

(Add Staff Member settings)

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

(Groups box)

Note: If you have not set up categories before adding new staff members, you can add a new group in this screen by clicking on Groups > + Add New Group …

(Add a new group inside your Groups box)

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

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

(New group)

Note: Groups cannot be edited when adding or making changes to employee details. To edit an item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section above for details).

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

Click View Post …

To edit your employee’s profile, click on the Edit Staff Member link in the admin toolbar …

(Edit Staff Member link – admin toolbar)

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

• An Overview Of The WP Administration Section

Note: If ’page not found’ errors shows up like the one shown in the example below, check that you have correctly configured your site permalinks …

(Page error? Check your permalinks)

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

• Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO

Repeat the above process to continue adding new details to your employee or faculty directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering staff members into your directory, you can view and edit their details by clicking Staff Members > All Staff Members in the menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table listing all your staff profiles and details you have added for each entry …

(Staff Members details list)

If you need to make changes to an individual’s entry, hover over their name, and a submenu will appear.

Click on Edit 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 listing from the staff directory by clicking on the Trash link, or view the entry on your site by clicking View …

(Edit Staff Members info)

If you have many employees, your table can get quite long.

You can use the Search Staff Members search feature to locate items if required …

(Search members)

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

(Staff Members Screen Options)

Tick or untick the checkboxes to show or hide specific fields. You can also select how many staff members are listed per page. Click the Apply button when finished to save your settings …

Staff Members – Order

The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you set the order that entries display on your directory page.

Select Staff Members > Order on your menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

To rearrange the order of your entries, click and drag the entry to its new location …

(Rearrange listings using drag and drop)

Your staff list will automatically be reordered …

(Reordered list)

Once you have added all of your members’ details to the directory, the next step is to add your directory to your visitors.

Staff Members – Order

Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order that listings appear on your directory page.

Choose Staff Members > Order in your main admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Order)

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

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your directory will be automatically reordered …

(Reordered list entries)

After adding your members’ details to your directory, the next step is to make the directory show to your site users.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The plugin lets you edit the style and layout of your staff directory listings 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 main admin menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Templates)

This opens the Templates screen …

(Simple Staff List Templates screen)

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

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

(Default Plugin Template)

The above code displays the listing 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 display in your directory, we will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] template tags, as shown in the example below …

(Use template tags to customize your listings page)

Here is what your staff list will now look like …

(Staff profiles with social media URLs added)

Note: If you want to customize your directory listings 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 being able to customize your listing templates, the Simple Staff List plugin lets you display your listings differently using modified shortcodes.

In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members Menu – Usage)

This brings up the Usage screen …

(Usage shortcodes)

This screen displays all different shortcode variations allowed by the Simple Staff List plugin.

For example, a useful shortcode variation you can insert in your page to display a list of staff members 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 menu, select Staff Members >Options …

(Staff Members – Options)

This opens the Options screen …

(Options settings screen)

This section lets you modify labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member titles

You can also export your staff members info from the Tools > Export screen …

(Export Staff Members information)

If you need plugin support, visit the plugin support page.

Additional Employee Directory Plugins

Simple Staff List isn’t the only adding a directory of your faculty. For example, here are other plugins you can look at for adding a directory on your website:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

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:

• Modern Team Staff Directory

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

The Staff Directory plugin lets you easily create a directory of faculty/team/staff members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, teams, etc.

The plugin also lets you set up custom fields …

(Custom Details Fields. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)

Go here to learn more:

• Staff Directory

Faculty And Staff Directory

(Faculty And Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)

Faculty And Staff Directory provides 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.

For more details, visit the plugin site here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Plugin

Company Directory

(Company Directory)

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

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

This plugin uses a simple shortcode system.

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WordPress Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays employees, partners or just one single person in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant on plugin activation.

With the Employee Spotlight plugin, you get two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees, plus two responsive views which adjust to the viewer’s screen.

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

(Responsive layout with employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)

To learn more about the plugin go here:

• Employee Spotlight – WP Plugin

Staffer

(Staffer – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin)

The Staffer plugin uses custom post types for 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 with almost all WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Staffer

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
• Employee Directory WordPress
• etc.

Hopefully, now you know how to easily add an easy-to-manage directory of staff or faculty members in your web site without touching code.

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

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