Tag: WP Staff Directory Plugin

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

If you are looking for inexpensive ways to grow your business online and increase user interaction with your site, then something you can do, is make it easier for your visitors to get to know you, your team and your business better.

If you use WordPress, a simple way to help people get to know you better is to display information about your partners, your team, or your staff members using a staff list plugin.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to add a simple and easy-to-update simple faculty directory in your web site.

How To Easily Add An Employee List Directory To Your Site

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a no cost WordPress plugin called Simple Staff List.

Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin

(Simple Staff List – WordPress Plugin)

The Simple Staff List plugin is free and lets you employee.

First, let’s install and activate this plugin.

Log into the administration 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 installing and activating the plugin, a new menu will have been added to your main WP menu called Staff Members …

(Staff Members)

All of the options and settings for the Simple Staff List plugin are configured and managed in this menu.

Configuring The Plugin

Depending on how many people are employed in your organization and how you want to structure your employee directory, you can just start to add new staff members after installing the plugin, or create various groups (i.e. categories) to place your individualmembers into.

Staff Members – Groups

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

(Staff Members – Groups)

This brings up the Groups screen …

(Groups screen)

Note: Setting up groups is just like adding WordPress categories …

(Groups work like WordPress categories)

Create a new group by entering the following information:

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

(Groups settings screen)

If you run a medium to large organization, the ability to set up different categories can be very useful. For example, you can create groups for partners, developers, departments, etc.

Create as many categories and nested categories as you need by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to assign these to a directory hierarchy …

(Nested categories)

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

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

The selected category details open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent group 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 over the group name and choose Quick Edit …

Click on Update Group  after making changes …

Continue adding group names in this section until you have created your directory structure …

Add as many nested categories as you like …

(Add nested groups to your directory)

After you have finished setting up your groups, the next step is to begin adding staff details to your directory.

Staff Members – Add New

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

(Staff Members – Add New)

This brings you to the Add New Staff Member settings …

(Add New Staff Member section)

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

Name Section (1)

• Name: Enter your staff member’s name
• Permalink: Change your employees’ 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: Add the person’s position here
• Email: Enter the person’s email address
• Phone Number: Enter the person’s phone number into this field
• Facebook URL: Type your company’s Facebook address (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
• Twitter URL: Type your company’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 staff or team member here. Since this uses the default WordPress Text Editor, you can use HTML in this section.

Groups Section (5)

• Groups: You can assign a staff or team member to a specific group (see the previous section of this tutorial to learn how to set up your groups).

Click on the Screen Options tab …

(Screen options)

You can enable additional features …

(Enable additional fields in screen options)

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

(Add New Staff Member settings)

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

(Groups feature)

Note: If you did not set up directory 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 link)

A field will appear allowing you to create a new group name, with a drop-down 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 …

The new group will be created. Remember to tick the check box to assign the person’s listing to the group …

(New group added via Groups feature)

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).

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

Click View Post …

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

(Edit Staff Member link – WordPress admin toolbar)

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

• Using Your WordPress Dashboard

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

(Check your permalinks if you get ’not found’ page errors)

We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here:

• Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks

Repeat the above process to continue adding more entries to your employee or faculty directory.

Staff Members – All Staff Members

After entering staff members to your directory, you can view and edit their details by selecting Staff Members > All Staff Members on your menu …

(Staff Members – All Staff Members)

This brings up a table displaying all your staff members and their details …

(Staff Members details table)

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

Click on Edit to modify their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also delete a member from your directory by clicking on Trash, or view the entry on your site by selecting View …

(Editing Staff Members profile information)

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

Use the Search Staff Members search field to locate items …

(Search members)

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 …

(Screen Options tab)

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

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to specify the order in which entries appear on your directory pages.

Choose Staff Members > Order on the main menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

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

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your directory will be automatically rearranged …

(Reordered list entries)

Once you are done adding all of your staff details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory show on your site.

Staff Members – Order

The plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to arrange the order that your employees display on your directory page.

Click Staff Members > Order in your WordPress admin menu …

(Staff Members – Order)

To reorder your items, click and drag the item to a new position …

(Rearrange items using drag and drop)

Your list will be automatically reorganized …

(Reordered list entries)

After adding your employees’ listing details to your directory, the next step is to display the directory to your site visitors.

Simple Staff List – Additional Notes

The plugin also lets you create the style and layout of your staff 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 dashboard menu …

(Staff Members – Templates)

This brings up the Templates page …

(Customize your directory template)

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

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

(Default Template)

The This code will display your listing as shown below …

(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template Listing)

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

(Use template tags to customize your directory page)

Here is what your staff list should now look like …

(Directory listings with social media links added)

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

Usage Menu

In addition to being able to customize your listing templates, the Simple Staff List plugin allows you to display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.

In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members >Usage …

(Staff Members – Usage)

This brings up the Usage page …

(Simple Staff List plugin shortcodes)

This screen lists all the shortcode variations that you can use.

A useful variation you can decide to use, for example, to display a list of persons belonging only to a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”sales trainers”])

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 in the menu …

(Staff Members Menu – Options)

This brings up the Options screen …

(Simple Staff List – Options screen)

Here you can edit labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member titles

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

(Export Staff Members plugin information)

If you need plugin help or support, go to the Simple Staff List site.

Additional Employee Directory Plugins For WordPress

Simple Staff List is not the only adding a listing of your staff. For example, here are a few other free plugins you can check out:

Modern Team Staff Directory

(Modern Team Staff Directory)

The Modern Team Staff Directory 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)

Learn more here:

• Modern Team Staff Directory – WP Staff Directory Plugin

Staff Directory

(Staff Directory)

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

The plugin also lets you insert custom fields …

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

More info:

• Staff Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

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 or university.

The plugin also includes a widget that allows you to feature a profile in a widget area.

For more details go here:

• Faculty And Staff Directory

Company Directory

(Company Directory – WP Plugin)

With the Company Directory plugin, you can easily add your staff to your site. Different layouts are available, including grid and single views, plus as fields like job title, email address, phone number, image and staff bio, allowing you to present 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 members in an easy-to-view format. Screenshot source: Company Directory website)

This plugin uses a simple shortcode system.

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Company Directory – WordPress Staff Directory Plugin

Employee Spotlight

(Employee Spotlight – WP Staff Directory Plugin)

Employee Spotlight displays team members, founders or just an individual member of your team in a four-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 screen size of the viewer’s device.

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

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

Learn more about this plugin here:

• Employee Spotlight

Staffer

(Staffer)

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 website …

(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.

Learn more about the plugin here:

• Staffer – Plugin For WordPress

If the above plugins 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 List
• WordPress Plugin Staff Directory
• Staff Plugin WordPress
• etc.

Hopefully, now you know how to easily add a simple and easy-to-update simple team members directory in in WordPress without coding skills.

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

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