Employee Spotlight is a starter plugin to showcase your employees, staff, team members, founders or just yourself on your WordPress site.
The following is the definition(s) of the concept(s) covered in the context of Employee Spotlight app:
Employees are human resources that work for your organization. Employees can be identified as staff, team members, founders, or contractors.
Watch Employee Spotlight Community introduction video to learn about the plugin features and configuration.
Protect and enhance your brand's reputation with the best WordPress plugin.
Used by many prominent companies around the world, Employee Spotlight Pro offers enterprise features not available anywhere else. Easy to use, powerful and beautiful ways to showcase your talent.
EMD CSV Import Export Addon helps bulk import, export, update entries from/to CSV files. You can also reset(delete) all data and start over again without modifying database. The export feature is also great for backups and archiving old or obsolete data.
Smart Search Addon for Employee Spotlight Community edition helps you:
EMD Active Directory/LDAP Extension helps bulk importing and updating Employee Directory data by visually mapping LDAP fields. The imports/updates can scheduled on desired intervals using WP Cron.
Using Employee Spotlight, you can create, modify, delete, and search employee records, associated taxonomies, or relationships.
To create employee records in the admin area:
Employees can be modified by clicking on the "Edit" link under the employee title in the employee list page in the admin area. Make any necessary changes and then click Publish.
In Employee Spotlight, users are only allowed to search employees they have access to. Users who have access to employees can search using the filter system in the employee admin area.
To schedule Employees for publication on a future time or date in the admin area:
To create a password protected employee in the admin area:
Only an Administrator and users with "publish" right can change the password set for your employee or modify visibility setting by clicking the "Visibility: Edit" link again.
When employee content is password protected, employee title displays the text "Protected: " before the employee Title and the content prints a password form with this text: "This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:".
If multiple employees have the same password, one will only have to enter the required password once. Only one password is tracked at a time so if you visit two different employees with two different password, you must re-enter the employee password to access content. WordPress saves passwords for maximum 10 days. After this period expires, one must reenter the password again to view the protected content.
Employees can be privately published to remove them from employee lists and feeds.
To create a private employee in the admin area:
Only an Administrator and users with "publish" right for the employee can change visibility setting by clicking the "Visibility: Edit" link again.
To preview employee content press the "Preview" button - a button directly above the “publish” button - in the publish box before officially publishing or sending for review.
To create a draft employee in the admin area:
Once the employee is published the user who created the employee is assigned as the employee author. Employee authors can view and edit the employee. One can change the employee author from the author box. The author box drop down is limited to the users who have employee "publish" right.
Employee Spotlight Community supports creating of custom fields. Creating of custom fields provides a quick way to allow you to extend the content with key/value pairs also known as meta data. Custom fields store arbitrary extra information about employees.
To create a custom fields for your employees
You can create as many custom fields as you need. If your custom field key may have multiple values, create a new field and use the same key with different values. You can use HTML code in the value box. Employee Spotlight concatenates each value separated with a space character. By default, WordPress shows 30 custom fields in the dropdown list.
Once you create employee custom fields, they are displayed in the frontend.
Employee Tag can be set by typing the desired option in the empty text field and clicking "Add" button in "Employee Tags" box and updating/saving the employee. Setting a value for Employee Tag is optional. Employee Tag is also not organized hierarchically meaning there's no relationship from one Employee Tag value to another.
Employee Tags do not have preset values.
Group can be set by typing the desired option in the empty text field and clicking "Add" button in "Groups" box and updating/saving the employee. Setting a value for Group is optional. Group is also not organized hierarchically meaning there's no relationship from one Group value to another.
Groups do not have preset values.
Location can be set by typing the desired option in the empty text field and clicking "Add" button in "Locations" box and updating/saving the employee. Setting a value for Location is optional. Location is also not organized hierarchically meaning there's no relationship from one Location value to another.
Locations do not have preset values.
Displaying Employee archives can be done by creating a link in the Appearance Menus Screen in the admin area.
Alternatively, if you'd like to display a specific Employee, you can select the link from Employee metabox and add it to your menu. If you don't see Employee metabox, check the Screen Options to ensure it is set to display.
To create a custom link for Employee archives:
In Employee Spotlight, Employees are locked during editing, preventing other users from accessing and modifying the Employee.
If a user clicks to edit one of the Employee records that's currently locked they are presented with three options in a pop-up dialog:
The user that has been locked out receives the following dialog, and is no longer able to edit the Employee. It can take up to 15 seconds for the current Employee editor to be notified that another user has taken over.
Widgets provide a simple and easy-to-use way of displaying content and features on your sidebars or dashboard.
Sidebar widgets can be added, removed, and rearranged on the WordPress Administration Appearance > Widgets panel. Dashboard widgets can be enabled or disabled using Screen Options tab in your app dashboard page. All widgets have drag-and-drop functionality.
The following sections list the Employee Spotlight widgets:
Featured Employees is an entity sidebar widget. It shows latest 5 published employee records without any page navigation links.
Recent Members is an entity sidebar widget. It shows latest 5 published employee records without any page navigation links.
Standard views display a single type of content in a custom format and can be used in place of archive views. Administrators can display standard views using their shortcodes by choosing the name of the view you want to display from the WPAS component list after clicking on the WPAS toolbar button on any page.
The following sections list the Employee Spotlight standard views available:
"Employee Circle Grid" is a standard view which displays 12 Employee records per page with a post status of publish in descending order by date. Page navigation is enabled. If you choose to install setup pages during plugin activation, a WordPress page is created with a title of "Employee Circle Grid". You can visit this page to access the view. To display it in another page or post, use [employee_circle_grid] shortcode or select the view name from the WPAS component list after clicking on the WPAS toolbar button.
"Employee Circle Panel Grid" is a standard view which displays 12 Employee records per page with a post status of publish in descending order by date. Page navigation is enabled. If you choose to install setup pages during plugin activation, a WordPress page is created with a title of "Employee Circle Panel Grid". You can visit this page to access the view. To display it in another page or post, use [employee_circle_panel_grid] shortcode or select the view name from the WPAS component list after clicking on the WPAS toolbar button.
The following table shows the capabilities and the access roles available in Employee Spotlight app. "Red" color means the users who belong to the corresponding role do not have the capability. "Green" color means the users who belong to the corresponding role have the capability.
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Entities are open to public. | |||||
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manage Employee Tags | |||||
| Edit Employee Tags | |||||
| Delete Employee Tags | |||||
| Assign Employee Tags | |||||
| Manage Locations | |||||
| Edit Locations | |||||
| Delete Locations | |||||
| Assign Locations | |||||
| Manage Groups | |||||
| Edit Groups | |||||
| Delete Groups | |||||
| Assign Groups |
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Relationships are open to public. | |||||
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Widgets are open to public. | |||||
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Forms are open to public. | |||||
| CAPABILITY | Administrator | Editor | Author | Contributor | Subscriber |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Views are open to public. | |||||
Plugins are managed from the Plugins screen in the Administration Screens of your WordPress site. All Plugins listed on this screen are found in your wp-content/plugins directory. Each Plugin has a description in its header section of what it does, an author and website to refer to, and a version number. Find Employee Spotlight from the list.
To install your Employee Spotlight Plugin using the built-in plugin installer:
Replace VERSION in instructions with the version number of Employee Spotlight you want to install. After the activation, the Employee Spotlight plugin setup may display notification asking if you if you'd like to install setup pages or skip setup page installation, click the appropriate button.
To uninstall your Employee Spotlight Plugin using the built-in plugin installer:
WordPress auto-update system displays notification in the Admin Bar and also on the plugins page when new version of the Employee Spotlight is available.
To install the new version, simply hit the "Update automatically" button. WordPress will automatically download the new package, extract it and replace the old files. No FTP, removing old files, and uploading is required.
We offer different plugin editions to better match your needs. If you purchased a different edition of Employee Spotlight, follow the steps below to upgrade your plugin:
Upgrading Employee Spotlight Community edition does not have any impact on your existing data but it is always a good idea to back up your WordPress database as a rule of thumb before any changes.
Employee Spotlight Community edition is configured to work with many plugin extensions. Most plugin extensions work regardless of the edition unless specified specifically in the plugin page.
if you purchased a plugin extension, follow the instructions in WordPress Codex to install and activate your plugin extension like any other WordPress plugin.
If your extension comes with a license key, you must save and activate your license key to get software updates and support.
Administrators can set global options available for Employee Spotlight. After logging in as administrator, click Settings page under Spotlight menu. Modify the ones you want to be changed and click Save button to make changes active. The following lists the available options:
The default entity base slug can be changed within entity tab of settings page in Spotlight menu. After you update, make sure to refresh your site's Permalinks under Settings. You can only change base slug if post name based permalink structure is selected.
For the most part, Employee Spotlight templates will integrate nicely with most WordPress themes. However you may run into issues when the default Employee Spotlight content wrappers do not match your chosen theme or your theme's CSS rules overwrite Employee Spotlight CSS rules.
Theme related issues manifest themselves by;
Theme related issues can potentially affect all single, taxonomy, archive and shortcode pages because Employee Spotlight uses templates of its own to display these pages and it’s impossible for eMDPlugins to know exactly what markup or CSS rules your theme uses.
There are three methods to resolve theme related issues;
If the issue can not be resolved through simply modifying the header and footer templates, you need to modify your theme's page.php.
Please note that this approach eliminates Your ability:
from Spotlight, settings page.
To set up this template page:
Next you need to find the loop (see The_Loop). The loop usually starts with a:
<?php if ( have_posts() ) :
and usually ends with:
<?php endif; ?>
This varies between themes. Once you have found it, delete it. In its place, put:
<?php employee_spotlight_content(); ?>
You add custom CSS rules in the Custom CSS field of Tools tab under Spotlight menu, settings page to overwrite your theme's default CSS. The custom css rules added in the settings are not deleted when your plugin gets updated.
You can learn CSS language by completing the tutorials at w3schools.com
Employee Spotlight can be translated into any language by editing employee-spotlight-emd-plugins.pot and employee-spotlight.pot files.
Follow the steps below to fully translate Employee Spotlight into the desired language:
Screen Options is displayed as a hanging tab under the toolbar. Click on the Screen Options tab to expand the options available for a particular Screen, check (or uncheck) the desired options, then click the Screen Options hanging tab to collapse the Screen Options. Each screen may have a different set of Screen Options.
Edit page screen options allow the user to decide the edit boxes ,such as taxonomies, relationships or specific boxes such as authors, are presented in the edit area. You can turn on and off the ones that are not needed for a particular edit session.
List page screen options allow users to set the number of records displayed in the list table.
Shortcodes are small blocks of reusable code that can be inserted in a page to generate dynamic and often complex functionality. There is no limit in number of shortcodes that can be created and used. Multiple shortcodes can be used in the same page.
The following shortcode creates a Employee Circle Grid page with employees of Employee Tags category.
[employee_circle_grid filter="tax::employee_tags::is::YOUR TAXONOMY VALUE;"]
The following shortcode creates a Employee Circle Grid page with employees of Employee Tags category.
[employee_circle_grid filter="attr::emd_employee_featured::is::YOUR ATTRIBUTE VALUE;"]
The following shortcode creates a Employee Circle Grid page with employees of Employee Tags category where Featured is emd_employee_featured .
[employee_circle_grid filter="attr::emd_employee_featured::is::YOUR ATTRIBUTE VALUE;tax::employee_tags::is::YOUR TAXONOMY VALUE;"]
The following shortcode creates a Employee Circle Grid page with the published employees of Employee Tags category where Featured is emd_employee_featured in descending order by comment count, displaying 15 employees with no pagination.
[employee_circle_grid filter="attr::emd_employee_featured::is::YOUR ATTRIBUTE VALUE;tax::employee_tags::is::YOUR TAXONOMY VALUE;misc::post_status::is::publish;misc::order::is::DESC;misc::posts_per_page::is::15;misc::has_pages::is::false;misc::orderby::is::comment_count;"]
Note: Replace YOUR ATTRIBUTE VALUE with the value stored for that attribute and YOUR TAXONOMY VALUE with the slug of the corresponding taxonomy value.
Employee Spotlight offers extensive customization options from plugin settings, settings page. The following customizations can be done without changing your theme's template files:
If your customization requirements are more complex and can not be resolved through the list of options provided above, you need to implement advanced customization techniques.
Employee Spotlight advanced customization can be done on 3 different areas;
Plugin customization can be implemented by using 4 different methods:
If you'd like to modify the functionality, you need to modify the plugin design (sold separately) using WP App Studio ProDev API access (sold separately and monthly development plans are available).
If you like to customize how HTML elements are to be displayed on screen, you can add custom CSS rules with higher specificity to your theme's style.css file.
If you'd like to customize layouts of Employee Spotlight, Please follow the steps below:
The layout files you added in the "emd_templates" has always precedence over the plugin's layout files. If the customized files get deleted, the layouts which came with your plugin are displayed. We recommend that you create a child theme if you'd like to minimize the risk of accidental deleting of the "emd_templates" directory because of theme updates.
The following layout file types can be customized:
Employee Spotlight labels and messages can be customized to better match your needs through language files. The customization is very similar to localization but recommended for US English users only. If your language is different than US English, you should localize instead of customize. The customization can be done for the strings included in employee-spotlight-emd-plugins.pot and employee-spotlight.pot files.
The following steps cover the string customization of labels and messages.
Follow the steps below to fully customize Employee Spotlight labels and messages:
All customization can be done by yourself or emarketdesign.com. Open a support ticket, if you prefer us to do the customization for you.
Below is the list of attribute and taxonomy definitions.
Employees are human resources that work for your organization. Employees can be identified as staff, team members, founders, or contractors.
Global attributes can be set in the Settings page, Global tab under Spotlight menu.
