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Creating a People Directory
This tutorial is only recommended for advanced authors and site administrators.
What is a People Directory?
A people directory is a dynamically-generated list of people's contact information. In this tutorial, we will create a people directory utilizing Advanced Search queries and tagging. This method has a couple major benefits:
- The directory is organized by last name automatically, so there is no need to manually organize the profiles in the WCM.
- It's easy to make a profile appear in more than one directory – such as the faculty, and staff directories – using tags.
The two most common people directories are faculty and staff. We will create both directories and the supporting structure in this guide.
Sample Directory
Visit the Sample Directory page to see an example directory.
Creating the Directory Structure
The following steps will create the directory structure at the top level of your website. This involves copying and pasting a group of existing pages that form the structure.
- In the WCM, navigate to Shared Content Library > CMS Tutorials > Pages.
- Copy the People page in the right panel.
- Navigate to your space and paste it under the home page.
In this example, the People page is pasted under the Generic Department site.
- Move the People page to the where you want it to appear in the main navigation.
The People page is moved above the research page.
The directory structure is now set up.
Understanding the Structure
The pages in the directory structure, and their purpose is listed below:
- People – redirects to the Faculty page.
- Profiles – contains all the profile pages.
- Faculty – lists all faculty members.
- Staff – lists all staff. The horizontal list and title are referenced from the Faculty page.
Setting up the Directory Pages
Setting up the Faculty Directory
- Open the Faculty page in the Editing Window.
- Double-click the List component that shows the "No Results Found" message to access its properties.
- If you don't want to display thumbnails in the list, go to the bottom and remove "show-thumbnails" from the CSS Class field. Otherwise ignore this step.
- Click the Advanced Search tab.
- Scroll to the top of the query and replace
[path to Profiles page]with the path to the Profiles page. To find this path, go to the WCM, select the Profiles page in the left panel, and in the address bar copy everything that follows "https://author.sfu.ca/siteadmin#".
In this example, the path to the Profiles page is "/content/sfu/genericdept/people/profiles".
The path now points to the Profiles page.
- Click OK to save the changes.
The Faculty page is now set up. Any profile that is created under the Profiles page and has the People / Faculty tag will be listed in this directory.
Setting up the Staff Directory
The steps are the same as in the Setting up the Faculty Directory section. The only difference is that you must open the Staff page in the Editing Window rather than the Faculty page.
Once the Staff page is set up, it will display profiles that have the People / Staff tag.
Note: the "No Results Found" message will remain on the directory pages until a profile with an appropriate tag is created.
Creating additional Directories
If you wish to create an additional directory, such as a list of adjunct faculty, complete this entire section. Otherwise, skip to the Creating the Profiles section.
There are three main parts to creating an additional directory:
Creating a New Tag
Create a new tag to determine which profiles to list in the new directory. To learn how to create a tag, visit Using Tags. After creating the tag, remember its tag ID as you will need it when setting up the new directory page. The tag ID can be found in the TagID column of the Tagging Module.
In this example, the new tag has an ID of "genericdept:people/adjunct".
Building the Directory Page
- In the WCM, navigate to the Staff page, copy and paste it into the same location.
Note: it is important the Staff page is copied, and not the Faculty page. The reason is the Staff page references the title and horizontal list on the Faculty page. All additional directory pages should reference the title and horizontal list on the Faculty page so the design remains consistent.
- The copied page name should be "staff1". Change the name and title to reflect the new directory.
Duplicate page with name, "staff1".
In this example, the duplicate page's title is changed to "Adjunct" and the name is changed to "adjunct".
- Open the new directory page in the Editing Window. Double-click the List component that shows the "No Results Found" message to access its properties. Click the Advanced Search tab and find the line that says,
tagid=people/staff. Replacepeople/staffwith the tag ID from the Creating a New Tag step.
In this example, "people/staff" is replaced with the "genericdept:people/adjunct" tag ID.
- Click OK to save the changes.
The new directory will now only display profiles with the new tag.
Updating the Horizontal list
- Open the Faculty page in the Editing Window.
- Double-click the horizontal list to open its properties.
Horizontal list displaying the different directory pages. The new directory is missing.
- Click the Fixed list tab, click the Add Item button, and find the new directory page.
In this example, the new Adjunct directory is added to the Fixed list.
- Click OK to save the changes. Now the horizontal list on each directory page – the new one, Staff, and Faculty – will be updated.
The additional directory is now complete. Repeat this entire section to create more directories as needed.
Creating the Profiles
Once the directory pages are all set up, start creating the profiles under the Profiles page. All profiles must be created under the Profiles page, otherwise they will not be listed in the directories. To learn how to create a profile, visit Creating a Faculty Profile.
Customizing the Directory
If you wish to customize the directory, you must have experience with:
- CSS and HTML
- Creating a Custom Display List
You may download and edit the default people directory list template below to use on your own site.
