MU Profiles

MU Profiles is a WordPress plugin developed by the Office of University Communications for use on the Marshall University website. The plugin is designed to work with the university WordPress theme, Marsha.

Departments

The first step in setting up MU Profiles on your website is to create at least one Department by going into your WordPress dashboard and going to Profiles > All Departments. From there you can create a new Department and give it a name. You can create as many Departments as needed.

There are a couple custom options created for Departments that will change how your content will be displayed:

• Listing Display – This overrides the sitewide Department display setting and controls how this single Department’s listings will be displayed on your website. You can learn more about Display Options below.
• Hide Departments – You may encounter a time where you do not want the Department displayed on Department listings or on Profile pages. If this box is checked, it will hide this specific department on all listings and profiles.

Display Layouts

There are currently three display layouts available as part of this plugin. You can set the sidewide display setting by going to Profiles > Display Settings. The available display settings are:

• Table – This will display your listings in an HTML table with the person’s Name, Title, Office, Phone Number, and Email (optionally) displayed. This is the default method. This is an example: https://www.marshall.edu/cob/directory/deans-office/.
• Enhanced – This will display a listing on the page that includes a person’s Photo, Name, Title, Department, Email, and Phone Number. This is an example: https://www.marshall.edu/atc/directory/staff/.
• Row – This will display the listing on the page that includes a person’s Photo, Name, Title, Office Location, Email, Phone, and a column on the right for a listing of a person’s responsibilities. This is an example: https://www.marshall.edu/ucomm/contact/.
• Full Profile – This will display the listing on the page that includes a person’s Photo, Name, Title, Office Location, Email, Phone, and the individual’s biography. This is an example: https://www.marshall.edu/athletic-training/faculty-and-staff/.
• Card – This will display the listing on the page in a gray card with their Photo, Name, Title, Office Location, Phone, and Email.
  • If you do not check “Link to Profile” it will display a box with the basic info and not like to the actual Profile. This is an example: https://www.marshall.edu/chemistry/faculty/ under the Faculty header.
  • If you check “Link to Profile” it will display a box with the basic info and the person’s name will link to their full profile.

NOTE ON ROW LAYOUT: If you are using a Row layout and do not want the right column title to be Contact For: you can customize this title by going to Profiles > Display Settings and adding a new title in the Row Title textbox.

How Do I Show My Department Listings

By default all Departments have a listing page created at www.marshall.edu/site-name/directory/department-slug/. For example, the College of Business Dean’s Office department’s listing is automatically created and displayed at https://www.marshall.edu/cob/directory/deans-office/.

Displaying with a Shortcode

If you want to display a Department listing on a different page you are free to use the mu-profiles shortcode.

The parameters for the mu-profiles shortcode:

• RequiredDepartment (department): The slug of the Department.
• Layout (layout): This allows you to override the site or individual department Display Layout for this shortcode. Options are:
  • table
  • enhanced
  • row
  • full-profile
  • card
• IDs (ids): This allows you to select which profiles should display by their ID. They should be comma separated.

[mu_profiles department="deans-office"]

[mu_profiles ids="234,245"]

Displaying Email Addresses

You can control if email addresses are displayed on Department listing pages and/or individual Profile pages by going to Profiles > Display Settings and editing the Show Email Address setting.

Linking to Profiles with Row Display

By default the Row display does not link to full Profile pages. You can optionally enable the Row display to link to Profile pages by going to Profiles > Display Settings and select the box for Row Display Link to Profiles.

Profiles

Once you have created at least one Department you can start creating Profiles for individuals by going into your WordPress dashboard and going to Profiles > All Departments.

Information that is required for the Profile are just the name and position, everything else is optional. If a piece of information is not added it will not show up on the Profile page.

By default all Department listings will sort by last name and then first name. If needed you can override these by including a value in the Order field under Post Attributes when creating or editing an individual’s Profile. The lower the number, the higher the ranking. So, if you want someone to be at the top of the list a value of -1000 in the Order field would ensure they come first.

Profile Lists

There are some default lists available including Education, Awards, Scholarship, etc. If no entries are added to those lists they will not show up on the Profile page.

Note: The Contact For list will only display when the Row display is selected and will not display on the Profile page only on the Department listing.

At the bottom under Lists you have the option to create any number of custom lists that fit your department’s needs/requirements.

Removing the Word “Profile” in Title

By default the word “Profile” will appear at the end of all titles on the Profile pages. You can disable this setting by going to Profiles > Display Settings and select the box for Hide “Profile”.

Feedback

If you have any questions or feedback you can reach out to the Web Team at webmaster@marshall.edu and we’ll be happy to assist.