Creating a business directory or any other type of listing in WordPress can be tricky. Collecting information with your form builder plugin is one thing, but displaying that data in a useful and unique way is where a lot of plugins fall short. Fortunately, the Pro version of Formidable Forms was built with displaying data in mind and has all of the tools you need to quickly and easily start building a directory with WordPress. So let's get started.
Step 1: Build and Publish your Member Profile Form
First You'll want to create a form to collect the information you would like to show in your directory. Using the drag-and drop interface native to Formidable Forms, this step is a piece of cake. Adding that form to a page is equally simple, just use the shortcode builder on your posts and pages composer to add your form. I have taken a few minutes (literally 2 minutes) to create and publish a simple form below step 2, but no skipping ahead.
Step 2: Collect the member data
You can collect data in a couple ways. If you already have data collected, importing from a csv file is your best option. Alternatively, you can create entries with the form you created in step 1. Another option is to simply allow others to enter their own information by submitting your published form. With the use of permissions and editing tools, you can allow users to edit/update their own information, prevent user's who are not logged in from adding entries, even require payment before a user can submit their entry.
Go ahead and enter a name and company to be added to my demo directory.
Step 3: Build and Publish your Business Directory
Formidable Forms is the only form builder plugin with the ability to display form submissions without the need for additional plugins or add-ons. Views allow you to display your form entries in a totally custom way. With the use of dynamic filters, search and sorting options, you have total control over how entries are displayed, which entries are displayed, their order, and how many per page. I have set up my View to simply show the 5 most recent submissions. Pagination is built in, but not helpful for this demonstration. If you entered your name in the form above, you should be listed at the top of the directory
| First Name | Last Name | Company |
|---|---|---|
| Ask WP | Girl | |
| havva | sar?ayd? | CE ??areti |
| danny | ||
| Jacques | Cousteau | Swimmer Incorporated |
| Danny | H | aaabbbccc |
Step 4: Add Features to your Business Directory
Search: What use is a directory if your users can't find who or what they are looking for? Adding a search form allows you to quickly find that needle in a haystack. Test it out below. Search for your name or mine (Steve). The View above will update to show only listings that match all your search criteria.
Detail Pages Have you ever wanted a super clean and simple directory, but have a ton of information that needs to be accessible? So have we. That's why we built in detail pages. Display only necessary info on the listing page, and then let users get all the details on the detail page. Our simple directory form only has 3 fields, so it isn't the best candidate to show off this feature, but this will at least give you an idea for how it works. Click a name to see the rest of the user's information.
| First Name |
|---|
|
Ask WP |
|
havva |
|
danny |
|
Jacques |
|
Danny |
With 4 easy steps, you can create a searchable business directory. If you are tired of collecting form data without any way of using it in a powerful way, maybe it is time you considered Formidable Forms. Check out our pricing to get started today.
JoroVelev says
May 28, 2015 at 3:20 pmSteve,
Thanks for posting this tutorial.
However, I think it would be great if you dig a little bit more into details and make it more advanced. For example, I miss a Payment step if directory site is paid. And how to allow users to edit their entries while in paid period without prompting users to pay again (I don't believe people will submit once and forget. They might want to fine tune, etc. How to prevent double payment when people update entries during paid period?)
If you put more details like this one, I think it will be really helpful to your customers.
Good luck,
George
Bendy says
May 29, 2015 at 3:00 pmLove the tutorial, I hope to see many more coming in the future. While this is a great overview of the capabilities of formidable, I'd love to see more explanatory steps of how to design the view and the detail pages with screenshots and code.
Keep up the great work!
Steve Wells says
May 29, 2015 at 5:02 pmThanks! This post was intended to be more of an overview, but more posts in the future will detail out how to customize and style a view.
One great thing about our demos, is that you can see all the code used to create them by clicking the "view code for this page" link. Or you can even download the xml file and import all the forms and views needed to replicate the demo on your own site.
WasabiBoy says
May 30, 2015 at 3:41 pmNice demo. It would be great to see the next page (actually same page dust next data) change via Ajax rather than the whole page. I actually thought your demo went on further until I realised it was the next rows of data.
Steve Wells says
June 1, 2015 at 10:06 amI see your point. I have changed my views to only show 5 entries without pagination to prevent this confusion.
Beth says
June 26, 2015 at 9:06 amThanks for this! I have a spreadsheet of information to upload to my database - is it possible to do this in one go rather than filling in the form over and over?
Thanks!
Beth
Steve Wells says
June 26, 2015 at 11:03 amyou can import entries from a csv file using the import/export tool. Please post in our helpdesk if you need more help with this.
Beth says
July 9, 2015 at 4:01 amThank you!
Holly says
July 29, 2015 at 8:11 pmCan the view performm and display the result of a calculation? For example, the first entry shows that the number of classes a student has remaining is 20, then the second shows that they have 19. I really need this. Thanks.
Steve Wells says
September 4, 2015 at 9:48 amSorry for the delay in responding to this. Yes, you could do this in a couple ways. Please contact us in our help desk for help getting this implemented.
Holly says
July 29, 2015 at 8:12 pmI should add that this is for my teaching business. I give private lessons and want students to be able to track how many classes they have taken out of their package.
Leo says
August 26, 2015 at 2:09 pmHey guys!
Keep up the awesome job with Formidable! Heard about the upcoming add ons 🙂 Would be a great thing to have. The site needs a redesign and prices should go up 🙂 Looking forward to see Formidable around for the long run
Steve Wells says
September 4, 2015 at 9:46 amThanks so much! We are working on a site redesign and some big new features and initiatives for our developer community.
zumkalle says
September 4, 2015 at 3:21 amHello,
I tried to build a small directory, it works. Just one thing, its possible to upload a logo-file and show it on the listing page? Up to now I just see the URL to the picture after upload with the form, how I can show the picture?
thanks, Peter
Steve Wells says
September 4, 2015 at 9:45 amYes, this can be done. Please contact us in our HelpDesk for help getting this implemented.
Mathias says
October 19, 2015 at 9:40 amHello,
I would like to build a business directory maybe with the help of formidablepro. Because I can not find complete solution.
Can you tell me a live site where someone is running a business directory with formidablepro (up and running)?
Something like this: https://www.estheticon.com/surgeons
Thank you so much for your support.
Steve Wells says
October 24, 2015 at 8:13 amI can't think of a customer's site with a directory right now, but have you seen our demos page? The job listing demo and star rating demo might help you see the plugin in action.
We are working on a new marketplace where solutions like the one you linked to above can be built and sold, but that marketplace isn't quite ready.
Additionally, we do offer a full 30 day refund. So you should have time to check out the plugin and make sure it does what you are hoping.
Mathias says
October 26, 2015 at 10:23 amThanks a lot for your answer.
So you say that the directory website which I posted in my first posting can be replicated with formidable pro?
Do you know a developer who is very familiar with this plugin and who could create a directory with the help of formidable pro?
Are the outputs (views) responsive? Or does this depend on the theme that I use?
Thank you very much.
Steve Wells says
October 26, 2015 at 3:31 pmYes, this can be done with Formidable. Responsiveness will depend mostly on the theme, and the code used to build the View.
Mathias says
December 22, 2015 at 10:15 amHi Steve,
thanks for your answer. Another thing that I would like to do with formidable pro is to create review system (star rating). Customer should rate their experience that they had with our service.
Is there a way to make this system support schema.org microformat, so that google will show the ratings in the SERPs together with our website?
Does formidble pro support with schema.org, if not how can make it work with schema.org (for reviews)
thank you so much for your time
best
Mathias
Deborah Nelson says
October 29, 2015 at 6:24 pmI am seriously thinking of buying Formidable forms, but I am not sure where to address my question...I have tried the following forms software:
GRAVITY
CONTACT 7
VISUAL FORM BUILDER
BREEZING FORMS
NINJA
FORM MAKER
and some others...
Yours seems to have everything I need, except....
The contact us, does not have an option for sales questions. I have downloaded the "free" version, but that does not answer my question because my question is with an add on.
The question is, if I use the Mail Chimp add on, am I able to create professional auto-responder emails, because the email function that the software gives us is pretty ugly looking ... not professional at all. Most of the other softwares have this problem too.
This is the thing that most of these forms software seem to be missing...
Deborah S Nelson