ProfileGrid Plugin Starter Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the ProfileGrid Plugin Starter Guide that’ll help you get up and running with this amazing WordPress user profiles plugin. The purpose of this guide is to give you a quick overview of ProfileGrid Plugin’s core functionality, around which everything else in the plugin revolves.

Quick & Easy Setup

ProfileGrid creates 6 handy pages as soon as it is activated. These pages form the basis of all user activity.

Page URL.	Page Name & Description
/all-groups	All Groups: This is the page that displays list of all ProfileGrid Groups in one place. A user can check out any Group from this page and also sign up to become a member of it.
/default-user-group	Group: This is the display page for an individual Group. It displays all the information of a single Group, which is the Default Group by default. You can edit the ID in the shortcode on this page to set any other Group as the default group for this page
/my-profile	My Profile: As the name tells, this is the page that displays all your ProfieGrid Profile information. It includes Notifications, Personal Messages, Blog Posts, and Settings to name a few. The URL of this page is
/registration	Registration: From this page, a user can register and become member of a Group. Just edit the ID in the shortcode on this page to make a Group as the default Group for user registration.
/login	Login: This is the default ProfileGrid page that allows users to log into your site from the front-end itself.
/forgot-password	Forgot Password: This page allows a user to set a new password if he/she has forgotten the existing one

You can also publish ProfileGrid’s front-end on any page of your choice with the help of our shortcodes – and we have plenty more shortcodes? You can access all shortcodes from the Shortcodes menu tab of our WordPress user profiles plugin.

This completes the basic setup. Explore all shortcodes and pages before jumping on to the next section to start optimizing ProfileGrid to your needs.

Optimizing ProfileGrid

ProfileGrid registration form is part of ProfileGrid Groups. If you don’t need the Groups system, you can use ‘Default Group’ to enable user registration. Note that ProfileGrid Groups can be used as Social Groups or Profile Types.

For users building a membership site or community site, you can configure separate registration form for each group. This will allow you to capture specific data from custom fields for each group.

Since ‘User Group(s)’ is the starting point, let’s get going by creating your first group.

Create First Group

Once ProfleGrid is installed on the site, the ProfileGrid menu item will appear in the list of WordPress Dashboard menus. Click on this link to start working with ProfileGrid. The first screen you will see after clicking on the ProfileGrid menu item, is the ‘Groups Manager’ screen.

On this screen, you will see that there is a small section for creating a new group and a ‘Default Group’ . ‘Default Group’ is what comes pre-installed with the plugin and you can use this group to test any changes you’d like.

But for now, we’ll just proceed one step at a time and create a new group first. Click on ‘New Group’ link and a modal window will prompt for ‘Group Name’ to be entered. Just type in a name for the new group in the text box and click on ‘Save’. The new group’s card will now appear next to ‘Default Group’ .

It is now time to activate user registrations for your new group.

Activate Front-end Registrations

Activating group registrations from the front-end is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is create a new WordPress page, and in its content area, add this shortcode: [profilegrid_register gid=”3″]

In this shortcode, the ID is the same ID which displays on the group card on the ‘Groups Manager’ screen.

Let’s now customize your new group further by configuring the…

Group Settings and Fields

At the bottom of each group card are two links, namely ‘SETTINGS’ and ‘FIELDS’.

The ‘SETTINGS’ link takes you to the group settings screen where ProfileGrid provides you various options to configure the group’s behavior just the way you want it to.

The ‘Fields’ link takes you to the ‘Profile Fields Manager’ screen. This is where you can truly make your groups unique. You will see that a field already exists there for ‘User Email’. This field gets created automatically whenever you create a new group. It can be edited or removed, according to your liking.

You can add more fields to the group by using the ‘New Field’ link below the ‘Profile Fields Manager’ heading. You can also organize the fields into various sections. New field sections can be created by clicking on the ‘New Section’ link right next to the ‘New Field’ link.

Any user now joining your new group will get these group fields added to his/her user profile automatically. Awesome, isn’t it?!

Next on our list is an overview of all of ProfileGrid’s amazing shortcodes for front-end publishing.

Frontend Publishing Shortcodes

ProfileGrid gives you ten powerful shortcodes right out of the box. Below is a description of them all, along with the shortcode itself:

Registration Form as a Single Page: Displays sign up form for a group as a single page. Sections will be separated into separate blocks. Replace x with the Group ID.
[profilegrid_register gid=”x”]

Registration From as Multi-page: Displays sign up form for a group as a multi-page. Sections will be separated into pages. Replace x with the Group ID.
[profilegrid_register type=”paged” gid=”x”]

Single Group Page: Displays a Group with logo and description. Groups users are displayed below the Group Card. Replace x with the Group ID.
[profilegrid_group gid=”x”]

Multi Group Page: Displays all the Groups with logo, description and Sign Up buttons. Visitors can choose a Group to join.
[profilegrid_groups]

Profile Page: Single profile page used for displaying logged in user’s profile.
[profilegrid_profile]

Login Form: A login form with Username/Email and Password fields. Also, it has Forgot Password link.
[profilegrid_login]

Password Recovery Form: A page where users can enter their email to reset their lost password
[profilegrid_forgot_password]

All Users Page: Shows all users with profile image and username on a single page with search capabilities.
[profilegrid_users]

Blog Submission Page: Allows users to post blogs if User Blogs are turned on. Blogs will be visible on respective profile pages.
[profilegrid_submit_blog]

For more details on ProfileGrid Shortcodes, we welcome you to visit our complete list of WordPress user profiles plugin shortcodes.

Optimize Global Settings

Found under the menu item ‘Global Settings’, The ‘Global Settings’ for ProfileGrid control how the plugin behaves overall. Global Settings contain general options for ProfileGrid, such as Security Settings, User Account Settings, Email Notification Settings, and many more.

This guide does not cover ‘Global Settings’ in-depth, but we do encourage you to review the ‘Global Settings’ on your own. The helper text on each of these setting screens will give you all the information you require to learn more about ProfileGrid’s Global Settings.

Configure Email Templates

The ‘Email Templates’ screen is where you can create your own email templates. These templates can be used for the various emails ProfileGrid sends out to users on specific events. Such as email notification on User Registration, User Activation or Deactivation, Password Change, and Account Deletion.

You can find ‘Email Templates’ in the menu item.

Additional Documentation

This concludes our quick and easy Starter Guide for our WordPress user profiles plugin.

Also, do you know that ProfileGrid is compatible with bbPress, WooCommerce, and MailChimp? Then you need to head over to our Extensions repository and begin integrating ProfileGrid with your other favorite plugins right away. Note that we offer many free extensions, including bbPress integration and Woocommerce integration 🙂