- Seamless integration with the WordPress admin.
- A Dashboard admin page where you can keep up to date with Connections related news, such as updates notices for templates and the pro addons. Also see at a glance today’s anniversaries and birthdays as well as any upcoming anniversaries and birthdays.
- When inputting an entry there are multiple entry types from which to choose. They are individual, organization and family. The family entry type is unique to Connections. This entry type allows you to group individuals together as a family which makes Connections ideally suited for creating church directories.
- You control which entries are viewable to the public and which entries are private, viewable for logged in users only. You can even have entries set as unlisted so only admins can view them.
- Fields, fields and more fields… no other directory plugin offers more. There are fields for addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, IM, social networks, an image, a logo, bio, notes and more. Want more? Many fields, such as addresses and phone numbers, you can assign as many as you need. Wait, I’m not done yet… want to be able to list the business phone but keep that cell phone number private? You can do that, too. Most of the fields have selectable visibility. What this means is you can have an entry set as public but keep personal details private or even unlisted so only them admin can view it.
- Connections is being used to manage directories which contain thousands of entries so the ability to manage them easily is a must- a task which Connections stands and delivers. You can filter the entries list by category, entry type and visibility. You can search for entries. You can even search within the filtered entries. Of course Connections doesn’t stop there, there are several bulk actions available to make changes a breeze.
- Category support. This feature was modeled after the category feature for WordPress posts. So if you know how to add and manage categories for posts, you know how they work for Connections. Categories can be hierarchical and entries can be assigned to any number of categories.
- Extensive role support. For your users that have access to the WordPress admin, there is extensive role support. You can define which roles can perform tasks to manage entries in Connections.
- Unrivaled customability with templates. Connections comes with many basic templates to get you started. For many, these meet their needs. But if you need more than these basic templates provide, check out these great premium templates.
- Displaying your entries on the front end is as simple as putting a shortcode on a page. Don’t let this simplicity fool you. The Connections shortcode provides almost a dizzying array of options that are just too numerous to list. But if you want to know more, you can find it here.
- Even a bit of SEO was sprinkled in. Every entry outputs following the hCard spec.
- One last item. Extensibility.
Upcoming features:
- Localization
- Pretty (permalink) support
- Geocoding of addresses.
- Landing pages
- Integration with WP users to permit registered users to maintain their own info with optional moderation.
- Gravatar support
- Backup
- …and any suggestions that I may receive…
