Higher Logic provides dozens of widgets that you can use to:

• modernize the look of your community pages,
• enhance the usefulness of your site, and
• increase member engagement.

This article focuses on the widgets associated to our Directory Search feature.

Access the Directory widgets

In Page Designer, most of the widgets are categorized so that they are easier to find when building a community page.

To get started, navigate to the page you want to manage and click Edit Page on the Admin Toolbar (or right click for a new tab).

NOTE: Alternatively, you can click Edit Navigation to access the CMS and your community's complete page list, from which you can access and edit any page.

Page Designer is where you manage (add, configure, edit, and remove) widgets.

To access the Directory widgets:

1. Click the Build tab and scroll down to the Widget section.
2. Click the Category dropdown and select Directory.

Now, only Directory-based widgets display and you can more quickly locate the one you want.

Add and configure a widget

You can drag-&-drop widgets to quickly and easily add them to a page.

To add a widget:

1. Click and hold a widget "card" (e.g., Directory Search - Location).
2. Drag the widget card to where you want it on the page-design canvas and drop it in place.

The widget can now be configured for this page in your community.

TIP: When you add a widget to a page, that widget on that page is a unique "instance" of the widget that can be uniquely configured for that page.

To configure a widget:

1. Click the widget to select it.

Its title bar now has gray shading and its management options display.

2. Click the pencil icon to edit the widget.
3. Configure the widget for the page.

NOTE: Each widget has distinct settings and varying types of "controllers". For example: dropdowns for community names, toggles for ON/OFF functionality, and text fields for numerical values.

4. When you have configured the widget, click Save.
5. Be sure to also save and publish your changes at the bottom of the Page Designer page.

Member Directory widgets

Several of the Directory-based widgets are designed to work together to power your community's Member Directory page. In a default community configuration, this page is accessible via Directory > Member Directory, as shown below.

These Member Directory widgets are designed to work together: they are not meant to function as standalone widgets but as a group of widgets that each provide a singular search "filter," like you see with the Location, Community, and Demographics examples below. These widgets allow users to limit their search in a variety of ways to more easily find specific users.

Each of the Member Directory-based widgets is described in its associated section below.

Directory Search

Use the Directory Search widget to power the Member Directory search experience. It displays the Find Members and Clear All buttons (see image above) and runs the search based on the criteria users select in the other Directory Search widgets.

This widget is part of the Member Directory widget set. These widgets are designed to work together on a directory page, rather than as standalone widgets, with each related widget contributing a specific search filter.

How it relates to the other Directory Search widgets

The Directory Search widget is the search engine/action widget in the set. The other Directory Search widgets supply the criteria that this widget uses when a user runs a search.

The related widgets include:

• Directory Search - Community: lets users filter by Community Type and specific communities.

• Directory Search - Demographic: lets users filter by selected custom demographics that an admin chooses to expose on the page.

• Directory Search - Location: lets users filter by location-based criteria such as city, country, and state.

• Directory Search - Limit to Security Group: lets admins either silently restrict results to one or more Security Groups or show those Security Groups as selectable filters for users.

Options

You can configure the Directory Search widget via the following options:

• Show Company Records Only: Use this option to limit results to company records instead of individual user records.

• Filter by Member Status: Use this option to limit results based on member status so the directory returns only records that match the status you want to include (Members Only or Authenticated users).

• Allow Non-authenticated Users to Execute Directory Search?: Use this option to control whether logged-out users can run a directory search, while still respecting each user’s profile privacy settings. Non-authenticated users will be prompted to log in.

• Default Profile Pagecode: Use this option to specify the page code of the profile page that should open from the search results, such as when a result points to a company profile page instead of a standard user profile page.

• Exclude Users Who Have Not Accepted Terms In Search Results?: Use this option to keep users who have not accepted your site’s terms and conditions out of the search results.

• Hide Back to Search?: Use this option to hide the control that lets users return from the results view to the search options and refine their criteria.

• Hide Map Icon Based Upon the User's Primary Address?: Use this option to hide the map icon that can display next to addresses in the search results.

• Ignore User's Privacy Settings?: Use this option to ignore users’ profile privacy settings when returning directory results. This is typically only appropriate for admin-focused directory experiences.

• Limit to Subcommunity?: Use this option to limit results to the current subcommunity context instead of searching more broadly across the directory.

• No Search Results Modal Text: Use this option to set the body text shown in the no-results message when a search returns no matching contacts.

• No Search Results Modal Title: Use this option to set the heading shown in the no-results message when a search returns no matching contacts.

• Override Default Result Limit?: Use this option to allow more than the default maximum number of search results. Use it carefully, because the default limit helps prevent broad searches that could be used to export contact information for marketing or spam purposes.

• Override User's Directory Opt Out Status?: Use this option to include users in the results even if they have opted out of appearing in the Member Directory.

• Search All Addresses?: Use this option to search across all stored addresses for a user instead of only the primary address.

• Show City?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s city.

• Show Company Name?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s company name.

• Show Default Picture for Companies without Profile Pictures?: Use this option to show or hide a generic default image when a company record does not have its own profile picture.

• Show Default Picture for Users without Profile Pictures?: Use this option to show or hide a generic default image when a user does not have a profile picture.

• Show Email Address?: Use this option to show or hide email addresses in the search results.

• Show Export Button to Super Admins?: Use this option to show or hide the Export button for Super Admins so they can download the search results.

• Show Hidden Members Text?: Use this option to show or hide text that indicates some users are hidden from the directory results, such as users who have opted out of the directory.

• Show Job Title?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s job title.

• Show Region?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s region information.

• Show Search Criteria at the Top of the Page?: Use this option to keep the search criteria visible above the results so users can review or adjust their filters more easily after a search runs.

• Show Send Message Button?: Use this option to show or hide the button that lets users send a system-based message from the search results.

• Show State or Province?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s state or province.

• Show Street Addresses?: Use this option to show or hide street address lines in the search results.

• Show ZIP Code?: Use this option to show or hide each result’s postal or ZIP code.

Directory Search - Community

This widget allows users to filter their search query by specific Community Types and/or specific communities, selectable from their respective dropdowns.

Example

Options

This widget has no configurable options.

Directory Search - Demographic

All custom demographics set up for your Higher Logic Community are selectable when configuring this widget.

To learn about custom demographics, see Profile Demographics.

This widget allows users to filter their search query by specific custom demographics, selectable by checking one or more boxes. When configuring this widget, an admin chooses which demographics to present to users on the front end, which are then displayed on the page as you see in the example below.

Example

Options

You can configure the Directory Search - Demographic widget via the following options:

• Demographic Type: Use this option to choose which custom demographic the widget displays as a search filter. Add a separate widget for each demographic that you want to make searchable on the page.

• Number of Columns: Use this option to control how many columns are used to display the demographic values. This can help you keep longer lists of choices easier to scan and manage on the page.

• Omit Unused Choices?: Use this option to hide demographic choices that are not currently used by any users. Disable it if you want all available choices to display, even when no users currently have that value selected.

• Show Any/All Option?: Use this option to show or hide controls that let users choose whether their selected demographic values should be matched using AND logic or OR logic. Enable it when you want users to control how strictly multiple selected values are applied in the search.

• Free Text Input Instructions: Use this option to set the help text that appears for a free-form text input when the selected demographic supports text-based searching. This is useful for guiding users on what to enter in demographics that allow free text instead of, or in addition to, predefined choices.

Directory Search - Location

This widget allows users to filter their search query by specific location options, such as city, country, and state, among others. When configuring the widget, admins can choose which location options to include, and these chosen options are what display on the page.

Example

Directory Search - Limit to Security Group

This widget can be used in two ways:

• Add the widget to the page but configure it to "run in the background" (the Display Checkboxes? option is set to No). With this method, an admin selects one or more Security Groups during configuration and a Directory Search page will automatically filter all search results to only users belonging to these Security Groups. The widget does not display on the page.
• Alternatively, an admin can choose to display the widget on a Directory Search page (the Display Checkboxes? option is set to Yes), giving users the choice to select from one or more of the configured Security Groups. With this configuration, each selected Security Group displays on the page with its own checkbox, and users can check any or all of them to filter their results accordingly.

Mentor Match widget

Search for a Mentor/Mentee

This singular widget is used to power your community's Mentoring Directories search page, where users can search for Mentors or Mentees, depending on their needs. Users can search by criteria such as location, name, and mentoring topics, among others.

NOTE: This widget is relevant only to communities leveraging our optional Mentor Match module.

Also, Mentors who reach their Maximum Number of Mentees threshold (as set in their Mentor profile) no longer display in Mentor search results

In a default community configuration, this page is accessible via Directory > Mentoring Directories, as shown below.

Example

Options

You can configure the Search for a Mentor/Mentee widget via the following options:

• Mentor Mentee Indicator: Use this option to set whether the widget searches for mentors or mentees. This is the setting that makes one instance of the widget work for a Find a Mentor page and another instance work for a Find a Mentee page, so it should match the purpose of the page where you place the widget.

• Filter by Member Status: Use this option to limit search results by site user status, such as whether the results include only members or a broader set of authenticated users. Use it when you want the widget to return mentors or mentees from a specific membership or login-status group.

Expert Directory widget

Speaker Search

This singular widget is used to power your community's Expert Directory search page, where users can find speakers/experts by: location, topic of presentation, and/or first or last name.

To learn about this directory, see Expert Directory.

In a default community configuration, this page is accessible via Directory > Expert Directory, as shown below.

Example

Options

You can configure the Speaker Search widget via the following options:

• Hide Company Name?: Use this option to hide the company name in search results. Enable it when you want results to focus more on the individual speaker or expert than their organization.

• Hide Job Title?: Use this option to hide the job title in search results. Enable it when you want a simpler results layout or when job titles are not important to how users choose speakers or experts.