Role Based Help Notes

Description

Do you want to give users a private area to share information based on a role they have been assigned?

…this plugin allows you to quickly create a custom post type for user roles. This allows users, with a specific role, the ability to create and edit their own ‘help notes’ providing a private set of notes for use. It can be used for anything else that fits with that role ( e.g. creating and sharing ideas within teams, minutes-of-meetings, formal notes… etc.).

To add new roles to the basic WordPress roles (Administrator, Editor, Subscriber ..etc ) you will need to use another plugin refer to Roles_and_Capabilities and Resources.. Plugins. You can then use one of these plugins ( e.g. User Role Editor ) to allocate users to multiple roles.

So if you want to quickly give a group a private area to share and post ideas/notes ..
1. Create a new role.
2. Add users to the role.
3. Enable the Help Notes from the settings.

A global ‘General Help Notes’ type is also available which is not tided to a specific role, this has the same access/capabilities as the standard WordPress ‘post’ type for write access. Unlike the other Help Notes the General Type is public to read, you can see an example over at an example content page.

There is a widget available to list all users with access to the current Help Note type on display. The user display_name is shown and can be selected by each user within their own profile.

Extensions:

If you select the options for extending functionality through other plugins the following are available for ease of installing..

Admin side Plugins..

  • Role Includer simple interface to handle multiple roles with users. If you wish to hide/mask-out a particular role from “staff” ( such as “Administrator” ) so that staff cannot allocate the higher access level then you can exclude higher roles by using the “Role Excluder” plugin.
  • Email Users allows users within a Help Note group/role to email others.
  • User Switching great tool for admins to switch to test any users access/capability.
  • Simple Page Ordering for easing re-ordering of Help Notes.
  • Post Type Switcher allows users with two or more roles to change the role assigned to a help note, useful if you created a Help Note under the wrong role.
  • Pixabay Images provides a quick method for all enabled roles within Help Notes to upload Public Domain images.

Front End Plugins..

Plugin site

https://justinandco.com/plugins/role-based-help-notes/

GitHub – Development

https://github.com/justinticktock/role-based-help-notes

Screenshots

  • The Settings ‘General’ Tab Screen.
  • The Settings ‘Role’ Tab showing 4 user roles enabled for Private Help Notes.
  • Dashboard showing the ‘Staff Admin” user role access.
  • The Settings ‘Email Groups’ shows when the email-users plugin is active and enables the email/widget Help Note functionality.
  • The Twenty Fifteen theme showing a help note with the the email and user listing widgets enabled.
  • The Twenty Fifteen theme showing the contents page for the ‘Staff Admin’ role, also with the ‘Tabby Responsive Tabs’ Plugin Active. The other tabs for ‘Contributor’, ‘Author’ and ‘Developer’ are present as the logged user also has these roles.

Installation

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1. Upload plugin-name.php to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Goto the “Settings” Menu and “Help Notes” sub menu, select which roles are to have Help Notes.
4. Allocate roles to users for the Help Notes to appear in their Admin menu.
5. NOTE ! if you want to edit Help Notes yourself you need to have the role(s) assigned to your user profile!
(Just being an Administrator does not give you access).

FAQ

I have a new role how can I add it?

You will need to use another plugin to manage roles and capabilities such as the User Role Editor plugin.

Is there a theme template I can modify in my child theme?

Yes … Answer

I just can’t seem to find a way to get SMTP working with this plugin, what can I do?

This has been seen a few times in the forum, one proven solution is:
* use plugin wp-mail-smtp
* Do NOT network activate SMTP and you don’t need to add anything extra to the wp-config file

Reviews

সেপ্টেম্বর 3, 2016
As a Web Developer, leaving notes for the Admin users who manage the go forward is a huge time saver. Thankyou for the time and effort put into this plugin.
সেপ্টেম্বর 3, 2016 2 replies
No a simple way to add role based help noted, no manual on the WP Dashboard or the installed plugin settigs screen. Requires knowledge of code / WP Codex and so not suitable to beginner. Simpler plugins are available.
সেপ্টেম্বর 3, 2016
Works just like a post! I use it for handover instructions for my clients – and because it allows you to separate notes by users, you can customize the instructions for each person. I’ve tried a ton of dashboard-specific notes but this is by far the best one. Super easy to use. Thank you!
সেপ্টেম্বর 3, 2016
I am using the Role Based Help Notes plugin on several sites. When combined with a support forum and a ticket system, Help Notes supplies the finishing touch to a complete system for addressing user’s needs for assistance and support. Justin has been very responsive to questions on the support forum and quickly gives answers, and when needed, updates to the plugin. One could not ask for a better plugin author.
Read all 10 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Role Based Help Notes” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Role Based Help Notes” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

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Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

Change log is maintained on the plugin website