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Frontend Staff Portal

The staff portal is a set of ordinary WordPress pages, each containing one shortcode. Staff use these pages to see and maintain their own compliance record: checking documents, uploading renewals, submitting evidence and signing their currency declaration. They never need access to the WordPress dashboard.

Who it’s for

  • Staff members (Trainer/Assessors with the RTO module) use the portal day to day.
  • Site administrators set up the pages once and decide who has access by linking WordPress users to compliance profiles.

The free plugin includes five portal shortcodes. Pro adds four more.

Portal shortcodes

Free shortcodes

Shortcode Default page title What staff see
[attestation_core_dashboard] Compliance Portal A greeting and summary tiles: Units currency (only when units are assigned), Documents, Evidence, Submit Evidence and My Profile. The Sign & Attest declaration is at the bottom.
[attestation_core_my_profile] My Profile A read-only snapshot: workforce categories, Credentials, Assigned units (when units are assigned) and Documents on file
[attestation_core_my_documents] My Documents Every required document type with its status, issued and expiry dates, and verification state, plus an upload form for each
[attestation_core_submit_evidence] Submit Evidence The evidence form: Type, Title, Date of activity, Description, optional unit links and an optional Supporting document
[attestation_core_my_evidence] Evidence History All the staff member’s evidence submissions, 20 per page, with status badges, the administrator’s comment and a download link

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

Pro shortcodes

Shortcode Default page title What staff see
[attestation_core_submit_plan] Annual Plan The annual plan form, with draft, submit and declaration. See Currency attestation and annual plans.
[attestation_core_my_record] My Compliance Record A Download My Compliance Record button that produces a PDF of the staff member’s full record
[attestation_core_my_calendar] My Compliance Calendar A month or week calendar of document expiries and annual plan due dates
[attestation_core_my_upskilling_plan] Upskilling Plan A read-only view of the upskilling plan an administrator has created for an administrative staff member

With an active licence, these four pages appear under Settings › Portal pages and can be auto-created alongside the free pages. Once a page is mapped, the dashboard gains matching tiles: Development plan (or Upskilling plan for administrative staff), My Compliance Record and My Compliance Calendar.

Every shortcode, with its attributes and behaviour, is listed in the Shortcode reference.

Setting up the portal pages

  1. Go to Attestation Core › Settings and open the Portal pages tab.
  2. Under Auto-create missing portal pages, select Auto-create missing portal pages and confirm the prompt: “Create any missing portal pages? This will publish new pages to your site.”
  3. The plugin publishes a Compliance Portal page holding the dashboard shortcode. It then publishes My Profile, My Documents, Submit Evidence and Evidence History as child pages of it, and saves them all as the portal page assignments. Pages that are already assigned and not in the bin are left as they are.

The onboarding wizard offers the same auto-create step when you first set up the plugin. See Plugin settings and onboarding.

Manually

  1. Create a WordPress page for each shortcode and put the shortcode in the page content, using a Shortcode block or the Classic Editor.
  2. Go to Attestation Core › Settings › Portal pages.
  3. Under Portal page assignments, choose the matching page for each row: Compliance Portal (Dashboard), My Profile, My Documents, Submit Evidence and Evidence History. Every row defaults to — Not set —.
  4. Select Save portal pages.

Any row left unset shows the warning “Not configured — portal navigation links for this shortcode will be inactive.” The assignments matter because the dashboard tiles, the Submit new evidence link on the history page and the login redirect all use them. When a page is missing, its dashboard tile has no Open link. Administrators viewing the portal see a Configure portal pages → link instead.

Tips

  • Put the shortcode in the page content. The portal’s styles and scripts load only on single pages and posts whose content contains a free portal shortcode. A shortcode placed in a widget, theme template or archive page will render, but its forms won’t submit.
  • Use one shortcode per page. The dashboard already links to the other sections.
  • Add the portal pages to a menu that is visible to signed-in users, or rely on the dashboard tiles for navigation.

Who can access the portal

Access comes from the compliance profile, not the WordPress role.

  1. Create or import the staff member’s compliance profile. See Staff profiles and credentials.
  2. Link the profile to a WordPress user account.
  3. While the profile is Active, that user can use the portal, whatever their WordPress role (Subscriber, Author or a custom role).

The profile screen shows the result as Portal access granted, Portal access not available (no user linked) or Portal access revoked (the profile is archived).

What different visitors see on a portal page:

Visitor What they see
Not signed in Sign in required: “You need to sign in to view your compliance portal.” The Sign in button opens the WordPress login. After signing in, portal users go to the portal dashboard when one is assigned (see below); otherwise they return to the page they were on.
Signed in, but no linked Active profile No compliance profile on file: “Your account is signed in but no active compliance profile is linked to it. Please contact your compliance administrator.”
Signed in and linked to an Active profile Their own portal content only. No shortcode shows another person’s records.

Inactive profiles: a profile set to Inactive (rather than archived) still gets the portal login redirect, but its portal pages show No compliance profile on file. Set the profile back to Active to restore the portal.

Administrators can see the portal pages like anyone else. If an administrator’s own account isn’t linked to a profile, they see the “No compliance profile on file” panel.

Portal-only login and hidden toolbar

Staff are meant to work entirely on the front end, so the plugin changes two WordPress defaults for them:

  • Login redirect. When a portal user signs in through the standard WordPress login, they’re sent to the Compliance Portal (Dashboard) page instead of the WordPress profile screen. This applies to users linked to a profile that isn’t archived and who aren’t site administrators. If no dashboard page is assigned under Settings › Portal pages, WordPress’s normal redirect is used.
  • Hidden toolbar. The black WordPress admin toolbar is hidden on the front end for the same users.

Site administrators keep their usual login destination and toolbar, even if they also have a compliance profile. The redirect replaces any destination requested at login, so staff who sign in from a deep link (for example the Sign in button on My Documents) still land on the dashboard and navigate from there. These changes are about convenience, not security: they don’t stop a staff user typing the WordPress dashboard address. There, they can only do what their own WordPress role allows. See User roles and permissions.

Licence-locked shortcodes

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

When Pro is installed but its licence is inactive or has expired past the grace period, the four Pro shortcodes don’t render their normal content. The plugin takes care that visitors never see raw shortcode text or licensing details:

Shortcode Site administrators see Everyone else sees
[attestation_core_my_record], [attestation_core_my_calendar], [attestation_core_my_upskilling_plan] A notice, Attestation Core Pro — licence inactive: “This page uses an Attestation Core Pro portal shortcode, but the Pro licence is not active, so its content is hidden. Activate or renew the licence to restore it. Only administrators can see this message.” It has a Manage licence button that opens Settings › Licence. Nothing. The shortcode outputs an empty space, so the rest of the page displays normally.
[attestation_core_submit_plan] The normal portal checks: No compliance profile on file if the administrator isn’t linked to a profile, otherwise the message in the next column Staff linked to a profile see Not permitted: “Your account does not have permission to submit a plan.” Visitors who aren’t signed in see Sign in required.

The Pro pages are also removed from the Portal pages settings list and the dashboard tiles until the licence is active again. Saved plans, records and settings are kept. See Licensing and updates.

Free only (Pro not installed): WordPress doesn’t recognise the Pro shortcode tags, so a page containing one shows the tag as plain text. Remove the Pro shortcodes from your pages if you uninstall Pro.

Accessibility

The portal is built to work with keyboards and screen readers:

  • Every form field has a visible label. Required fields are marked and announced as required.
  • Form results (saved, submitted or errors) are written to a status area that screen readers announce without moving focus. Field errors are attached to the field they describe.
  • Tables have header cells and captions. Dashboard tiles are presented as a list, and “Open” links include the tile name for screen-reader users.
  • Pagination and plan-year links are in labelled navigation regions, and the current page or year is marked.
  • The stylesheet provides visible keyboard focus outlines and supports dark mode, reduced motion and Windows high-contrast (forced colours) mode.
  • Forms need JavaScript to submit. Without it, a notice explains this (“JavaScript is required to submit this form in the current portal flow.”).

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

With Pro, you can apply your organisation’s logo and brand colour to the portal pages. Check that any brand colour you choose still has enough contrast. See Custom branding.

Troubleshooting

Problem Fix
Dashboard tiles have no Open link The section’s page isn’t assigned. Go to Settings › Portal pages and assign it, or use Auto-create missing portal pages.
Staff land on the WordPress profile screen after logging in No dashboard page is assigned, or the user is a site administrator. Assign Compliance Portal (Dashboard) under Settings › Portal pages.
A staff member sees “No compliance profile on file” Their WordPress user isn’t linked to a profile, or the profile is Inactive or Archived. Link the user and set the profile to Active.
Forms do nothing when submitted The shortcode isn’t in the page content, so the portal scripts didn’t load. Move it into the page body.
The page shows [attestation_core_my_record] as text Pro isn’t active on this site. Install and activate Pro, or remove the shortcode.

Worked example

Sunrise Early Learning, a childcare centre, runs the free plugin. The director selects Auto-create missing portal pages, then adds the “Compliance Portal” page to the site’s members menu. Each educator’s WordPress Subscriber account is linked to their compliance profile.

When an educator logs in, she lands straight on the Compliance Portal with no toolbar. A red Documents tile shows “1 expiring, 1 expired”. She opens My Documents, uploads her renewed first aid certificate with its new expiry date, and then signs Sign & Attest on the dashboard to confirm everything on file is current.

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