Here’s how to make the records you’ve uploaded to db.ourroots.org searchable on your society’s WordPress website.

First, add the OurRoots Database Plugin to WordPress.

Then go to the OurRoots Database Plugin Settings page, click “Enable Shortcode”, and copy the Society ID and Secret Key for your society from the Settings page on db.ourroots.org.

“Token expiration days” only applies if some of your records are visible to registered users of your society. It is the number of days one of your users can have the search page open after they’ve signed into your website without having to sign in again. Generally, set it to 1 day.

“Custom styles” allows you to override the styles set by your wordpress theme and customize them for the search form.

Now create a new page and add the [_our-roots_] short-code inside brackets but without the underscores to the text of the page. That adds a search form to the page. (The underscores are there to keep a search form from being shown on this instruction page.) You can add header and footer text above or below the short-code.

That’s all there is to it!

If you want to have a special search form that just searches a particular category, you would write [_our-roots category=”my category name”_] again without the underscores.

If you want to have a special search form that just searches a particular collection within a particular category, you would write [_our-roots category=”my category name” collection=”my collection name”_] again without the underscores.

If you want to control which fields are being shown in the search form, you would write for example [_our-roots category=”Books” fields=”title,author,keywords”_] again without the underscores. The possible values for fields are: title, author, given, surname, events, relationships, place, and keywords. The fields given, surname, events, relationships, and keywords are shown by default.

Here’s a video demonstrating the entire process.

If you have questions, contact dallan at ourroots.org.