Although Users and People serve similar purposes, it’s important to understand how they differ, and when you should add a community expert, mentor, colleague, or staff member as a User under Manage>Users, or through the People content type under Publish>People.

Users are those who will be actively using the backend of your platform to publish and edit content, or want to be subscribed to receive emails about topics of interest, while individuals added to the People content type will not have access to the backend of the platform, and are created specifically to be featured on Communities as mentors, community experts, or point of contacts for advice for students interested in a particular field or industry.

When adding someone to the People content type, you’ll have the option to fill out basic information, including “Headline,” “Position,” “Company,” “Profile URL,” “LinkedIn URL,” and more. You can even add text to an “About” section, where a student success story, or person’s job experience and background can be included. To make sure the person added is featured on relevant Communities in line with their background and experience, be sure to tag the correct Career or Identity Community in the backend. View our “Add and Manage People” article for more information on adding People to your backend.

People can also be tagged to different content categories to help categorize them under different sections or widgets on your front end. For example, there can be one widget set up to pull in those classified as mentors, and another for community experts or faculty and staff.

Additionally, adding someone to the “People” content type automatically stores them on a “People” library page, whereas “Users” are not automatically generated onto a page on the frontend with other “Users.”

Below, you’ll find an example of a People profile page with an “About” section included, horizontal widget where “People” appear on a specific Community, and “People” landing page/library.

As mentioned above, Users will not be stored on a library page when added, and have access to the backend of the dashboard to make updates. There are different levels of users, and the edits and updates a user can make are dependent on the type of role permission they’re granted. However, like People, users can be featured on the front end of your platform as well once the widget is enabled, by selecting the appropriate Community you’d like them featured on from the “Advising Communities” dropdown under a specific user’s profile in Manage>Users.

Similar to People, you can edit specific information included under a user’s profile to include a “Title,” “LinkedIn URL,” “Company,” and more.

Another way Users differ from People is that they can receive weekly automated alerts and custom emails based on the preferences they identify.

The image below shows our Featured Users widget, which can either be displayed as a sidebar or bottom widget.
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Users also differ since they can be added to a staff page, highlighting valuable faculty members’ contact information and bios. An example of a staff page is shown below. Note that you’ll be able to scroll through users using the red arrows to the right and left of the user headshots.

For questions on the difference between Featured Users and People, contact support@gouconnect.com.