The directory Ratings plugin allows you to give your users a voice about the listings on your site. They can rate and comment on the listings, search by ratings and use the ratings to decide which businesses are the ones they’re looking for.
You get the ability to require comments with ratings (or not), and to define a threshold to display ratings information on list views and single views.
Installation
Follow the installation steps to get started.
General Settings
The Ratings Module administration screen is broken into 2 separate parts. The settings are as follows:
Enable ratings
This activates the Ratings module and displays the ratings per the current settings. If you wish to temporarily disable ratings, you can uncheck this box and users will not be able to rate listings.
Ratings threshold
This is the minimum number of ratings that must be recorded before the “Ratings (average)” will display a star value. Default value is 0 (which displays all ratings immediately).
Allow unregistered users to post reviews?
This allows users who haven’t logged in to post a rating. The default is that a user must be registered and logged in to rate a listing. The user’s IP address is recorded to prevent multiple ratings from a single user.
Require email to unregistered users for posting reviews?
This requires a person submitting a rating who is not registered on your site to confirm their email address before submitting the rating.
Allow some HTML in the Rating comments?
This allows users to post reviews with some basic formatting HTML tags (bold, italic, pre, etc) without risking full HTML exposure to unsafe tags like iframe or scripting.
Rating Comments
Three options to choose from: Required, Optional, or Disabled. Required means that a user must enter a comment with their rating. Optional is the opposite. Disabled means the comment form is hidden from the user altogether.
Admin must approve reviews?
Turning this option on requires that the admin must see and approve all ratings before they are displayed on the listing. Useful when you have spammers attacking your site.
Email Settings
The second part relates to email settings with Ratings:
These settings are as follows:
Notify Listing owner of new ratings?
If active, the owner of the listing will be emailed after a rating is posted and approved by admin (if rating approvals are on). Otherwise, the listing owner will not be notified of any ratings made. The email template used for this notification is set under New Rating Posted email message below.
Notify site admin of approved/submitted ratings?
If active, sends email to the admin when ratings have been submitted or awaiting approval for any listing.
New Rating Posted email message
This is the email template that is sent to the listing owner when the Notify Listing owner of new ratings is active. You can customize the text by clicking on the black button “Click to edit”.
Rating pending approval email message
This is the email template that is sent to the admin when the Notify site admin of approved/submitted ratings is active. You can customize the text by clicking on the black button “Click to edit”.
Screenshots of Ratings Module
Here are some screenshots of the ratings module in action. First, the list-based (excerpt) view, with the average displayed:
And here is the rating near the top on the single listing display:
And after ratings have been submitted:
Admin Reviews
Sometimes, users may contact you telling you that they have received mail reviews and would like for them to be added to their listing. As an admin, you can do this, no problem. Admins can submit reviews as needed in the listing itself. The ability to add reviews from the front end are disabled for admins.
To add a review, go to Directory > Directory Listings and find the listing you wish to add a review to. Choose edit, then scroll down to the Listing Ratings section and click “Add Review”:
Once you click “Add Review” you can then add the reviewer's name and their comments, as well as their star rating.
If needed, admins can edit or remove reviews also. Simply hover your mouse over the listing and you will have the option to edit or delete the review.
