What does it do? 

The Education Persons extension provides a generic person directory tailored for the education and research sector. It extends the TYPO3 fe_users table with academic profile data and introduces several sub-entity types for structured profile information.

The Person model extends AbstractEntity (not FrontendUser, which was removed in TYPO3 v12) and manually maps the relevant fe_users fields (username, firstName, lastName, email, telephone, www, company, title, image). The persistence mapping to the fe_users table is configured via Configuration/Extbase/Persistence/Classes.php.

The extension ships three content element plugins that cover the full lifecycle: listing, detail view, and frontend editing of person records.

Features 

• Person model based on fe_users -- extends AbstractEntity with manual property mapping to fe_users, no dependency on FrontendUser
• Record type via tx_extbase_type -- uses the tx_extbase_type column as type selector; the record type value is the FQCN Davitec\DvEducationPersons\Domain\Model\Person
• Academic profile fields -- title, department, position, teaching area, consultation hours, room, slug, and more

• Sub-entities for structured data:

  • VitaEntry -- career milestones and education history
  • Publication -- academic publications and papers
  • Research -- research projects and interests
  • Teaching -- courses and teaching activities
  • Link -- external links and social profiles
• PersonList plugin (CType dveducationpersons_personlist) -- paginated list view with text search, dynamic department filter, A-Z letter navigation, and a reset button when filters are active. Uses POST method; the list action is non-cacheable.
• PersonDetail plugin (CType dveducationpersons_persondetail) -- full profile display with all sub-entities
• PersonEdit plugin (CType dveducationpersons_personedit) -- frontend editing for logged-in users; both edit and update actions are non-cacheable. Uses manual form field names (not Extbase object binding) to avoid HMAC hash issues with the fe_users mapping.
• Dynamic department filter -- department options in the search form are loaded dynamically from existing person records via findDistinctDepartments() (QueryBuilder-based), not from a static list
• cHash exclusion -- all plugin parameters are excluded from cHash calculation in ext_localconf.php to prevent cHash errors with the search form
• FlexForm configuration -- per-plugin settings for detail page, list page, items per page, and department whitelist filter
• TypoScript constants -- global configuration via the TYPO3 constant editor
• Full German translation included
• TYPO3 v12 and v13 LTS support

Screenshots 

Requirements 

• PHP 8.2 or higher (up to 8.4)
• TYPO3 v12.4 LTS or v13.4 LTS

• The following TYPO3 system extensions must be available:

  • typo3/cms-extbase
  • typo3/cms-fluid
  • typo3/cms-frontend
• For frontend editing: typo3/cms-felogin (see Frontend login setup (config.storagePid))

Installation via Composer 

This is the recommended way to install the extension.

composer require davitec/dv-education-persons

Activate the extension 

After installation, activate the extension in the TYPO3 backend:

1. Go to Admin Tools > Extensions
2. Search for Education Persons
3. Click the activate icon

Alternatively, if you use Composer-based installations with typo3/cms-composer-installers, the extension is activated automatically.

Database update 

After activation, update the database schema:

1. Go to Admin Tools > Maintenance > Analyze Database Structure
2. Apply all suggested changes for the dv_education_persons tables

This creates the required database tables for sub-entities:

• tx_dveducationpersons_domain_model_vitaentry
• tx_dveducationpersons_domain_model_publication
• tx_dveducationpersons_domain_model_research
• tx_dveducationpersons_domain_model_teaching
• tx_dveducationpersons_domain_model_link

It also extends the fe_users table with additional columns: room, department, position, teaching_area, consultation_hours, mobile, fax, slug, and the IRRE foreign fields for all sub-entities.

Include TypoScript 

The static TypoScript must be included for the extension to work:

1. Go to the root template of your site
2. Select Includes
3. Add Education Persons (dv_education_persons) to the selected static templates

Quick start after installation 

1. Include the static TypoScript template
2. Create a sysfolder for person records
3. Set plugin.tx_dveducationpersons.persistence.storagePid to the sysfolder UID
4. Create a person directory page and add the PersonList content element
5. Create a detail page and add the PersonDetail content element
6. Configure settings.detailPid and settings.listPid (via TypoScript or FlexForm)
7. Create a Frontend User record in the sysfolder, set record type to Education Person, and fill in the profile fields

TypoScript Constants 

All constants are available in the TYPO3 constant editor under the category plugin.tx_dveducationpersons.

FlexForm settings 

Each plugin instance can override the global TypoScript settings via its FlexForm. The FlexForm is available in the plugin content element's Plugin tab.

Plugins (Content Elements) 

The three plugins are registered as content elements (not as list_type plugins). Their CType values are:

This means the plugins are available under the Plugins tab in the new content element wizard and do not appear in the generic plugin dropdown.

fe_users record type (TCA) 

The extension registers a custom record type on the fe_users table.

Storage PID 

Person records must be stored in a dedicated sysfolder. Configure the storage PID in one of two ways:

Via TypoScript (recommended for site-wide configuration):

plugin.tx_dveducationpersons.persistence.storagePid = 42

Via plugin content element -- set the Record Storage Page in the content element's Behaviour tab.

Frontend login setup (config.storagePid) 

For the PersonEdit plugin to work, the logged-in frontend user must be resolved from the same sysfolder that contains the person records. This requires config.storagePid in your site TypoScript setup:

config.storagePid = 42

Replace 42 with the UID of the sysfolder containing your fe_users / person records. Without this setting, TYPO3 cannot match the logged-in fe_user to the Person record.

Additionally, you need a working felogin setup:

1. Install and activate the felogin system extension (typo3/cms-felogin)
2. Create a page for the login form
3. Add the Login Form (felogin) content element to that page
4. Configure the felogin plugin to redirect to the page containing the PersonEdit plugin after successful login
5. Protect the edit page with a frontend user group (via the page's Access tab)

Template overrides 

To customize the Fluid templates, copy the original templates and configure alternative template paths via TypoScript:

plugin.tx_dveducationpersons {
  view {
    templateRootPaths.10 = EXT:my_sitepackage/Resources/Private/Templates/DvEducationPersons/
    partialRootPaths.10 = EXT:my_sitepackage/Resources/Private/Partials/DvEducationPersons/
    layoutRootPaths.10 = EXT:my_sitepackage/Resources/Private/Layouts/DvEducationPersons/
  }
}

Adding plugins to pages 

All plugins are available as content elements in the TYPO3 backend:

1. Open a page in the Page module
2. Click + Content
3. Select the Plugins tab
4. Choose one of the available plugins

Creating person records 

1. Create a sysfolder in the page tree to store person records
2. Open the sysfolder and click + Create new record
3. Select Frontend User
4. Set the Record Type to Education Person (this sets the tx_extbase_type field to Davitec\DvEducationPersons\Domain\Model\Person)
5. Fill in the base fields (username, password, usergroup) and the academic profile fields (first name, last name, title, department, position, etc.)
6. Save the record
7. Make sure the sysfolder is configured as the storage PID (see Configuration)

Department filter (dynamic) 

The department dropdown in the PersonList search form is populated dynamically from existing person records. The PersonRepository->findDistinctDepartments() method uses a QueryBuilder query to:

1. Select distinct non-empty department values from fe_users
2. Filter by tx_extbase_type = 'Davitec\DvEducationPersons\Domain\Model\Person'
3. Exclude deleted and disabled records
4. Sort alphabetically

This means there is no static list of departments to maintain. When a new department value is entered on a person record, it automatically appears in the frontend dropdown. When the last person of a department is removed or disabled, the department disappears from the filter.

The FlexForm Departments setting works differently: it is a backend-side whitelist (comma-separated department names) that restricts which persons are displayed after the query. It does not affect the dropdown options.

Search and filter behaviour 

The PersonList plugin supports three filter modes that are mutually prioritized:

1. Search term -- free text search across first name, last name, position, department, and teaching area (highest priority)
2. Department -- filter by a specific department from the dropdown
3. Letter -- A-Z navigation filtering by last name initial

The search form submits via POST. All tx_dveducationpersons_* parameters are excluded from cHash calculation (configured in ext_localconf.php) to prevent cHash validation errors.

Adding sub-entities 

Sub-entities are managed as inline (IRRE) records within the person record. Open a person record and use the Vita & Publications tab to add:

Frontend editing 

The PersonEdit plugin enables self-service profile editing for logged-in frontend users.

Setup:

1. Ensure config.storagePid points to the fe_users storage folder (see Frontend login setup (config.storagePid))
2. Install and configure the felogin system extension with redirect to the edit page
3. Create a page for profile editing
4. Protect the page with a frontend user group (via Access tab)
5. Add the PersonEdit plugin to the page
6. Ensure the frontend user has a person record of type Education Person (matching tx_extbase_type)

When a user accesses the page, the edit form is pre-filled with their current profile data. The editable fields are: department, position, room, telephone, mobile, fax, www, teaching area, and consultation hours. Read-only fields (username, name, email) are not exposed in the form.

After submitting, the update action validates that the submitted person UID matches the logged-in user (ownership check) before persisting the changes.