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AnonJr
Moderator
    
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 17 December 2007 : 13:36:07
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At work we've had an explosion of requests for departamental sites on our company intranet. Unfortunately, because most departments didn't need/want a site the current process has been to have the Webmaster over in IS create them one. Fortunately its not me as I have the joy/horror of being a departamental programmer for Training and Development. 
Anyway, in the past they've been small, hand-coded jobs as the needs were small and there weren't that many departments that needed/wanted a presence on the intranet. I should add that there are a couple of exceptions to this, my department being a big one...
Because of all this, the big spike in need is overwhelming the guy over in IS. We'd talked, and I mentioned how I'd turned Snitz into a nifty portal that almost anyone could maintain - for example the Eastover Fire Department site.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that y'all had the setup of new forums automated pretty well, and I was wondering if y'all could give me some pointers so we could do the same using a customized Snitz to set up a portal for each department to maintain and use.
Any chance y'all could help me?  |
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Podge
Support Moderator
    
Ireland
3776 Posts |
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AnonJr
Moderator
    
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 19 December 2007 : 06:03:02
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Thanks.
So, where do we start? I've almost got a customized version finished that we'd like to use as the "base" version. Is this something that is going to be copied separately for each department? Or is there a way to change which connection string is used based on the URL (or something)? Or should I just expect an e-mail so you're not publicly publishing trade secrets?  |
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Podge
Support Moderator
    
Ireland
3776 Posts |
Posted - 19 December 2007 : 08:50:24
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If you have a lot of departments then the last thing you want to have to do is edit the code everytime you need to update your portals. Create a folder for your portal code and place the code inside. I don't know how your intranet is setup but you should be able to create a virtual folder in the main intranet website for each dept. and point it to the folder your created earlier.
You should use only one database unless you have a very good reason that you need to create one for each dept. Edit config.asp so that the prefixes (i.e. FORUM_) changes based on the url. Your database connection should stay the same.
Do you need to automate the setting up of each portal? |
Podge.
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AnonJr
Moderator
    
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 19 December 2007 : 13:47:11
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I'll have to check with the Webmaster over in IS as I'm not sure which server this is going on. If it goes on the one I think it will, we shouldn't have any problems setting it up like that.
While we probably won't let the departments themselves set up their portal, automating the setup would be a good thing. 
Thank you very much for your help. This will make life sooo much easier.  |
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Podge
Support Moderator
    
Ireland
3776 Posts |
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AnonJr
Moderator
    
United States
5768 Posts |
Posted - 20 December 2007 : 06:12:07
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If its a lot more work then we probably won't be automating. The Webmaster over in IS should be back today from the conference he went to. I've sent him a link to this topic so we'll probably be working out some of the details in the new year.
We'll be using the subfolders as that's how its set up now. ( http://intraname.mainsite.com/departments/departmentname/ ) There are a few exceptions to this, but we're working on consolidating the chaos. Because of the volume of traffic we're actually migrating my department's site over to its own server - where' I've got an upgraded version almost ready to go.
Thank you again. |
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JJenson
Advanced Member
    
USA
2121 Posts |
Posted - 20 December 2007 : 11:13:16
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Just to chime in here I would be very interested on making an automated creation of snitz. Basically I want it for a site that I am making for families and groups that can just create there own personal site with security.
Is this possible on a shared server or would I need a dedicated one?
Sorry side stepping your question Anon I am just very very interested in this idea. |
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Podge
Support Moderator
    
Ireland
3776 Posts |
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pdrg
Support Moderator
    
United Kingdom
2897 Posts |
Posted - 21 December 2007 : 17:35:07
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Just have to wave the flag for code maintainability here - if you have to apply a bug fix, you have to apply it consistently to all the instances you created PLUS the master instance, and if you haven't kept a track of all of those instances, you can end up with unsecured instances in the wild, maybe sharing the same database/superadmin password/whatever.
Perhaps you can do something a bit cute with some server-side includes to run everything but the config files from the same master set? Just thinking aloud, and looking ahead at the possible pitfalls down the road! |
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