Hello, thank you Leslie for answering my questions via email. But I do have another.
Since I would like to use this as an intranet solution, can I create multiple sections/blogs/sites per dept? For instance have one main section – then for each dept have a separate section. Each dept. may want a diff look and feel, or same layout but different color scheme. I would like to have the end-user handle all the content for their dept.
I have used a FREE CMS and basically installed multiple instances on the same server per dept. This allowed me to have a separate MySQL database for each, and I did not have to worry about the main Intranet site being compromised by inexperienced users.
I’m sure I will have more questions but is it for now. Thank you in advance.
You can have as many blogs per installation as you want. Together with categories and subcategories, you should be able to achieve what you want; it might take some planning, though. To alleviate your fear that “the main Intranet site” could be “compromised by inexperienced users”: EE supports a rather sophisticated permission system that let’s you specify who can access which templates and what they can do with it.
Be aware that at this time, any one employee can only be a member of one group. This can get limiting real fast on an Intranet (depending on the number of employees and the number of departments). So, as Ingmar mentioned, planning will be a key and determine if EE will work or not.
Setup on company intranet. The company has 2 divisions. I setup 3 new groups: group1, group2, admins. Setup 2 blogs (blog1 and blog2). Allowed group1 and group2 to only access respective blogs’ publish/edit, and added users to admin group (managers) who can access both.
Thank you Ingmar and PXLated for the replies.
So If I’m reading this right, if I wanted to be the admin of all sites/depts. This may not be possible? If I wanted a user from HR to be the admin of the HR section, and admin of another section (for some reason or another) she/he may not be able to have these privileges, is this correct?
The way I’m thinking is:
CTO, Director, and me – (1) Main admin group, to be overall admins of ALL the websites. From main portal to all sub sites (depts.). Or (1) master account.
5-9 depts. - A group for each dept. with (1) main admin for each, and the rest of the users being authors only.
Thinking ahead, I may have an admin from one of the depts. request to post on the main site… (here is where I would just want them to have author rights) This is where I assume the group affiliation comes in, and the restriction you mention above.
If I do create separate instances I should not have to worry as the user would be in only (1) group per instance. I could just duplicate the account so the username and password would be the same. I find this interesting and know that the upper tier would want these privileges. Not sure to what extent, but I don’t want to have to manage the content of all depts. sites.
Thank you once again. I have been reviewing EE and so far this is the only thing I see that can be tricky.
So If I’m reading this right, if I wanted to be the admin of all sites/depts. This may not be possible? If I wanted a user from HR to be the admin of the HR section, and admin of another section (for some reason or another) she/he may not be able to have these privileges, is this correct?
That’s correct.
Geekboy - 11 November 2005 09:29 AM
CTO, Director, and me – (1) Main admin group, to be overall admins of ALL the websites. From main portal to all sub sites (depts.). Or (1) master account.
You could setup 3 users in the superadmin group. Or (like I did), only allow IT people superadmin rights, and add a new group that only has limited admin rights for the CEO, CFO and COO (so they don’t accidently do something stupid, like delete the all the templates).
Geekboy - 11 November 2005 09:29 AM
5-9 depts. - A group for each dept. with (1) main admin for each, and the rest of the users being authors only.
This is where it gets tricky…you’d have to get pretty creative with groups and permissioning (i.e. 2 groups for each dept, one author group, and 1 admin group).
Setup on company intranet. The company has 2 divisions. I setup 3 new groups: group1, group2, admins. Setup 2 blogs (blog1 and blog2). Allowed group1 and group2 to only access respective blogs’ publish/edit, and added users to admin group (managers) who can access both.
It worked out pretty good.
Nice… yeah this is what I’m looking for. Ok I’m going to have review this a little more and see what I can come up with. Thing is when I start restricting ppl with a Title or with CTO, COO, CFO in their name… they dont like little old me the IT guy saying they cannot do such-and-such. Again I’m trying to think ahead and wonder how I can accomplish the task and make them all happy. Ok going to speak to the man who makes the final decision now, and explain to him,and see what he thinks.
It get’s trickier the further down you go depending on what’s online…
Obviously, the President has access to all, would be his/her’s own group.
A VP would have access to all within his/her department, no problem, but what if he/she also needs access to certain sections within HR. If so, they can’t be a member of both their department group and HR. If each VP was their own group, then they could.
If every single employee was their own group, no problem, but that may be impractical depending on number of employees and how you are setting up the weblogs. —————
A lot depends on just what you are putting online. That will determine your granularity. But keep in mind that what you have online today isn’t necessarily what you will have online in the future.
An example…You have one blog for the HR department, it’s all general department information today so you can have one group for the that department with access to the general company weblog and the department. Six months from now, the VP wants to put some sensitive employee records online that only he/she and a couple of others can get at. How do you rejigger your groups to handle that.
Can be done but takes some thought/planning with the EE “one group only” restriction.
Thing is when I start restricting ppl with a Title or with CTO, COO, CFO in their name… they dont like little old me the IT guy saying they cannot do such-and-such.
Well, like with all other IT jobs, there are just some things that have to be done “manually”. If they haven’t seen the full backend of EE (and don’t know squat about web development), you might be able to get away with telling them, “sorry, that can’t be done through a control panel, it has to be done manually”.
Being in IT, you have to come up with creative ways of telling the boss-man that he’s too stupid jack with stuff he shouldn’t be jacking with. It’s part of the IT job description. *but that’s another rant for another day*
To all your replies have really helped me. I have been thinking about this (I would really like to use EE) and my boss just wants to know if I would be able to accomplish the user thing, using my suggestion of separate instances. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Being that permissions are a little tricky here. What do you think about this high level setup?
Install a separate instance for each department on the same server. Each would be in its own separate directory and have its own database, and groups and members.
• So site A (the main overall site) will have an admin group. The members here would be admin for all sites how? Create the same group in each instance (site B,C,D,E, etc,) and add the members in each with the same account.
Doing this, the same person can login to any site and administer it.
• Site B (HR for example) would have its own site and group/member DB. I create an HR admin group add the admin/s here, the manager for example. Then create an author group and add others who will use it here.
If someone from site “B” needed to add something to site “A” since it’s the main portal so-to-speak I can have (create) an HR author group with their same account on site “B”, on site”A”. Keeping them separate each user will only be in one group. I think this would work.
This give the ability of the “higher ups” to go to any site using the one admin account (which would be transparent to them, they would think its all 1 site in one folder). Also allow for some departments to add to the main site if needed.
They would just goto: siteA.com, hr.siteA.com, etc
Lastly I will be the one managing the accounts, and creating them initally. So I will assign each user an account and password. If they decide to change it, they would have to notify me so I can, or have one of the admins update it where needed if they are in a group on another site.
Overall I like what I see and dont think this is a show stopper, but none the less an important aspect of my goal.
Install a separate instance for each department on the same server. Each would be in its own separate directory and have its own database, and groups and members.
You’d need a separate EE license for each instance. One license covers “one” database.
Install a separate instance for each department on the same server. Each would be in its own separate directory and have its own database, and groups and members.
You’d need a separate EE license for each instance. One license covers “one” database.
Thats ok… I can prob. get them to pay for it. But from what you see would it work?
Probably but it seems like a lot of work coordinating between the systems and if there was any sharing between them (something common like copyright, legalese, etc) you’d have to create it several times and if it changes make those several times as well unless you use PHP includes or some such.
Since the next version of EE is due fairly soon, I guess I would wait and see if the membership arrangement has changed (multiple groups) or I would investigate what others have done using independent membership programs…aMember has been mentioned a few times in the forums.
I will use CSS for the most part, and php includes for areas that require the same copy. But to be honest we are talking about a med size Intranet. I have worked on and developed a few home grown with programmers, and this one is nothing to the extent. I may be thinking about this too much to say it will not work for me. As you may know, not many product’s work for an individual “out of the box.” Some tweaking/fudging here and there may be in order. I DL the trial and will see what I get from it. Dont hurt .
Honestly, licensing aside (and you would need multiple licenses for multiple installs), it just seems to add more hassle than doing the same thing with a single install. You don’t really save any effort when it comes to creating groups- and you add a lot of possible issues.
Couldn’t you have one install. Each ‘section’ (site ‘B’) gets a weblog. Create a member group that can post to that weblog. So you have 5 sections, so far you have 5 groups, each able to post only to their own section.
Then you need mid-level managers- who can post to their ‘section’ and the ‘portal’ (site ‘A’). So, you need to add 5 more groups- these groups would have posting privileges to both their section and the portal.
Then you have superadmins who can do everything.
I could even imaginee a ‘pending blog’. Let anyone who might possibly post to the ‘portal’ post to it- so all groups have permission to post there, no need to add anymore groups. If that blog shares the same field groups/status group/category group as the portal (or all of the other blogs)- then have folks in mid-management and/or superadmin able to ‘confirm’ posts to it by simply moving the post to the ‘portal’ blog.
Anyway- I definitely don’t think it makes your life easier to have multiple installs.
I definitely don’t think it makes your life easier to have multiple installs.
It definitely doesn’t make life easier (I don’t think I would do it) but it does offer more granularity with groups/permissions. If EE allowed assignment to multiple groups it wouldn’t offer anything but hassle though.
I don’t know much about EE this is why I ask. But to be honest having separate multiple sites is not any more work then having them all-in-one. I have seen this setup done before with large organizations I’ve worked for, and it really works well, and allows for flexibility. Remember this is for internal use, and not a “public site.” But let’s forget about that for a minute, what you posted here is certainly an interesting view on the issue of groups and members. I DL the trial going to install it and try a dry run with some users to see what we come up with.
I did read the EE license and see I would have to pay. But the cost is nill, considering. I was just looking at all my options and posted for suggestions. I figured more experienced users and or someone from PMachine would have some insight on different ways to accomplish this task, like your self. Using a Free CMS I was able to tinker with permissions to satisfy the user, let’s see what I come with when I install EE. Once again thank you. Ok going to try this thing out.
Don’t take me wrong, I definitely wouldn’t have a problem with you deciding on multiple licenses. And it would require significantly fewer member groups to make it work that way. But I’d personally rather spend the time at the beginning setting up the extra groups, rather than juggling multiple installs forever. But that view may be as much due to philosophy as technology.
Once you play around with EE, you’ll definitely have a better feel of how to structure things to fit your needs. If you run into problems or have any questions, just give a yell. Sounds like an interesting project.
rob1 not at all. As a matter of fact my Manager is going to order a copy now. I have the eval, but may not be able to run through it before it expires. So he will order it and I will continue to work on it along with out current setup. From what he seen when I installed it he thinks it may work for our project. I’m sure I will be back… but in the non-presales forum areas . Personally I like it, but ultimatly they make the final decisions.
they dont like little old me the IT guy saying they cannot do such-and-such. Again I’m trying to think ahead and wonder how I can accomplish the task and make them all happy. Ok going to speak to the man who makes the final decision now, and explain to him,and see what he thinks. 
Don’t take me wrong, I definitely wouldn’t have a problem with you deciding on multiple licenses. And it would require significantly fewer member groups to make it work that way. But I’d personally rather spend the time at the beginning setting up the extra groups, rather than juggling multiple installs forever. But that view may be as much due to philosophy as technology.
