Thread

I’ve been approached to possibly do a sort of Intranet site…or at least a site ONLY accessible to users of the company.

I don’t know any specifics yet except that the owner would like a place where common files/forms can be uploaded to the site for easy download and possibly a contact form where employees could contact him with problems etc.

With that said, what would be your approach for something like this?

Create a site where maybe the homepage is the log-in screen and then once they log in they have access to the rest of the site? Or another way? This would be my first experience with something like this.

Could you use a .htaccess file to only allow access from the domain that your intranet is on?

Hope that helps.

Best wishes,

Mark

Well I had thought about doing something like that, but with this company, I’m not even sure how their network is set up, what hardware recourses they have or if they are even on a domain to begin with.

It’s a franchise of a popular fast foot restaurant but I know it’s a small set up with only 5 employees in their “corporate” office and I know they don’t have any dedicated technology staff, so I’m just not sure how to approach it.

If they are on a network, even a small one then would they not have an IP address for the network. Perhaps that would work in the .htaccess file?

Hope that helps.

Best wishes,

Mark

What if they don’t have a static IP? The business has branches in around eight cities in the state which would all need access to this portal site or intranet or whatever you want to call it.

Hi Deron,

Ah I see. I thought that there were just the five of them in one office. That does change things a little. If they don’t have a static IP then yes that is going to make things a bit more difficult. Having said that there are a few services that can be used to provide an update notification of when an IP address changes but not too sure how you would go about protecting the site then though. You would probably need to protect the site using your Plesk or cPanel panel to ask for a username and password upon typing in the site address. Of course you are going to need to let people have that address first! 😊

I think that this or something on their web-site will allow you to have say a :

thisismysite.dyndns.org and then your computer automatically sends IP updates to it so that people can just type in that address and get to where they need to go.

Hope that helps a little. I’m sure there must be easier ways of doing this though an someone else on here will have some ideas to help get you going I’m sure.

Best wishes,

Mark

How many users total?

If it’s only a couple dozen or so I’d just give ‘em logins and really structure it as an extranet.  That way they could hit it from anywhere.

The biggest thing I’ve run into with both intra/etranets is member permissions…who can see what. For instance, the president can see everything, a manager can see some and an employee less and the HR manager can see things a product manager can’t. The problem is the fact that a member can only be part of one group. Planning the access has always been the trickiest part and these things have a way of expanding, starting simple and then getting complex.

Hi Deron,

Ah I see. I thought that there were just the five of them in one office. That does change things a little. If they don’t have a static IP then yes that is going to make things a bit more difficult. Having said that there are a few services that can be used to provide an update notification of when an IP address changes but not too sure how you would go about protecting the site then though. You would probably need to protect the site using your Plesk or cPanel panel to ask for a username and password upon typing in the site address. Of course you are going to need to let people have that address first! 😊

I think that this or something on their web-site will allow you to have say a :

thisismysite.dyndns.org and then your computer automatically sends IP updates to it so that people can just type in that address and get to where they need to go.

Hope that helps a little. I’m sure there must be easier ways of doing this though an someone else on here will have some ideas to help get you going I’m sure.

Best wishes,

Mark

Thanks for that Mark. Seems very interesting although a little over my head I believe. 😊 I’ll do some more reading. Thanks for your help.

How many users total?

If it’s only a couple dozen or so I’d just give ‘em logins and really structure it as an extranet.  That way they could hit it from anywhere.

Well, that’s another thing. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how many would need access. I know the company as a whole has a few hundred employees, but he may only want this for his managers and supervisors. He is suppose to send me a more detailed structure of what he’s actually thinking. How would you structure it as an extranet? Just make the homepage the login page so people cannot even access the site before logging in?

BTW: Do you have any idea what else I could try with the whole writing code in an entry? I did specify a width for the codeblock div, but that doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

The biggest thing I’ve run into with both intra/etranets is member permissions…who can see what. For instance, the president can see everything, a manager can see some and an employee less and the HR manager can see things a product manager can’t. The problem is the fact that a member can only be part of one group. Planning the access has always been the trickiest part and these things have a way of expanding, starting simple and then getting complex.

Yeah, I could see how that would get complex. Like I told Michael, I’m not exactly sure what they even want. This all came up briefly over dinner and who knows if it will ever even come to fruition. With that said, from what he told me, I don’t think it would get so complex to the point of what you’re talking about. I’m thinking they want something where they can have frequently used documents available for easy access, a contact form where employees can email the owner, and a couple other things. Doesn’t sound like a lot on the surface, but I guess it could potentially grow into a monster.

How would you structure it as an extranet? Just make the homepage the login page so people cannot even access the site before logging in?

No - I’d structure it with a home page and sections as the content requires.  Then use the template preferences manager to set what member groups can see the templates, and what template to show if an unauthorized/logged out user tries to access the templates (in this case a login form).

BTW: Do you have any idea what else I could try with the whole writing code in an entry? I did specify a width for the codeblock div, but that doesn’t seem to be doing anything.

What happens if you copy mine:

.codeblock {
    padding:5px;
    margin:10px 15px 10px 15px;
    border-right: 1px solid #e8e8e8;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #e8e8e8;
    min-height:0px;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    padding-left: 13px;
    padding-top: 5px;
    padding-right: 7px;
    padding-bottom: 7px;
    width: 92%;
}

No - I’d structure it with a home page and sections as the content requires.  Then use the template preferences manager to set what member groups can see the templates, and what template to show if an unauthorized/logged out user tries to access the templates (in this case a login form).

That makes sense. Just take unauthorized/logged out users to a login form and something that tells them that they need to log in.

What happens if you copy mine:

.codeblock {
    padding:5px;
    margin:10px 15px 10px 15px;
    border-right: 1px solid #e8e8e8;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #e8e8e8;
    min-height:0px;
    background-color: #f9f9f9;
    padding-left: 13px;
    padding-top: 5px;
    padding-right: 7px;
    padding-bottom: 7px;
    width: 92%;
}

Same thing. Using your CSS style for the .codeblock doesn’t do anything either. It’s weird, because all of the styling works, the code simply doesn’t not wrap to the next line once it reaches the end of the container. For example, with your code, I gave it a width of 50% which narrowed the background and border’s on the bottom and right down to 50% width of the parent yet the actual code still protrudes outside of the .codeblock container, so I’m not sure what’s going on or why that would be happening.

I guess I need to make a new template with some very basic code and start from square one. Maybe there is another style on the page that is messing with it.