Thread

What are the limits of ExpressionEngine?

I have a client who needs a whole payroll system done for its 3000+ members and was thinking of possibly using EE2 as the base system.

possible? will the system break with the number of channels that will be created throughout the lifetime of the system?

ideas?

thanks,

There are no hard limits. Obviously the underlying hardware is an important factor. 3000 members should not be an issue as such, given that this here site currently has 182.593.

There are actually a few hard limits in my experience - but they are MySQL limits vs. EE.  For example, you will bump into a table width restriction at some point by adding custom fields.  I ran into this on a project where the install was nearing 1200 custom fields.

That being said, I can’t help but think EE might not be a great choice for a payroll system, given that there are a number of payroll systems out there and EE isn’t inherently a “transactional” application.  EE is great at storing, retrieving and presenting content.  The minute that content needs to be massaged programmaticaly (running totals, calculations, etc) then I start to think an existing application or a custom CI app is a better idea.

There’s no limits programmed into EE but to reflect Boyink’s input there are limits related to how SQL and servers themselves work.  Since EE is designed to be very flexible it’s SQL queries are not always going to be the most optimal for certain kinds of tasks (partly because to obtain that flexibility the database structure has been designed a certain way) and I’ve seen it break down when attempting to retrieve large amounts of entries or when retrieving a few entries from a large weblog with many categories.

Usually you can code around these sorts of issues using caching and template changes.  But there are limits to performance in SQL where just getting a faster server doesn’t really help anymore. 

These are the same sorts of limits you see Facebook and Twitter dealing with all of the time.

In a case where you have something incredibly specialized like a payroll system I agree with Boyink I’m not sure EE is what you want.  Or that using built in functionality within EE is what you want.  A custom module with it’s own database structure and tables would probably make a lot more sense if for some reason you really wanted this to be in EE.  That way you can design the tables around the sorts of tasks that a payroll system would require and be more sure that it’ll hold up as the database grows.

Jamie

Thank you all for the replies.

I was asking because I have had problems using EE on another system (not payroll) but more business related where there were a lot of reports needed to be done.

I thought EE would be great in the task because of the customization options I could create with Channels but noticed some slowdowns in the system. maybe it was my code. I’m not sure.

Thanks again for the input and I am definitely looking into other options.

Having worked with timekeeping/payroll apps (fmpro,mssql,oracle,foxpro - no mysql) I would highly suggest out of the box app that specializes with date/time/money transactions…or as suggested snoop through CI community.
Bottom line…in this setup,EE is not the best tool even if you could bend it your way it would be wasted energy. At least based on my own payroll pains, it makes me appreciate apps such as quick-books and how little $ they cost.