could using a category for each department help?
Then you can filter a departments news / events / files / images / ...
Do they use LDAP?
You would want it so when they log in you know what department they are in
so you can use it for setting the category for filtering
departmentCategory EQ SESSION.dmProfile.department
2008/12/12 Jeff Coughlin <[email protected]>
>
> I'm planning to launch a new intranet site for one of my clients using
> FarCry 5.1 and they have multiple departments (like up to 60). Each
> department wants their own styling and has tons of content. I'm
> trying to figure out the best approach to installing and configuring
> the site(s).
>
> Should I:
> A) Do one large install (one database) and use stylesheets to
> differentiate between the departments (I can make them all conform to
> similar layouts, so the diplay method options would be low - like 2 or
> 3 options)? - this is not as easy as it sounds (read on)
> B) Do I do separate installs for each department?
>
> There are pros and cons to each approach. The problem is that FarCry
> was never targeted to handle multiple sites from one install (I know
> many have done it (including myself), but it's always been a hacked
> solution).
>
> Here are a list of some Pros and Cons I could think of:
> ==Option A (Pros)
> * Managing one database (making FarCry upgrades easier in the future)
> * Easy for administrators to add new departments in the future (site
> tree additions and new categories)
> * Sharing content between departments (not really a concern for this
> client except for optional use on the main intranet homepage (but not
> a requirement))
> ==Option A (Cons)
> * Shared content types get messy fast
> ** example: Media/Asset library lists all items for all departments.
> Sure I can use categories to help sort the data, but with 60
> departments (some having 300+ PDFs and images) it would get a bit
> crazy. Same goes for things like News & Events. The only other
> option I could think of was to have a new type for each department
> (ie. dept1_news, dept2_news) - um, yeah... a bit messy with regards to
> code and DB, however the user experience would be manageable (they'd
> only see the content relevant to their security profiles).
>
> ==Option B (Pros)
> * Webtop is custom taylored to each department
> ==Option B (Cons)
> * Difficult for administrators to add new departments. Must install
> new FarCry website for every new department (it's possible I could
> create a skeleton with pre-defined settings to help alleviate the
> install - normally I'd create a sample DB and deploy that, however the
> skeleton deployment option makes things easy (it's a little broken in
> 5.1 though - hopefully it will be fixed before the 5.1 launch).
> * Multiple FarCry sites to manage and upgrade
> * Cannot easily share data between departments (not a large concern)
>
> I'd like to have option A, but I can just see it getting out of hand
> (regarding code and DB) without approaching it differently. Although
> I started the 1st site dev (for the first department) in a setup for
> Option A, I'm seriously considering going with option B (separate
> installs). If I go that route, I need to think about how I'm going to
> handle the master "intranet" site (the one that lists all of the
> department websites) and decide how best to deploy all of the sub-
> websites.
>
> Either way, I'm looking for any input from the community. Am I over-
> thinking this? Can anyone suggest a better approach?
>
> Note: The final site will likely have URLs similar to the following:
> http://intranet/departments/hr
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Jeff Coughlin
> Web Application Developer
> http://jeffcoughlin.com
>
> >
>
--
AJ Mercer
Web Log: http://webonix.net
Once you come to the realisation that everyone is crazy,
You will never be surprised or disappointed ever again.
AJM 2008
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