Multi Site / Designer - What do I need

[ASMO]

Hi all
I wonder if someone can give me some advise on this. I tried to phone Actinic today, but for some reason the lady who I was speaking to couldn't pass the call through. She said someone would ring me back but no-one did. So, I come to you all who know EVERYTHING about Actinic.

I use Actinic Business v8 and have my own site up there on the interweb. I also do some work for someone else who has their own Actinic licence, but I maintain their site for them. I imported his snapshot into my version and have been working on it every since. However, it means that if I want to do anything with my site I have to snapshot his, import my snapshot work on mine then snapshot and import his snapshot again. All of which takes a couple of hours, time I just cannot afford and hence my site goes un-maintained, a situation I am not happy with.

So - I am looking at options to make it easier for myself, and obviously the cheapest possible way.

I remember with V7 there was Developer edition which allowed you to work on multiple sites, but that no longer seems to exist. I can see that there is a Business Multi Site which looks to do the same thing, but the cost is really out of my league and the guy I work for will not pay for it. But I notice now there is a new product called Designer which looks to do what I need it to do.

Can anyone please confirm or deny whether Designer will assist in my problem.

Also, from reading the description of Designer it appears that it does everything that Business does but is half the price, so why would anyone buy Business. I am sure that I am missing something, so would appreciate some assistance in working out what!

Many thanks in anticipation.

[Duncan Rounding]

Your cheapest option would be to buy a Designer licence in addition to your existing Business licence. This will allow to have multiple sites and pass design snapshots to and fro to your client. You will not be licenced to manage the store (download orders) only maintain design. Designer will also allow you to purchase Client licences to sell on to customers that do not wish to (or be able to) do any design work on the site themselves.

If you later decide to run more than one store yourself as well then you can either buy a Client licence for yourself or upgrade to Multisite.

[ASMO]

That's brilliant. Thank you

Just one more question. At the moment I upload to his server from my computer, can I still do that with Designer. We make multiple amendements every day.

Thanks again

Louise

[RuralWeb]

every site you create in designer will have thier own network settings so you can switch from one to the other in seconds.

[ASMO]

Thanks for all the advise.
I have downloaded v9 of Designer to have a look. However, it does not appear that you can swap sites in seconds as the "sites" function is greyed out. I think the old Developer did this, but that product no longer exists.

I use Business at the moment and I swap by using snapshots but it takes ages. I wanted an easier way without it costing me a fortune.

Having spoken to Actinic, they tell me that Business Plus is what I want (this is the new V9 version of a mash between Multi-Site and Multi-User) - costing me another £850 plus VAT. This is out of my budget, especially if Designer will do the job.

Is anyone here using Designer? How do you swap between sites?

The chap I spoke to at Actinic said that with Designer I would not be able to amend products either which I thought was a bit strange.

I basically do all the maintaining of the site and uploading to the server. All my colleague does is download the orders. He updates his computer from a snapshot I put on the server, but does not upload anything. So would I be able to do this with Designer?

Thanks again

[TraceyHand]

Thanks for all the advise.
I have downloaded v9 of Designer to have a look. However, it does not appear that you can swap sites in seconds as the "sites" function is greyed out.

This is probably because you're using a trial version.

The chap I spoke to at Actinic said that with Designer I would not be able to amend products either which I thought was a bit strange.

Not sure what he meant but, obviously, that's incorrect!
The only thing you can't do is any sort of orders/order history/processing

I basically do all the maintaining of the site and uploading to the server. All my colleague does is download the orders. He updates his computer from a snapshot I put on the server, but does not upload anything. So would I be able to do this with Designer?

Thanks again

As long as your colleague doesn't upload, you'll be fine! You upload, he downloads...and occasionally you update his snapshot. That's exactly what I do with the Jesters site and Designer will manage this just fine.

[ASMO]

This is probably because you're using a trial version.

Thanks Tracey, I thought that was probably the case which is why I phoned Actinic before I spent my money. But the chap just seemed to want to sell me Business Plus.

Just to get this clear in my head, can I maintain my site and his from Designer by swapping between them? Is that what you do?

Thanks

Louise

[TraceyHand]

yep, I swap between catalog and designer to maintain my own and others and it works fine.