Cross Computer editing

[t0mbop]

Hi guys,

Got a query and I'm wondering how I could work it out. I'm taking on the website duties of a friend who owns a local shop. The site as it is has been around a few years, has a good PageRank etc, but looks shocking.

I've had a tinker with Actinic and got a new layout sorted for him already and dropped all the bits in to Actinic, lovely jubbly. However, his Actinic is running from the shop PC and I don't want to spend all my time in the shop doing things. Is there anyway I can transfer all the information from his current site (it's only the products that I'm bothered about) onto my empty Actinic currently and go from there?

Also, to cut down on Security problems, is it possible to have the 1 site editable from 2 locations? So if he wants to edit something his end, he can, and vice versa. He knows less than I do so the chances are my machine will be the main machine, however is it possible for his licence number for Actinic to be used on 2 machines.

I suspect this is possible but perhaps maybe not both at the same time?

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers.

[OriginalTouch]

I use multi-user on a few machines so that you can open the program in different places.

However, only the Administrator can open the database for editing. The one machine has to have closed down Actinic or be logged in as a "user" before the Administrator can log in for editing on the second machine. This ensures that the database is not corrupted.

If the 2 machines are not on a network, then I can only assume that you would need to export then import the latest snapshot to edit it on another machine. Making sure that you do not end up with 2 different versions in 2 different locations!

I think this has been discussed before somewhere ...

[pinbrook]

if you don't want to use multi user you can still split over 2 pcs but there are conditions

1 pc1 - download orders only
2 pc2 - can not download orders as you can not merge orders from 2 machines, but can edit/add/delete products and design and thus upload.

so one machine only downloads, the other one only uploads

BUT stock monitoring doesn't work with this scenario, and if you want to use bestsellers and also boughts you will need to periodically take a snapshot from the order PC to upload.

[Jan]

However, only the Administrator can open the database for editing.

Actually, I don't think that this is true.

This is how is works for multiuser.

There are three classes of users in V9, Administrator, Order Processor and Content Processor, the catalog details can be edited by any content processor or any administrator, the order details can be edited by any order processor or any administrator and the administrator can edit content, orders and setup details.

One Administrator can be logged in at a time for any site, but several content processors or order processors can be logged in.

Each order or each content item can only be edited by one person at a time, but serveral people can edit at once, they just have to edit different items (items show as locked when someone is changing them).

Having said all of that then, I don't think it's actually relevant to OP's question anyway, I would suggest that you use something along the lines of GoToMyPC to connect to his computer (it puts a box on his screen so that he knows you are using it) to update his site, that way you both have access to the same system - you could use snapshots but I think that there is a good chance that they will get out of date. Either that or do as Jo has already suggested and split the site for content editing and order processing.

Regards,

[OriginalTouch]

Just explaining how we had set it up!

[Jan]

Just explaining how we had set it up!

How do you stop users changing things?

Regards,

[Darren B]

OK my take on your question

well to get everything in sync i would use a snapshot, you could export the info, but i have not played with that side of things but some here can point you in the right direction.

But to remotely work on the system i would look at Gabes add on http://www.interact-studio.co.uk/ it allows you to manage the products from different locations. Seems to me to be the easiest option

[OriginalTouch]

We are a bit strict. Basically the same thing as you said. Only the Administrator has full access to edit content. The Users are Order Processors. We work on a wireless network, and very occasionally the networked PCs have crashed Actinic and we've had to rescue the database. We prefer that only one person can edit the product list at one time.

As for the question, I think it has been confirmed that to make sure you only have one current database, you guess you can either:

- Split the PC by role of user if the PCs are over a network of some sort - content editors and order processors.

-Snapshot between PCs, using just one PC at a time to do anything, but take care not to lose things in between.

-Use remote access to the PC such as "LogMeIn".

-Use Gabe's "made-to-measure" solution as mentioned above.

Unless there's another option?