What do I need for my project? Requirements and questions
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Valentín López Meneses
Participant# 1 week, 2 days agoThese are the project requirements. I would appreciate guidance on whether it is possible and the necessary addons.
1.- Each client must have a private space in which they will have their documentation for consultation or download. In principle, clients will not upload documentation
2.- The system is expected to serve a total of 150 clients with an average document load of 100 Megabytes each.
3.- Documents are considered confidential, so access to the client’s private space must have a double authentication system based on credentials and sending a code to the email associated with the client’s account.
4.- There will be at least three working users of the company who will act as administrators for both user and file management without distinction of client groups or content types. The three users will manage all clients.
5.- The uploading of the different files is done manually by the administrators.
6.- The files must be classified by categories and subcategories. 7.- The language used will be Spanish.
8.- The system must be adaptable to be used from PCs, tablets and mobile phones.Other questions:
1.- Can you recommend a double authentication plugin that you are sure is compatible with WP Customer Area and Authentication forms?
2.- If in the future you wanted customers to upload documents, would that be possible?
3.- The users who will upload the files are administration technicians, they are not experts or computer technicians. Which addon is most recommended for mass uploads, FTP Mass Import or Enhanced files?
4.- Does the Content expiry addon delete files once they expire?
5.- Is it already possible to categorize from the front-end?
Thanks in advance -
Thomas
Keymaster# 1 week, 1 day agoHello,
1.- Each client must have a private space in which they will have their documentation for consultation or download. In principle, clients will not upload documentation
This is actually doable with our free base plugin. We would first recommend you try that, and see if this first expectation fits your needs, and also check if you’re not experiencing any compatibility issue with your theme or any other plugin installed on your site. Do not hesitate, by the way, to check our getting started tutorial.
2.- The system is expected to serve a total of 150 clients with an average document load of 100 Megabytes each.
WP Customer Area uses the WP user system, and does not specifically involves any limit about the number of customers you could have. Any limit you could reach would comes from WP itself, or your server configuration. For instance, if you want your customers to be allowed to download files that are 100mb sized, you should configure PHP from your hosting provider to be able to do so. Since downloading secured private files within WPCA is done through PHP, and not via direct HTTP (for security reasons), it means than an user, downloading a 100mb file, will consume 100mb RAM from PHP, until the download ends up.
It’s up to you to configure PHP, WordPress, and their allowed memory, to be able to handle all the requests from your customers, depending on your website, its size, and the number of download requests you could have.3.- Documents are considered confidential, so access to the client’s private space must have a double authentication system based on credentials and sending a code to the email associated with the client’s account.
First, to ensure enhanced security and confidentiality about secured files, especially if you run an NGINX server, you should first secure your private files folder.
Then, WP Customer Area does not include any double authentication feature, but the good thing is that WP Customer Area uses the WP users system. Your users will, by default, connect through the standard WP login forms, which means that you could install any security plugin that can handle that feature. You’ll only probably need a few tweaks if you are using our Authentication Forms add-on, because those double authentication feature could probably add extra inputs to the forms, such as Captcha or others forms, that should need to be allowed and correctly displayed.
4.- There will be at least three working users of the company who will act as administrators for both user and file management without distinction of client groups or content types. The three users will manage all clients.
I would recommend that you first check the free base plugin to get familiar about how the permissions work with WP Customer Area. Check Settings > WP Customer Area > Capabilities. As you’ll notice, you can assign permissions on a per role basis. Creating many administrators users might be too much on your case, because it will also grant them access to the whole site. But you can generate new roles on your site, programmatically, or with third party plugins, and grant them the permissions you need for WPCA.
5.- The uploading of the different files is done manually by the administrators.
From the free base plugin, uploading files can be done by the users, from the wp-admin, for whom the role is allowed to do so (as per the default settings, only administrators will be allowed to do so). You can also use the Front Office Publishing add-on to let them do that from the frontend, if required.
6.- The files must be classified by categories and subcategories.
You can add categories, but not sub-categories. This taxonomy has not been made to be hierarchical, sorry. You would need to workaround that by naming your categories accordingly, such as “My cat 1”, and “My cat 1 – Sub cat 1”.
Also, please note that categories are common to any user by default, which means that, any user can, by default, see any created category. You can however configure our Category Widget to only list categories where the currently logged-in users have files assigned to him. However, they’ll still probably be able to see the full categories’ list in some others places.
7.- The language used will be Spanish.
If you just need your site to be a single language, you’re actually good to go. WP Customer Area is actually 90% translated by the community in Spanish, which is huge. You shouldn’t notice that much unstranslated strings from the frontend. You’ll just need to update your site’s plugins languages from wp-admin > Update > Update Languages.
8.- The system must be adaptable to be used from PCs, tablets and mobile phones.
The UI is made to be responsive and adaptive to any device’s size, so it should be ok, but the real user experience mainly depend on your theme, because the private area will be wrapped into your theme. If you have a 300px wide container, created by your theme, and that you wrap WPCA into it, the user’s experience will be bad. Check our theme documentation to learn how to create custom themes templates for WPCA (in case you need a 100% width page for instance)
1.- Can you recommend a double authentication plugin that you are sure is compatible with WP Customer Area and Authentication forms?
No, sorry, we do not recommend third party plugins. It would be up to you to check them out. However, we’re still there if you encouter any integration issue with the Authentication Forms add-on.
2.- If in the future you wanted customers to upload documents, would that be possible?
You’ll just need to use and configure the Front Office Publishing add-on in that case, to let them upload files from the frontend.
3.- The users who will upload the files are administration technicians, they are not experts or computer technicians. Which addon is most recommended for mass uploads, FTP Mass Import or Enhanced files?
What do you mean by “mass uploads”? What are your needs exactly?
The Enhanced Files add-on simply allows you to attach more than one attachment file to a private file post. The FTP Mass Import add-on can be useful when you need to select an attachment file (like, our-new-terms-and-conditions.pdf), and send it to multiple users at once, and by automatically creating a new post for each one of those users. The Bulk Import add-on, is however, for advanced users with technical skills, since its configuration is made from a JSON file, but it allows to import content (not only private files) with an advanced configuration.
4.- Does the Content expiry addon delete files once they expire?
No, it will actually make the private content post unnaccessible for users roles who do not have the permission to bypass the validity date. Attachment files will not be deleted, nor the posts themselves.
5.- Is it already possible to categorize from the front-end?
Yes, by using the Front Office Publishing add-on. This however requires that the user has the permission to edit the given private content type AND the permission to edit the category. It means that the user will be able to edit, at leats, both the post (its title and content), and its category.
Regards.
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Keymaster# 1 week, 1 day ago
2.- The system is expected to serve a total of 150 clients with an average document load of 100 Megabytes each.
Also, I don’t know what kind of document could be 100mb sized, but if it’s a single PDF, it would be a real bad experience for your customer to open that. If you plan to upload 100mb sized PDF files, you might first review the way you export those PDF files. Instead of exporting them as a static printable 300 DPI file, you could export them as a numeric file, by including required fonts, by compressing included images, and by cropping out images not viewvable from the document itself.
A 1 page scanned PDF file at 300 DPI can be 15mb sized, while it could be 200kb sized if exported correctly, and while it would still be printed correctly as a numeric file.However, if you still need to let your customers be able to download large files, you’ll need to consider a hosting provider, like a VPS, with an enough amount of RAM.
Also, when uploading large files, you can consider the FTP upload method, rather than the classic method. It allows you to upload files via FTP, and then select the file you want to assign to the post, and it will then be moved to the according post’s storage folder.
Regards.
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Participant# 5 days, 15 hours ago
Thank you for your reply and sorry I didn’t reply before.
2.- The system is expected to serve a total of 150 clients with an average document load of 100 Megabytes each.
I clarify this question. The system will serve 150 clients and the private space of each of them will have an approximate size of 100 Mb but not in a single file, the 100 Mb is the approximate size of the total files that the client’s private space will contain.
3.- The users who will upload the files are administration technicians, they are not experts or computer technicians. Which addon is most recommended for mass uploads, FTP Mass Import or Enhanced files?
What do you mean by “mass uploads”? What are your needs exactly?
I meant that administrators can upload many files for several clients. But from your answer I understand that the FTP Mass Import add-on does not fulfill the same function as the Bulk Import add-on. If so, the problem is that administrators are not advanced users with technical skills.
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Keymaster# 2 days, 21 hours ago
Hello,
the 100 Mb is the approximate size of the total files that the client’s private space will contain
So there’s anything to worry about. It is a pretty standard usage. You’ll just need enough storage on your hosting provider and a few RAM.
If so, the problem is that administrators are not advanced users with technical skills.
Yes, the Bulk Import add-on would first need that you prepare the JSON file for those technicians. If you’re using an external software, like an invoice generator, or whataver, you could probably develop a script for your software, to generate such a file when exporting your documents / invoices, so it can then be imported in one shot in WordPress.
Regards.
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