December
has been a busy month for us, aside from personal holiday preparations. All of
us at Webs Divine are looking forward to a purposely quiet New Years Eve celebration
to recharge our collective batteries, and then it's back to work.
In
early December, we created an access management system for one of our existing clients.
It was a first go-around for us, but from start to finish it took about six
days to complete the project. The Members Only feature of the project included
organizing and tracking more than six hundred user names and passwords, which
gives access to confidential documents and web pages.
To
that end, we utilized Coffee Cup's easy-to-use Website Access Manager. The
software program was indeed a blessing, and comes highly recommended by us.
Product
description:
"When it comes to
password-protecting members-only areas of your web site, .htaccess files are
the way to go. Unfortunately, they are also complicated. Website Access Manager
gives you all the power of .htaccess files with none of the confusion. Its
workspace is easy to use, setting up members-only areas is fast, and you can
protect as many pages as you want."
Coffee
Cup's customer service department is a cut above the rest as well. Whatever
questions we had were quickly addressed by a member of their staff.
Website Access
Manager (WAM) tips:
Because
the .htaccess function only works
with Apache and Apache-compatible servers, WAM comes with a tool to determine
if your server meets the requirements. Your server should have PHP 4.47 or
higher installed in order to use WAM.
Before
importing an Excel spreadsheet for correct use in WAM, the spreadsheet has to
contain information placed in a certain order. The various lettered columns
signify specific information fields in WAM, so the data must be provided
accurately in order for the spreadsheet to import properly. For example, column A must contain the user's real
name, column C their preferred user
name, column D password and column F an e-mail address. The reason
columns B and E are skipped is so that when information is imported it goes to
the correct fields for the individual member. For example, if we added
information to columns B and E, the data listed would go to the wrong fields
once imported into WAM. For a list of all correct property fields, click here.
If
you are using an Excel spreadsheet to create a database in WAM, the document
must be saved as a comma-delimited file (CSV).
After
importing an Excel spreadsheet into WAM, all user details should be in their
proper fields. However, if user details change in the future (new address, new
member, delete member, etc.), the fields can be edited inside the WAM program
(as opposed to importing the Excel spreadsheet all over again).
As
we went along creating our access management project earlier this month, we also
put together a personalized step-by-step "user's manual" for our client. This
is something we do for clients on request. Call it a back-up plan just in case
the client has to take over maintenance of a site for one reason or another. In
other words, we don’t like to leave folks twisting in the wind in case the
unthinkable happens.
We
also acquired a new client in December, but must remain mum about their
identity for the time being. The client will be running for a political office
in February and wants a web presence established before he/she begins their
campaign.
