Multisite - an installation success story

[nsspyder]

I hope this thread will be permitted to stand alone and not get submerged in the thousands of items in the MultiSite support forum.

I have been using ZenCart for about 8 years. At peak, I was operating a dozen sites. Since then I have divested some of the sites and now run about 10 sites, 7 of them are ZenCart. We have over 750 products, about 40 categories, and over 10,000 customers. Most of the sites handle exactly the same products.

Over time the various sites have accumulated different version levels with only minor upgrades. At the same time each site had accumulated its own unique "add on" modules.

As a small two person busines which specializes in someting other than IT, the maintenance burden has reached the 80 hour plus per week level. Our business is dynamic with a product enter/exit rate in excess of 10 per month. Our business is highly competitive. Updating sites is a constant activity.

After reading the tens of thousands of words concerning the multisite module, I decided to give it a try. What is going to follow is the journey and the pitfalls along the way.

The project has been successful. I switched on the first site yesterday and will add them at one per week. I have two in various stages of testing and all is going well.

It was critical to merge all customers. It was critical to maintain customer order totals as well as product sales totals. I did not require the order line item detail. But, I had to be able to access them for at least 30 days after switching to multisite.

[nsspyder]

I use many add on modules. Some are from the selection offered on the ZenCart support site. Others are purchased. I use a different template on each site. In all, there are at least 50 modifications/enhancements which must be accomodated.

My hosting, blueinkit.com, has an excellent staff. I went to a dedicated server about 3 years ago. I manage it with cPanel. Key to keeping things easy is the ability to "park" domains on top of existing domains.

I began by setting up a new "MALL" domain. I installed a fresh 1.3.9h version of ZenCart. Then, backed everything up. I have done a full backup every day since I started this process. And, I have needed them.

I used PhpMyAdmin to take needed data from one of the old sites and create minimal database for testing.

Then I tested everything to make certain that I started with a fully functioning base. I installed my basic shipping and payment modules.

I was ready to begin. And then the fun began.

[nsspyder]

I installed the multisite module, configured one domain, and started testing.

There are two sets of instruction materials. Bothe are available here. Find them and get them onto your machine. You will read them many times.

The version of multisite that I installed, the latest one available at the time, had an incorrect admin/orders page. I had to retrieve a corrected on from an earlier version of multisite.

I am NOT a php programmer and I am not more than a beginner with MySQL. But, I can read the code and make a good guess at what it does. The most valuable piece of code you must know is:
<?php echo 'I am at point .....' ?>
Put it before you chage code and again after. This way you can get feedback when all you get is a blank screen.

[nsspyder]

Next, I began installing my "ad-on" modules. ONE AT A TIME. Backup before ech module. I put them in, I tested, I adjusted, tested and finally was able to get each one working.

Bit by bit, the test site began to be able to present 3 different sites. Each site shared the mods and features with the other sites.

One big problem is mail. ZenCard has the mail function and templates at a very high level in the file structure.

If you want the mail to be "from" site_1 or site_2 ...., and you want the unique logo from each, you have to be willing to get some blood on your hands by mashing some code. It is not as easy as changing the file in the mail directory. I tried setting up site specifice mail directories - did not work. You need to get into the program that is generating the mail. For example, if you want to mails "order status" changes to customers, you need to do a bit of manipulating in the admin orders code.

Multisite has a module in config_sites directory that will give you the site name. Based on that, you can adjust the "from" and the logo image. You only have to worry about e-mails to the customers. Those going to you can have the "top-level" site's name.

I forgot to mention that my top level site, the one with the admin function is only a showcase type site. It is an entry portal and does not sell product or have any pages other than the main-page. It does not have any sideboxes, products, or categories. It is just a "main" page.

[nsspyder]

I'm not giving code details. No one should emulate my coding methods. You should follow the ZenCart over ride directory proceedure to the letter. All modified pages should be in "override" directories. This prevents wiping out you starting base which is working code.

The ZenCart experts here are far better sources for the correct code and the correct placement of code.

The reason I am making this entry is to slighly offset the huge number of "problem" and "frustration" posts in the multisite support thread.

It can be done and it is worth the effort if you are gobbling up your time supporting multiple sites that share products and or customers. I would not have gone through this for two or three sites. But, we are up to 7 and adding more.

[nsspyder]

The greatest part of the adventure is merging customers and orders. I did not merge products because one site has all of them. I use the product tables from that site.

My two basic tools for the merging process are PhpMyAdmin and EXCEL.

First, I assigned customer number ranges for customers and orders.
Site 1 had order numbers 1 to 1999999 and customers 1 to199999
site 2 orders 2000000 to 2999999 Cutomers from 200000 to 299999
etc

These number ranges are critical to aboid problems when mergin the tables.

First use the store manager function to set an order number higher than any you will be merging.

Ther are 7 tables to bring from old sites:
address_book
customers
customers_info
orders
orders_products
orders_status_history
orders_total

If you use attributes your will need the orders_attributes table also.

My method is to export to EXCEL with column headings.

Only for the first site, add two colums to the table structure. I called them w1 and w2. Dont't forget order_site on the orders table. It will stay when you are finished.

Using EXCEL, I copy the old order/address/customer columns to the work colums. Then enter the adjustment calculation into the orginal column.

Example for the custome table. Copy customer number and default address number to w1 and w2. Then in the customer column enter =w1+300000 and in the default address =w2+300000

I used w1 and w2 but you will use the actual column.row. Once it is calculatin the first one correctly, copy it to the whole column.

Make sure to change the page tab name in excel to match the table name in mysql if it is different.

Now save it, backup your DB and import it.

I'm starting tonight with the second site conversion.

I'm not sure how often I can check in here. You can ask questions. But, you may get a few "I don't know" or I don't remember" type answers. Remember, I'm 67 years old. So I figure that if I can do it, you can too.

Oh, and BTW, I speak fluent typo-nese and suffer from FFTS (fat finger typing syndrome) so, please, no comments about my errors.

[nsspyder]

I mentioned that my site is highly modified. Here is a partial list of things added:
Cross Sell
Sales Report
Enhanced Whose online
Ultimate SEO
Better Together
Big Chooser Mod
Big Spender Mod
Encryped Master Password
htmlAREA Image
Image Manager
CKEditor
Auto Add to Cart
Loyalty Discount
APO/FPO discount

So far so good. The first site is working fine. Todays project is Google SiteMap.

Once I get the second site live, I will give site names so you can take a look.

[pfabrick]

Thank you for posting your journey!! We've been using Multi-Site for years and absolutely LOVE it!. We just recently upgraded to the latest ZC version and had very few problems.

I'm working on updating the MS mod to impact fewer core files and to add a couple of features in the admin area. Once that's all finished, I'm planning on starting a new support thread so the years of posts don't swallow anyone whole!

Kudos to your initiative!

[DigitalShadow]

Got some links to your sites?

[kuroi]

@nsspyder Good posts that will hopefully help many.

@DigitalShadow As there's no reason to be ashamed of being in the Sports Nutruition business, nsspyder may be trying to avoid having lots of people popping over to take a look and distorting his analytics stats.