Support: Tech Notes

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Tech note FS1447

Description
What's the best way to install FlashStats for access by multiple users?

Answer
If you will have multiple users using FlashStats, there are a number of different ways to install FlashStats. These methods are detailed below.

For the examples given below, assume that you are an ISP whose home page is http://www.isp.com. You have two customers, with home pages at http://www.abc.com and http://www.xyz.com, who want to use FlashStats.

Common Directory

This is the recommended setup model. Under this model, you install FlashStats into one common location, and all users go to this common location and run the same copy of FlashStats. Using the example setup given above, you would have each customer go to a URL such as http://www.isp.com/FlashStats/ or perhaps http://flashstats.isp.com/ in order to run their statistics. When they go to this URL, they will get the Report Request Form, at which they will enter their username (probably either "abc" or "xyz") and their password. This setup model makes it very easy to maintain and add new customers, since there's only one installation of FlashStats to maintain. Adding a new customer simply requires you to add a new user account definition (ie, one line of text) to the FlashStats configuration file.

Multiple Directories

The other common way to install FlashStats is to install a separate copy of FlashStats for each of your customers. For example, your "abc" customer would go to http://www.abc.com/FlashStats/ and your "xyz" customer would go the http://www.xyz.com/FlashStats/. The advantage to this setup model is that you can fully customize the Report Request Form that each customer uses, often done to provide the username value automatically. However, this setup model becomes hard to maintain as new customers are added (you have to do a full install for each customer) or if a new version of FlashStats comes out (you have to update each individual installation of FlashStats).