204 Part II: Developing Intranet Solutions . A (Remote web server)
204 Part II: Developing Intranet Solutions . A simple messaging application that enables users and administrators to send messages in the form of notes: For example, a user should be able to send a note via the intranet to another user about a task deadline or a meeting. We will implement this messaging tool, which we named here as the Message of the Day (MOTD) tool. . A simple document-publishing application that enables intranet users to publish HTML documents in an organized manner: This tool enables users to provide feedback to each posted document. Also, whenever a new document is added or an existing one is updated, users who have access to the document should be automatically notified via the messaging system previously mentioned. The applications for this suite are built in Chapter 8. . A simple central contact-manager application that enables intranet users to access common contact information such as that for vendors, customers, partners, and co-workers: These applications are built in Chapter 9. . A simple central event-calendar application suite that enables users to publish and view important events: These applications are built in Chapter 10. . A simple Internet resource manager application suite that allows users to share Internet resources such as Web and FTP sites: These applications are built in Chapter 10. The intranet applications that we develop here require the central login/logout and user-management components of the intranet discussed in the previous three chapters in this section. You ll need to have those applications (login, logout, user-management) already implemented so that we can develop the base intranet home and access applications in this chapter. Designing the Database Since we are designing the intranet to support small to large number of users, we need a SQL server as the data storage. Like previous chapters and rest of he book, we will assume that you are going use MySQL for the database here as well. The authentication database (auth) previously built for central authentication will still be used for storing user information such as username, password, active flag, and so on. Here we will develop a database that stores intranet messages, user details, preferences, theme choices, and user-access activity log data. Figure 7-1 shows the database diagram for the intranet system.