Staging and Production Syncing

[frankstallone]

I have many clients on my server that want to be able to sync from prod to staging and visa versa on their own. Currently the only way to do this, that I can see is by logging into my master account and going to Manage where all my clients are listed and going there. Not ideal for one client to have access to my other clients.

How can I solve this problem and give my clients access to syncing options?

[gmays · Accepted solution]

Hi @frankstallone

The the way Hosting accounts work is only the Pro has access to their own account.  The delegation feature allows Clients to have their own products and give Pros access to their accounts.  But since you have multiple Client sites on your account this isn't possible, as you've stated.  We haven't seen this requested before since typically Pros handle the syncing, but I'll add it to our feature request backlog to see if other Pros will find it useful as well.

You also have the option to use ProSites (GoDaddy branded ManageWP with free features) and add Clients as collaborators to give them access to certain tools.  While this doesn't include a staging feature, you can give clients access to other features including backup/clone, which could be used for a makeshift staging environment.

Thanks,

Gabe

[jpablo]

@frankstallone what an interesting question!

Personally, I do the staging for my clients in another location. But if your clients want to do it themselves, maybe you want to try this sandbox plugin. (I know it says not updated in two years, but it's worth trying)

Hope it helps!

[frankstallone]

Thanks for your reply jpablo! Much appreciated although after reading what this plugin does I don't think it will work with GoDaddy's Managed WordPress hosting service. Reviews are not encouraging either. I left my VPS where I was handling more of the server side for the managed service to avoid those headaches. 

Furthermore, I am not sure why one would pay for GoDaddy's Managed WordPress hosting service and not use their one-click staging area functionality. That was core to the reason I decided to go with this service. An invaluable feature of the service. 

[jpablo]

@frankstallone you're probably right.

I know this is a paid one, but cloner seems promising. However, I don't know if it is mandatory that it should be multisite.

[frankstallone]

jpablo one of my biggest pet peeves is using superfluous plugins. This is one of those cases. Again, I pay GoDaddy for a service. That service is to have one-click staging and beautiful syncing between the two. It works quite well. Why fix what isn't broken? To be clear, I am not interested in any other solution outside of the one I have already paid for. I'll continue to wait to hear of a solution from within the services I have already spent thousands of dollars on. 

[frankstallone]

GoDaddy sent me an email notification reminding me to bump this thread because it has not yet been answered. 

[frankstallone]

TTT

[frankstallone]

TTT

[gmays · Accepted solution]

Hi @frankstallone

The the way Hosting accounts work is only the Pro has access to their own account.  The delegation feature allows Clients to have their own products and give Pros access to their accounts.  But since you have multiple Client sites on your account this isn't possible, as you've stated.  We haven't seen this requested before since typically Pros handle the syncing, but I'll add it to our feature request backlog to see if other Pros will find it useful as well.

You also have the option to use ProSites (GoDaddy branded ManageWP with free features) and add Clients as collaborators to give them access to certain tools.  While this doesn't include a staging feature, you can give clients access to other features including backup/clone, which could be used for a makeshift staging environment.

Thanks,

Gabe

[frankstallone]

Gabe,

Thank you. Despite the confusing user name , your answer was thorough and much appreciated.

Although I have known about the delegation feature for GoDaddy from other products through out the years, that does speak to the idea I am asking about in this thread. Client access to Pro Sites is a feature I have greatly appreciated since I purchased my Managed WordPress Pro product. Maybe that is where adding a collaborator with the capability to sync would be useful? 

Here's my logic. I want to encourage my clients to login to their website and add/remove content. If they know they can do that without harming the production site, they'll be more open to the idea of trying things. Giving the access to blow out a breaking change on the staging server on their own seems like the next logical step. Requiring me to login and re-sync is a slight barrier to entry there. Another reason this would be great is if a client hires a plugin developer, designer or other WordPress developer to do some work. Instead of giving them access to all of my sites, I can exclusively give them access to X site and syncing capabilities.

I want to reiterate my gratitude for the response. Your product knowledge obviously extensive. I appreciate you putting this in the backlog despite it not being a feature you've heard many asking for. I am a little surprised by that but it's good to know. If you have some free time,  I wonder if you can aid in my SSL certificate situation. 

Thank you for your time and patience,

Frank

[Gabe · Accepted solution]

Hi @frankstallone  Heh, yeah, sorry about that--I accidentally responded on my customer site.  I'm a GoDaddy customer too 🙂

I hear what you're saying--that makes a lot of sense.

In the meantime, I know these aren't ideal, but here are two potential options:

• Create a staging site for the customer and give them wp-admin/SFTP credentials to the new site.
• Add them as collaborators in ProSites and let them use the clone feature to create/overwrite their staging site.
• Have the customer migrate the site to their own Hosting account so they have access.

I know those options aren't great, just trying to help provide workarounds in the meantime.

Regarding your SSL situation, I see that's in the AMA thread, which I'm writing responses for now.  You  should see them in the next day or two.

Thanks,

Gabe

[frankstallone]

Valid workarounds. Good ideas worth marinating on. 🙏 🙏 🙏