help with company directory

[lucia22]

I have installed the company directory module and I am just trying to adapt it for the project I have in hand however I am struggling a little with the hierarchy and categories.

What I am trying to achieve is a suppliers listings for the UK. I need the UK split into main counties, then these counties split down further into regions ie. top level would be Wales and under this there would be North Wales and South Wales. For each region when clicked I need it to show a list of categories of suppliers eg. Dairy, Bakery etc once they click on one of these they see the suppliers for that region for that category.

In addition it may be that some suppliers need to be listed under more than one category and possibly be listed under more than one region. I would be extremely grateful if someone could tell me if this is achievable with this module and if so how I would go about it? Can it be done with categories and hierarchy or would I need to create actual pages for the counties and regions, then have the categories displayed using the company directory module but then I would need to make sure its only showing the categories/suppliers that are available for this region????

[micahgodbolt]

Depending on the number of hierarchy items you will have, it's certainly possible to just use a tree of pages to represent each location, and then have a different company directory tag on each page. This way you could use categories, or custom fields to display the locations you want for each place.

[lucia22]

Thanks for your reply. Just a little unclear of what you mean, sorry.

So if I make all my main regions and pages regular pages with links to the sub regions, I understand this bit but then what do I have for the supplier types, do I use hierarchy of categories for this? I am a little puzzled to the difference between hierarchy and categories if I'm honest? The supplier types will be the same for all the regions so there may be a bakery supplies, dairy supplies link but when someone clicks on Bakery for that particular region it should only show the Bakery suppliers for that region, rather than all that are listed under Bakery. Would i have to have a set of categories for all the regions, so have North Wales Cheese, South Wales cheese etc?

You mention having a different company directory name for each region, how do I create a different company directory name?

[micahgodbolt]

If you have a finite number of regions to display, and therefore just use regular cmsms pages, I would suggest using categories instead of hierarchy.

The different is: hierarchy defines a position in the hierarchy tree, whereas categories define a value or attribute of the item. Therefor each item can only be in a single hierarchy, but each item can have multiple categories assigned to them.

[lucia22]

If i use categories for the supplier type, do I need to have a set of categories for each region eg. South Wales Bakery, North Wales Bakery etc or we just have one set of categories for the supplier types which are the same across all regions. Then somehow get it only to display the ones that apply to that region?

[micahgodbolt]

If you have some suppliers that are part of multiple regions, then yes, you'll need a category for each one.

Again, if you have a ton of different locations this might create too many fields to manage, so you may choose a different solution.

One idea might be to have a primary location and a secondary location (both dropdown menus). That's assuming you don't have the need to set 3 different locations

[lucia22]

Thanks so much for your help so far, really appreciate it. I am a little worried it may become difficult to manage as there could potentially be up to 30 regions and each region will have approximately 15 supplier types. Some suppliers may supply for more than one region and may need to be included in more that one supplier type. Eventually there may be 400-600 suppliers listed. You mentioned in a previous post having more that one company directory set up on the site, how is this achieved?

Do you know of another module which may suit this project better or is it something which you may have knowledge to develop for us, if so are you able to quote us?

[micahgodbolt]

It's not possible to set up multiple company directories (sorry if I said something otherwise).

I think company directory is your best bet here, and to set up your hierarchy based on location. Categories (dairy,bakery, etc) are perfectly suited for helping people find the type of company they are looking for.

In the case that you have a distributor in multiple locations...well by nature of splitting companies up by location, maybe it'd just be best to have separate entries for that business at each location. Joes Bakery North Wales, Joes Baker South Wales.

Sometimes you just need to figure out a scheme that works for the site, and do the best you can with it. Shoot me a DM if you want some help developing the templates and data structure for Company Directory.

Good luck!