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Multisites

WordPress VIP Platform supports both WordPress single site and WordPress multisite installations. WordPress multisite (also known as a WordPress network) allows multiple sites to be created and run from the same WordPress installation core files.

Users with access to the VIP Dashboard can view a list of existing Network Sites on a multisite environment.

WordPress multisite makes it possible to:

  • Manage user account creation and access per site or at the network level.
    All sites on the network share the users table in the database, but users can be assigned unique roles (or none at all) on a per-site basis.
  • Maintain a shared resource of plugins and themes that can be accessed per site or at the network level.
    Code is deployed to an environment from a branch of an application’s GitHub repository. Themes and plugins added to a GitHub repository that deploys to a multisite environment can be activated on multiple sites. This enables theme and plugin updates and maintenance to be performed only once for the entire network, instead of once per site.
  • Use any combination of domains, subdomains, and subdirectories for each site on the network.
  • Support multiple language translations for a site on a single WordPress install.
    Plugins such as MultilingualPress (authored by Inpsyde, one of VIP’s Featured Partners) leverage multisite network capabilities to create a separate site for each language translation.

A single GitHub repository stores code for all sites on a network. All developers working on the site can access the entire repository. WordPress multisite might not be suitable if developer teams need restricted repository access to support different sites on the network.

Plugin access for network sites

Plugins are installed via GitHub and are activated at the network level. By default, users with an Administrator role do not have the capability to enable or disable plugins for an individual site. A user with a Super Admin role must enable this option at the network level:

  • Navigate to: My Sites > Network Admin > Settings.
  • Under “Menu Settings“, toggle the “Enable administration menus” checkbox.
    Enabling this option will allow all Administrators on all sites on the network to access the Plugins dashboard for their site.

For assistance with converting an existing WordPress single site to a WordPress multisite, contact VIP Support.

Last updated: May 15, 2023

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