Lets imagine this: you are using the inventory control of our themes. You are actually too lazy to login online and navigate to your “Manage inventory” section to update quickly some item quantities. What then? Under certain circumstances you could do the job also with OpenOffice Base.

What you need:
- OpenOffice Base (surprise,surprise)
- your host allows you external access to the online MySQL data base

Here we show you step-by-step how to connect to your Inventory and change the amounts via OpenOffice Base:

1) What MySql database is your WordPress using? In case its possible to give this database “external access” then please do so. You find this possibility usually in the backend of your host under “databases”. If this is definitely not possible – sorry! It will not work for you.

2) Get the newest version of OpenOffice at http://download.openoffice.org/

3) Get the newest version of the OpenOffice addon “MySql Connector”
…at http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/de/project/mysql_connector

4) Connect to the external web database
- open OpenOffice base
- choose in the “Database Wizard” the option “Connect to an existing database”
- choose in the dropdown “MySQL”

5) Choose “Connect directly”

6) Enter your database name, your database server and the port (very likely 3306)

7) Set up the user authentication – basically fill in your database username and password

8. Choose “Yes, register the database for me”

9) Press “Finish”

10) Save it e.g. on the desktop

11) Double click on the new desktop icon

12) Choose on the left side “Tables” and then the table “_wps_iventory”

13) Change the amounts in the column “amounts”

14) Simply close the window and save the changes

Congratulations – you’ve just updated your inventory control without touching the WordPress backend!