Estimated Time To Read This: 9 – 15 minutes       Over the years, there have been a number of different file formats that the various versions of FileMaker Pro have used.  Currently, we at CoreSolutions Software Inc. are only supporting the .fp7 file format which pertains to FileMaker Pro versions 7 through 11.  If you’re using one of the earlier file formats in your database system, I would highly encourage you to upgrade.  There are of course many reasons to upgrade, and these reasons range from ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 4 minutes       FileMaker Go is proving to be a great little app that is expanding the office even further than it already has been with smartphones.  Now I can access our company/client data regardless of my physical location and can even add notes and new records.  The possibilities are endless for potential use for nearly every organization out there.  From checking inventory in a warehouse to adding sales notes while at a client’s location and everything in ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years building websites in PHP using FileMaker as a back end (starting with Chris Hansen’s FX.PHP, then switching over to FileMaker’s own PHP API) but I’d never really used FileMaker’s built-in PHP Site Assistant. Since I am used to coding everything myself  I never really saw the need for it, but I decided to try it out recently just as a test to see how it works. The Site Assistant can be ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       If you’ve ever been to a website like Amazon, you know it’s pretty easy to send your friends or family to the exact item you’re looking at — it’s as simple as copying the URL and sending it to them in an email. In fact, many of these sites have a link on each product that will do this for you automatically. The new Snapshot Link feature in FileMaker Pro 11 does something similar, and it’s easy to use. In the File menu, just go to ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       I’ve had a chance to use FileMaker Go for a couple of months now, and I’ve been impressed with the amount of functionality they’ve managed to pack into a portable application – it’s a big improvement over the old FileMaker Mobile. Granted, it doesn’t have all the functionality of the desktop client, but  FileMaker does seem to be dedicated to supporting it. The 1.1.1 patch released in September adds several new features, ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       When FileMaker Inc. released FileMaker Go for iOS 4 devices in July, it changed things for developers. All of a sudden we had a new platform for which to develop, and one that has unique opportunities and capabilities. It also left many of us scratching our collective heads after we played with it for a while and realized that using the same layouts designed for the desktop version of FileMaker Pro wouldn’t always be practical. I say scratching our heads ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       Remember the old days, before FileMaker Pro 11, where you had to copy custom functions from one file to another by creating a new custom function and then copying all the code and parameters manually? (That was a even pain to type out, let alone perform!) This was extremely time consuming, especially in older projects where all tables had their own files. FileMaker added a neat new feature to their latest version that some of you may not know of. Keep ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       One of the questions I often get asked is “who are you and how did you get in my house?” but after that it tends to be whether or not we offer FileMaker hosting.  The answer is no but I can typically point people to other organizations that do offer that service. There are a number of reasons why you may need to outsource your hosting requirements… in some cases, you may not have the hardware infrastructure to do your own hosting or maybe you have people ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       In some cases, it can be beneficial to make a single report layout flexible enough to handle multiple reports. Hypothetically, let’s say that we have a Teacher Certificate system with the ability to generate and print teacher certificates, the accompanying letter, and restrictions (if any). The problem is, that depending on whether the teacher is teaching an elementary, high school, or continuing education class, a different accompanying letter needs to be ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       We recently celebrated the success of three of our FileMaker developers becoming FileMaker 11 Certified Developers.  We always knew they were certifiable but now they have a certificate to prove it! It got me to thinking about what that certification actually means to us as a business and to our clients.  Let’s face it – before FileMaker introduced Certification back in 2004 with version 7; pretty much anyone could hang their shingle out as a FileMaker ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       This week FileMaker Inc. released updates for all the FileMaker products bringing them to version 11.0v2. You can find the download page by choosing “Check for Updates” from the Help menu in FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced or FileMaker Server Admin console, or by visiting this link. This update repairs a number of bugs in FileMaker Pro including a fix to snapshot links not recognizing files with external file references. Behaviour was also changed for merge ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       In the last year I faced a challenge like none I have ever faced before. As I celebrated my 40th birthday and mourned the loss of my good friend to breast cancer, I decided to sign-up for a 200KM (124 mile) fundraising bike ride. To take part in this ride, I knew I’d have to train and prepare myself mentally and physically to be successful in my adventure. After months (and months!) and hours (and hours!) of sweat, perseverance and effort, I found myself facing ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Using portals in FileMaker Pro is a great way to view a lot of related information on a single screen. For example, if you’re sitting on a contact record, you can have portals that let you view activities, invoices orders, etc. for that contact, all at a glance. If you have a lot of records in your database, you might have to do a lot of scrolling to find, say, an invoice from a few years back. FileMaker 11 has introduced a new feature called “Portal ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       FileMaker is a great software application – we all know that. As with all great applications – to keep making it better means they need to come out with different versions which in turn means that you do need to upgrade from time to time and FileMaker are committed to release a new version every 12 – 15 months. FileMaker recognized early on that upgrading can be a costly venture and have come up with a number of ways to make it as cost effective as ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 4 minutes       The world is quickly becoming a “Get it here and now” society with so many of us needing to be “plugged in” and looking for the easiest way to get what we need when we need it! We have learned to multi-task whether we wanted to or not, and in this vain we are almost forced to look at other ways we are able to obtain the training we require without the hassle of traveling or going off-site for hours or days at a time. With every position I have held, I ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       Having worked on mission-critical databases on a regular basis, I can never stress enough just how important having a clone really is. While in some cases, it’d be nice to have a copy of myself running around and helping me out, that’s not quite the type of clone I’m talking about… so, if you manage a FileMaker database,and that’s the only type of clone you know about then you owe it to yourself to continue reading. FileMaker provides a very nice ... Read More