Feedback on Filemaker Pro

[strogg]

Our institution is looking at a program that runs on the Filemaker Pro platform. We've never had any experience with Filemaker before. Is it easy to use? How does it stack up against sql, foxpro, etc.?

 

[TStriker]

That's a tough question to answer withour knowing more about your organization. If you're Ford Motor Company looking to replace your core business information system then I would say that you should not be looking at FM at all. On the other hand, if you are a small business (30 employees or less) or a small workgroup in a large company then maybe FM is for you.

If you have unique needs, FM might be right for you. If you want to be able to do deep customzations yourself, then FM may be the ticket. If you will have a very high transaction volume or if you need to be able to recover your data to within a seconds of a crash, then FM is porbably not for you.

If you provide more info on your organization we may be able to offer better advice.

-Striker

 

[strogg]

Thanks for the response! Basically we are a community hospital with a few thousand employees, but there will only be three users using this particular program. It will be for tracking keys, locks, etc. for our engineering dept. We will want to customize reporting.

 

[TStriker]

I would think FM would be ideal for what you are doing. Depending on the complexity of your needs you could potentially even build the applicaion yourself.

FM is known for its ease-of-use and cross platform ability. It is quite surprising what regular people (no programming training) can do with FM right-out-of-the-box.

For instance, with zero training I was able to build a simple searchable form that tracked change requests, from scratch, in one weekend. That was 10 years ago. Today I could build and deploy that same form in about 2-3 hours.

If your needs are simple you could try to build it yourself or you could find an FM developer to to it rather quickly.

-Striker

 

[philhege]

That sounds suspiciously like an inventory program, and one that could be fodder for the possible "Hey we can use this for the rest of the stuff we have to track" expansion. Just be sure that your scope creep is manageable.

Phil Hegedusich
Senior Programmer/Analyst
IIMAK

http://www.iimak.com

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Pity the insomniac dyslexic agnostic. He stays up all night, wondering if there really is a dog.

 

[strogg]

Thanks for the input everybody! The program we're looking at was created exclusively for key tracking so it will fit the bill quite nicely. We did use an in house app before using Access, but over time it has broken down and the person that built it is no longer employed here. No one here has much Access experience, at least not enough to fix the old app or build a new one. So the powers that be decided to look at an OTF app instead. This will be our first experience with FM, but from what I've learned here it looks like it will be alot less painless than Access.

 

[philhege]

but from what I've learned here it looks like it will be alot less painless than Access.

Or is that "painful"?

One of Filemaker's bigger strengths is its relative "user friendliness".

One of Filemaker's bigger drawbacks is its relative "user friendliness".

Try to be careful of whom you let do what. If the app's locked down out of the wrapper, that's great. If it isn't, well, watch out for report proliferation.

Good luck!

 

[strogg]

Gah...Yes I did mean painful, wasn't thinking when I was typing...Most of my Access adventures have required a few Excedrin. Thanks for the info all, it's most appreciated!!!