keeping track of changes in solutions

[Toni]

Hello

  With small to big changes made as often as customer requires and age hitting hard on me , I've come to think about noting somewhere these changes, keeping a log file of them.

  I think some of you might already have in place such practices.

  So, what are your best methods in keeping track of what has been done through the years?

Thank you, Toni

[Lee Smith]

This is called either Audit or Modification file.

There are a ton of examples through out the internet and here. site: fmforums.com audit

Here is a link to some youtube videos https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=audit+file+in+filemaker

HTH

Lee

[Fitch]

You could either do as Lee suggested, build a table in your customer's file, or your own separate database. There are also web tools like github etc. Or teamwork.com or a wiki or something if you want to have something accessible to your customer. 

Or you could just keep a plain text file, spreadsheet, or whatever you like.

[Toni]

Thank you both, didn't know these were called audit I had a look at those audit solutions and are very useful so I will definitely give a try on those. I have some sort of things like those already in place.

Anyway, I was thinking more on the line on keeping track of the changes to the database made by myself. So I will also try a solution of building a table for this very purpose. I develop for two customers who are in the manufacturer business and they come with every sort of idea every other week so it is becoming increasingly hard to remember why I created one field or one script. The nature of manufacturing is very flexible and changes in lot of aspects, like line of productions, models, etc. so the database has to adapt fast and needs to be tracked. There are even things which are temporary because they are related to a specific product which might be in place for three months for example. 

 

[Lee Smith]

Are you using 11, or have you upgraded?

[Toni]

I am still on FM11, but as you're asking I am planning in near future to upgrade at 16. Have delayed it because of the not so funny experience when upgrading from FM5 to FM7. Reading documentation about moving from .fp7 to .fmp12 and it sounds smother than from the previous I had at the time.

[Lee Smith]

Hi Toni,

There is nothing wrong with your version, except my operating system, High Sierra doesn't support it.

The main difficulty I had in upgrading from FileMaker 5 to 7 was converting from files to Tables.  

The change from from 11 - 12 was much easier. Read the FileMaker General Discussions here, if you want to see how this went for others.

With each new release (13, 14, 15, 16) there has been a lot of improvements that has brought us new tools, functions, and features. Personally, I think that FileMaker Pro Advance 16 is the best. I look forward to the new release coming this summer (probably Version 17).

Anyway, the reason I asked this question is because, FileMaker 16 has some templates that you might find helpful.

In addition, Matt Petrowsky has a FREE training series available on YouTube here called, The Mastery Course for FileMaker Learners, and he showing how to build a tool much like you have described. The only caveat being, is you should have FileMaker Pro advance Version 14 or above, and 16 is ideal.

HTH

Lee

[Fitch]

I would say an audit log is where you track changes that users make to the data, and a change log is where you track changes the developer makes to the schema.

You should of course be adding comments wherever you can: in field definitions, calculations, layouts and scripts. I've also seen scripts that are nothing but comments used for change log/documentation. This works fine, but with the heavy quantity of changes you described it would probably be worth it to build a simple table for the change log which would give you search, sort, auto timestamp etc.