I am responsible for all aspects of a monthly trade magazine (editorial and advertising). I inherited FM as the db to track ad sales activity. FM is used mostly as a database to track contact with clients & prospects. Is Filemaker Pro 5.0 the best tool for that use? (I'm not a database expert, but it seems to me there may be other software -- such as ACT -- better suited for this use.) Second question: If I stay with FM, how can I give an outside sales rep remote access to database for him/her to enter client/prospect contact activity?

Thanks.

Hi:

In my opinion, ACT is more of a contact database than anything else (in fact, that's about the extent of its ability).

I wouldn't suggest FileMaker 5 because it has a few problems. I would go with FM 5.5 or 6.

If you want to allow remote users access to the database, I would suggest getting FileMaker Unlimited and putting it on a publicly accessible server. Then remote users could log into the database through the Internet using a Web browser. You don't really NEED the Unlimited version, but there is a 10 IP limit on regular FileMaker.

Ken

RE: I wouldn't suggest FileMaker 5 because it has a few problems. I would go with FM 5.5 or 6.

I didn't found any problems with 5.0.x

Ken,

Your comments prompt other questions. I hope you don't mind. Is there a beter way to log client contacts in FM? I presently have a data field set up and simply type in the date and a few notes. Some of my contact data fields are getting long.

Also, if I set up a remote system, what kinds of protections does FM offer to protect my db from hackers and unsavory types, or is that more of an IT admin issue?

Also, can FM be set up so that remote users can only add info to db........what I mean is I have contracted reps. I'd hate for one of them to copy my client db and make off with it. I may sound paranoid, but it is a serious issue. Any suggestions??

As far as how to log contacts, one field is probably not gonna cut it. A field should be created for every type of data you want to store (Last name field, first name field, phone number, comments, etc, etc etc). You might wanna use a relational system, where one FILE is for client records, and another would hold all the contact occurances witht that person. This way, you could keep track of multiple contacts per record. Look into relationships.

Regarding security, Anatoli would be able to answer this question better than I, but there are two types of security you can implement. There is file-level security, which is the username/password/access privledges that you can set in FileMaker. If you implement a custom solution, you will also have web-level security that you can use.

FileMaker Unlimited comes with the Web Security Database and the Web Server Connector which help with security.

Ken

RE: Also, if I set up a remote system, what kinds of protections does FM offer to protect my db from hackers and unsavory types, or is that more of an IT admin issue?

What route will you go?

Direct connection to database from FMP clients?

Instant web publishing?

Custom web publishing?