New to this - magazine management

[Kyanto]

My apologies if this is not the right forum. Admin can move it if needed.

Question: Just hos intuitive is Filemaker for someone who is not even a programmer? I need a fairly simple set-up to manage a magazine and wonder if I could do it myself, or if I am better off buying someone else's?

Second, how easy is it to take modify the samples that Filemaker7 comes with? Does it come with something close to magazine management? I'm also ging to want to rebuild one of the student tracking modules to make it work for tracking athletes' training programmes.

Is Filemake going to be too deep for me? I've never made databases before, but am pretty good at using Excel on the level of a user.

Thanks!

[Lee Smith]

Hi Kyanto, and welcome to the Forum.

First a correction. We are a List, not a Magazine.

Question: Just hos intuitive is Filemaker for someone who is not even a programmer? I need a fairly simple set-up to manage a magazine and wonder if I could do it myself, or if I am better off buying someone else's?

FileMaker is one of the easiest "Database" programs to learn and use, however it does have a learning curve though.

If you need a quick fix to your problem, you should probably look at hiring a developer or purchase a complete solutions. You can find commercial, shareware and freeware on may sites. If you have some time to devote to the curve, than you can find a lot of help in the manual, there are some excellent after market books (do a search of the forum, or look at the [color:"blue"]"Brain Food >> FileMaker Resources" Topic area), and once you get going, there is this List and a few others that will help you with your questions.

Keep in mind that there is an archive here that can be searched, and you should find a lot of answers to the questions that you will have.

Second, how easy is it to take modify the samples that Filemaker7 comes with? Does it come with something close to magazine management? I'm also going to want to rebuild one of the student tracking modules to make it work for tracking athletes' training programs.

FileMaker's samples, and the commercial products available at their site can modified. The problem has a lot more to do with your own ability then the ability to modify. No commercial product (freeware, shareware, etc.) will fit your needs completely. Unless you build it to fit your needs, be prepared to except less than you had in mind.

Is Filemaker going to be too deep for me? I've never made databases before, but am pretty good at using Excel on the level of a user.

No program is without a learning curve. There are some similarities in the terms used in the calculations, but they are totally different programs. The fact that you have learned Excel, gives me confidence that you will be able to learn FileMaker too.

Do not forget, this list is here to help you through your learning curve, so use it.

Lee

[Kyanto]

Thanks for the encouragement!

I think I'll go fot it as I have a lot of databases in mind for narrow specifics which I know I won't find.

[Lee Smith]

All Right, we hooked another one.

I haven't posted these in a while. Here are a few sites that have Sample, Tricks and Tips, Commercial, Shareware and Freeware. The only problem is, a lot of them are in earlier versions of FileMaker, so will need to convert them.

http://www.fmfiles.com/

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/

http://clevelandconsulting.com/

http://www.coresolutions.on.ca/Resources/standards.lasso

http://www.databasepros.com/

http://www.dwdataconcepts.com/

http://www.fentonjones.com/

Also, check out our Sample File Topic area, [color:"red"]Ugo has been very busy with how to files of late (I think he retired recently or something, as he seems to have a lot of time on his hands).

HTH

Lee