Publishing filemaker databases online

[Nicnacs]

Hello

I work for a small charity and we manage our website (ww.wrc.org.uk) in-house. It gets updated each week and currently takes 6 or so hours to do. This time is mostly spent entering event details into various tables on different pages. It's a really inefficient way of doing things and as we have filemaker in the office, I thought I'd try to look into using it to speed things up.

What I reckon is, we have an events database in the office. In it we store the details for a variety of events we and our members are running. It's a useful tool for the office to see what's happening when, but I'd also like it to 'feed' the website. That's just one example. We also have a library so we could publish that database on the web so people can see what we've got before they come in.

What I don't know, is how!

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Perhaps a good article to read? Should I be heading for Instant Web Publishing or Filemaker Unlimited......or what? We currently have the server version with version 7 running on about 12 'puters.

I've been looking for a training course to go on, but it's hard to find! Not many people in the UK seem to use filemaker. They don't know what they're missing!

Thanks

[Reed]

If you're using server, you'll want to upgrade to server advanced. That will add web publishing to your system. Instant web publishing is a good way to get something up on the web quickly. If you just want to have simple list views of events with a link to a detail form, that would be easy for IWP. You'll hardly have to modify your layouts.

Once you start getting into using more functionality on the web (conditional value lists, lookups, etc.) you might run into some limitations of IWP that need to be worked around. The good news is that if you get server advanced, you'll be able to start playing around with custom web publishing. That will allow you to integrate filemaker data into any web page using a number of different languages (xslt, php, lasso) These all take a bit more learning (I'm just starting with xslt), but your IWP will keep you going until you get there.

Hope this helps,

Dana

[Nicnacs]

Thanks. Would this allow us to let people choose some options - like find all events that happen this week? Or all events about fundraising? Do you know any websites i could look at to see this in action?

I've just checked out the price of an upgrade, and OK I'm hoping there's a charity discount, but even so it's a bit steep! So if there's a cheaper solution out there, that would be great!

Thanks

[Reed]

You can set up searches and display found sets just like you do in FMP. You could set up scripted buttons that allow users to choose search criteria in global fields to search without using the status area.

You can check out my scheduling web site at: http://mslab.chem.umn.edu/schedule/

Just log in as guest using the instructions on the page, and you'll be able to view reservations for different instruments on different days. You won't be able to add a reservation or delete, unless you have a real account.

The price of the option pack for filemaker server is basically just the difference between the price of server and server advanced. I think there is a non-profit discount. I'm in education and I got Server Advanced and 10 FMP clients + FMD for $1995 USD. Not cheap but I couldn't do it with plain FMP anymore.... I needed more than 5 simultaneous sessions.

If you're just periodically updating the web stuff from your filemaker database, you could just use a copy of FMP to do the IWP, and have it periodically import data from the Filemaker Server machine. There are ways to automate this... It's not live access to the "server" data, but it's cheap

Dana

[Steve T.]

Hi, n! I think DR's recommendation of IWP is the easiest and best way to go. If you wanna go cheap, you could probably buy FM4 client (cheap!!) or FM5 or FM6 Unlimited (less than Server Advanced) and save a few bucks but you'd either have to downgrade the office or export/import data.

Another solution would be to plop an old Mac OS X machine in your office and serve via Apache/PHP/MySQL and export/import with FileMaker, but this would require some technical expertise to set up for you but maybe you could recruit a volunteer or hire a developer to do it for you. Old macs are cheap (some folks give them away) and I believe non-profits would not have to pay any licensing. I suppose support could be a problem, though, eh? Anyway... something to consider.

--ST

[Nicnacs]

Hey how lucky are we! Just checked our little folder of filemaker goodies and we have a CD for Filemaker Server Advanced.....I don't remember ordering it so I think it must have been a special offer or something. So I think we'll just install it and have a play.....yay!

Thanks for all your help everyone

[brianrich]

We are a small rural charity based in the Midlands of the UK who provide extranet services to other charities and VCOs. We use Filemaker 6 Unlimited and Filemaker 7 advanced to serve a number of client and web-based applications and might be able to give you some help or advice on getting things going, and also point you at some good trainers.

Contact me off-list if you would like to talk further.

Details at www.ruralnet.org.uk (Tel: 0845 1300 411)

Brian Rich