revising multiple databases?

[wintergreen]

ok, hello to all.

I'm in the planning stages of a database at the moment, but I've hit something of a quandry.

Here's what I'm trying to do: create an FM8 database that I can make a few copies of and give to different people. That part is all ok (for now), but the problem I've come up against, is what happens if I want to revise the structure, add new fields and/or tables? How do I then propogate those changes to people who are already using it? The only way I can see to do it right now is to just use the import/export function for each table, but this seems needlessly timeconsuming.

Reading through some of the messages in this forum, it seems to me that the "separation model" may be the best bet, but I'm unable to find a clear definition of exactly what that entails, and what the drawbacks are.

Can anyone help?

[Vaughan]

Read about separation model in the mega tech brief...

http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/techbrief_fm8_migrtn_found.pdf

However even a "separated" model may require data import/export if fields and relationships are added to the basic data model. And setting up a separated model itself is a lot of work.

IMHO, put your initial effort into creating scripts to automate the data transfer between the old and new solutions.

[wintergreen]

thanks, i read the document, it was very informative. It looks like I should be able to make this work after all...