I need help!...

[mcdseven]

First time to this site, first time to ever come into contact with Filemaker. Heres my problem. I have been employed as a Graphic Designer in a large company. Its the first time a role has existed of this kind. On a daily basis I will be processing a large amount of design jobs. As it stands there is no way of recording this (except for an excel sheet). This is what I want to set up.

1. A database that can record all jobs by a roll on number system. So as I process each job it will be assigned a number eg. [color:red]001 Advert 55x35. And it will automatically move on to the next e.g [color:red]002 Poster Internal.

2. A search and find feature so that one year down the line I can find jobs by search word/date/customer...e.g Poster/12.05.07/ John Smyth, and find there location on my hardrive/server as to where they are. A tracking system as such

3. A feature to generate repots on how many jobs are processed each week/month/year.

Hope this makes sense. Is filemaker suited for this and as beginner with no experience whats so ever with filemaker can I do this myself? Any advice from experts is much appreciated.

Kindest Regards

McD7

Edited May 27, 2007 by Guest

[Fenton]

You've pretty much described a basic FileMaker file. If your Excel spreadsheet has column names as the 1st row, you could open it with FileMaker and have an "instant" database. But you might want to just create the database first, as it makes your #1 point easier.

1. Create a field (text). Choose Options, Auto-enter tab, then click the radio button for (•) Serial number, start at 0001, increment by 1. That will automatically give you 0001, 0002, etc..*

2.a. Fields are searchable, in Find mode. The "date" field (of type Date) could be an auto-entered Creation Date (one of a date field's Options, Auto-enter). You could also have another date field for the creation date of the graphics file. Now, I don't know what platform you're on, Mac or PC. On a Mac, AppleScript can easily get this; cross-platform there are plug-ins to handle such.

2.b. There are many considerations about how to use FileMaker as a "document manager," several possible setups. A critical question is, "Are the documents going to be moved?" If so, you'll have a problem storing them "As reference only," because the link will break when they're moved.

You will also need a separate machine from the FileMaker machine, to be the "file server." It is not recommended to use the same machine for both; FileMaker should have its own dedicated machine, running FileMaker Server.

2.c. Size and file format of the graphics? Do you want to see them inside FileMaker? If so, and they are very large, then you should consider creating a scaled-down image for viewing in FileMaker. There's little point in loading a 5+MB image on a FileMaker layout, when a 500K version looks just the same and loads 10x as fast.

2.d. There are plug-ins dedicated to handling these things. They are not dirt cheap, but likely worth it. On an all-Mac network, AppleScript can do anything a plug-in can do, for free. But it would be up to you to program it.

3. Reports on this mostly flat data are not difficult. Subsummary parts can count per week/month/year.

*Alternatively you could just open your Excel spreadsheet with FileMaker; instant database. Then create the auto-enter ID field. Then, on a layout, put your cursor in the field, and choose, from the Records menu, Replace Field Contents; choose the serial number option, and "Update serial number". It will number all the records from the beginning, and update the "next serial number" value for the field.

(P.S. I moved this topic from the Articles forum to here. It could alternatively go into the Containers subforum, if we get into that much more. But this will do.)

Edited May 27, 2007 by Guest

[mcdseven]

Hey Fenton,

Apologies for posting in the wrong forum and thanks a lot for the detailed reply. Having been reading as much as I can get my hands on since looking into filemaker and I think this piece of software will be perfect. Am going to attempt to do this myself but I would imagine there is a budget in my job to get a more complex setup using filemaker. Agains thanks for the advice.

McD7