I've read the announcement page on FileMaker's site pretty carefully, and I can find no reference to being able to enter data in SQL fields. Phrases such as "...add SQL data to FileMaker Pro solutions...", "...include information located in SQL systems", and "You can create new information by adding supplemental calculation and summary fields to the SQL table," imply you cannot add data to fields directly. Is this just a case of a poorly-written announcement?

You hit the nail on the head. FileMaker just wasn't very explicate about what you can do with this new product. You can basically do ANYTHING you can do with a FileMaker table. Enter data, delete records, add records, display reports... etc. It's really quite impressive and cool. This new addition opens up the possibility of building FileMaker based front ends and reporting software for all off the External SQL data sources supported.

I haven't looked at the new version yet, but it seems like it would be difficult for FM to do anything serious with SQL since SQL tables do not have summary fields, calculated fields, or global fields. SQL views and stored procedures do allow calculated and summary results, but of course those have to be built out.

Summary and Calcualtions can be added to the tables on the FileMaker side.

E.g. you have a SQL table, you can add suplementary summary and calc fields in FM

Genx pretty much knows everything already so I can't add much to the conversation but Filemaker has definitely given you a robust interface to accessing sql data. The only short coming that fmforums has figured out is that you can't use the Data in a value list. Oh yea and someone said you can't take advantage of ESS in runtime apps.

This isn't exactly a deal breaker by any means. With all the other great functionality in there you definitely should take advantage of this feature.

Bringing the ease of a FileMaker interface to sql gives FM another edge over it's competitors.(wow that was a FM promo in a box)

My question is: can it connect to Postgres in the same fashion as the advertised big 3 (MS, mySQL, Oracle)? Or is the "native" support only for that select group?

It looks like this was an old post that didn't get answered, and it's a topic near to our hearts, so I'll go ahead and cap this topic off for posterity.

Unfortunately, no, Filemaker, even at v. 10, does not yet support Postgres (PostgresQL) with its relatively new ESS feature. One can still hook in via ODBC using Actual's driver (and Actual staff have been great about helping with this). Well worth the price.

Still, synchronizing by script and importing data back isn't the same as just having the data synced up, and we have been not-so-patiently waiting for Filemaker to add full ESS support for Postgres.

It looks like the Postgres, which we strongly recommend as a powerhouse database to run websites and corporate solutions, has been gaining a bit of user base (especially with the shakeup of MySql buyout lately), so hopefully people will help pressure FM to get ESS for Postgres added! *Crosses fingers*