hello all.

a good friend is about to start a new business, we think that filemaker is going to be a good companion in ding this.

neither of us have previous database eperience, we have allready ear marked a 3 day course to hopefully get a grounding in filemaker.

the first query i have is what versions we need to be investing in to start off. there will be jst the 2 of us accessing the db t start with a 3rd user in 6 months. do we need to have server software in order to share data?

for starters we need a solution to do simple stuff like order tracking, sales , contacts, accounting (every day stuff)

in the futre we will want to grow into hire stock control/allocation, inventry tracking, maintaince and some pretty detailed reports.

we have big plans for the future and need a solution that can grow with us

is this achievable over time?

i look forward to becoming part of this community

many thanks

Ollie

Hi and welcome to the forums. Its always better to get server than trying to run peer to peer. Even though you will only have 3 people, if you want to have your data more secure and reliable, server is the way to go even though it may be slightly more pricey. With server you can schedule backups of your data as well not having to worry about who opens the file first.

FileMaker has some startup solutions out there but as many have found out most likely you will tend to customize it to your needs. So yes, it should serve your needs.

so to start up with just 2 of us we'd need a copy of fm server & 2 copies of fm9??

what are the advantages of advanced? is this something i need to consider, same question for advanced server

If you're keeping the data internal to your business, you don't need Server Advanced. Running peer to peer is vulnerable to corrupting the file.

The advantage of having FM Advanced is that it provides extra tools useful during development of the database - Script debugger, custom menus, custom functions, ability to create runtimes, just to name a few.

You should also consider joining TechNet so that you have access to additional templates and starter solutions.

You wont really need FM Server Advanced unless you want to use IWP or ODBC/JDBC connections to FileMaker.

For your setup, I would go with one copf of FileMaker Pro Advanced, 2 copies of FM Pro, and a copy of FM Server.

I recommend using FM Advanced, because it will be a lot easier to debug your scripts, take advanteage of custom menus, etc.