Grabing web orders from a remote MySQL data source?

[HALBURN]

I have a MySQL database on a remote server that is capturing web orders. I have a FMS9A server on our LAN that stores our company invoices.

I have created a shared data link on my client computer (a Mac running FMP9) using Actual Technologies' ODBC Pack v 2.8e (for Mac OS X).

I am able to import data from the MySQL datbase just fine but I am trying to figure out the best way to implement a permanent system for transferring web orders to FMP as they come into the MySQL database.

A few newbie questions:

1.) What is the best/safest technique for pulling the data from the MySQL into FileMaker?

2.) Let's say I am going to import a bunch of web order line items from MySQL, what is the best FileMaker technique for doing this? Should I just treat the remote MySQL data as if it was a FileMaker data source and import it, and then flag a field in all of the records with a value that shows it has been exported?

3.) What do you do if your internet connection goes down after the records are imported into FileMaker, but before the items have been flagged as being exported?

4.) Should I be pulling the MySQL data from the FMP clients as they access our companies invoices or should I be doing this from a repeating script running on FMS9A?

5.) What should I do with the data in the MySQL database after I pull it into FileMaker? Should I delete it immediately? Should I flag it as being exported and leave it on the server for a few months/years?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Edited May 18, 2008 by Guest