I know what I want it to do, not sure if I'm doing it right

[MagGyver]

Hi everyone,

I've been on a crash course of learning FMP recently to implement a solution for the non-profit org I'm volunteering with. After reading through official and unofficial documentation, I'm a bit turned around on which setup will work best for me to get our data shared on the Web. I wonder if someone can point me in the right direction?

I've created a FMP10A database for contact management which at the moment has fairly simple fields in it - Name (First/Last), Email, Username (for our forums), and a Value List of memberships to subgroups within our internal structure. More will be added later but this is the basic set of data.

I'd like to be able to share this data with a small group of users, say 8-10, who will rarely if ever be connected to the data at the same time. Most of these users will have read-only access, but several will have the permissions to add, modify or delete records. Since my computer will not always be on, I need this data to be available from our Web server. I'd like it if the other admin-level users could use a Web interface to do their data entry, but I'm not opposed to acquiring additional licenses for the FMP client so they can use their own computers.

Ideally I'd have a live connection to the data from my computer, and so would my admin-level users. I don't believe our current Webhost (with whom we're staying for now, given the NPO discount we're receiving from them) is capable of hosting a FM data file, so I'm presuming that I would need to take advantage of the MySQL interface rather than IWP, but this is where I start getting confused.

If I import our data into a MySQL table (which I've already accomplished in a test run), I understand that I need to add a relationship between the corresponding fields in my local table and the MySQL table, which should allow me to make a change to a field in the local table which updates the corresponding field in the MySQL table in real-time. I tried using the = operator and checked the boxes for "Allow records to be created" and "Allow deletion of records" in both table options, but when I made a change to a field in my local table, it did not reflect in the corresponding field in MySQL so I'm guessing I used the wrong operator or somehow have it set up incorrectly.

Given what I'm wanting to do with this, would someone be so kind as to offer me some feedback about whether I'm in the right ballpark?

Thanks ever so much.

[comment]

Have you considered using a Filemaker hosting service?

[MagGyver]

Would that involve switching Web hosts? As I mentioned in my post, I'm trying to avoid that option at the moment, given our budget and the custom service we're receiving at our current host.

If a FMhosting service can be done separately, do you have any idea of the cost involved, if it's a single database with 1000-2000 records?

Thanks for the prompt response. I'm hoping to learn if there are other ways to accomplish what I want without having to incur extra cost (we already have access to several more FM client licenses so that would not incur an extra cost).

[comment]

Filemaker hosting can be (and I believe usually is) done separately. It may cost a bit extra, but it will save you the hassle of maintaining and synchronizing 2 databases.

To find out prices, etc.

http://tinyurl.com/p3qnlm

[MagGyver]

Umm, thanks. I could have done without the snarky tinyURL. I'd looked up Filemaker hosting before but hadn't gotten any concrete prices so I was simply asking if there was a ballpark figure.

Since money is less available than time for me at the moment, I'm interested in hearing if there are any *other* solutions. May I please ask for no snark in your replies? Thank you.

[comment]

Is this better:

Prices vary considerably, and you need to conduct your own market research. If you are a charity, you may get a discount or even free hosting. Jeez.

[MagGyver]

Much better, thank you.

Now that we've established that FM hosting is one option, perhaps the one most recommended, is there anyone who might know if there's *another* way to do this?

[Fitch]

Michael already pointed out the file-sync problem you'll have using SQL, since there's no way for FileMaker to know if more than one user is modifying the same record, etc.

It might be better to use a web-based CMS (Drupal or something) to handle updating contact records, which you could then bring into FileMaker as needed. IOW FileMaker would not actually be used to edit records, that would all happen on the web.

FileMaker hosting seems like a good option. One discount I've seen recently is offered by www.thedroolingdog.com for FMPUG members. A couple of other hosts advertise here at FM Forums (scroll down).