Looking for best/cheapest solution

[ChiSao]

Hi,

I have to create a solution for a 4 people organziation (foundation). They don't have much money to spend so I try to find the cheapest solution but it's not easy to understand all the different licenses of filemaker.

What they need:

- 4 people on the same database at same time

- the database is a easy one with 10 tables and some relationships

I thought to use one Filemaker Pro license and 4 runtime solutions to accessing the database (peer to peer) But I'm not sure if it's possible to access the db with a runtime solution (over network)

The runtime solution I will provide for 0$ (it's a foundation ;-) )

Is this possible and is it the cheapest way?

Thanks for the tips

ChiSao

[jamesducker]

Runtime solutions cannot be networked. You need to forget runtime in this situation I'm afraid.

If you want 4 people on the same database at the same time, the minimum you will need is 4 licences of FileMaker Pro.

One user has the database on their machine, the other three connect to it using "Open Remote" from the File menu.

Peer-to-peer networking is not the most reliable solution (if the user's workstation crashes for some other reason, it takes the database and its other users with it) but in a low-budget situation it will do the job. Back everything up often.

Hope that helps.

James

[IdealData]

You could also consider developing your solution with Instant Web Publishing in mind. If it's a fairly simple job it could work well and a SINGLE FM license will suffice.

[ChiSao]

hmmm would be a possibility!

Have think about it

Thanks for the hint

[K1200]

For those of us who have never had occasion to work with IWP, could you elaborate? Personally, I've looked at the FileMaker IWP Guide before and although it's full of specific points and recommendations, it's not at all clear on how to start. For example, one of the first steps is:

"Create an HTML page that specifies a link to your database."

Do you do that from inside FileMaker -- or with some other software? Do you know of any examples or templates?

Any information will be appreciated.

[IdealData]

"Create an HTML page that specifies a link to your database."

This is simply an optional way of accessing an IWP session. It could also just as easily read

"Save the IWP link in your web browser's favourites"

Either way the format for the URL is detailed immediately below the above quoted comment in the documentation. But you can easily discover the URL when you type the IP address of the FM hosting computer followed by the port which IWP is being published on.

Typically IWP is promoted to be used on port 591, so a typical URL would look like

192.168.0.2:591

The documentation is comprehensive, but you need to experiment first before commencing down avenues that might have a dead end. Learn and know the limitations and live within those boundaries.