Custom Function to track what layouts are being accessed

[Jim Strickland]

Our company has been using FileMaker for at least ten years. Over the years, we have implemented 64 FM files on our server with thousands of layouts. We feel confident that a very large number of those layouts are actually no longer used. However, we don't know which ones.

Each layout has a unique name. Is there any way whatsoever to put some function or script into each Filemaker file that actually tracks each time a particular layout is accessed? This way in a month or two time we could possibly get a good idea of what layouts are being accessed and which ones aren't. This function would need to be able to track layouts that are accessed both by users or scripts.

[Fitch]

You could try adapting BackMagic from SeedCode for this.

Or if you had FileMaker 10 it would be fairly straightforward with script triggers (of course you can trigger scripts on layout load in earlier version using a plugin).

Another method I've seen is to put a tiny web viewer on each layout that hits a Google Analytics page. That's kind of a fun way to go and you get more info with less work.

[TheTominator]

Short of a plug-in, it may be impossible to add a layout tracking method without adding something (e.g. layout script trigger, field or web portal) to every one of the thousands of layouts that you want to track.

But if you are able to reliably identify a small set of calculated fields that already appear on each layout, you may be able to redefine them to add the appropriate global script variable assignment in Let() used for tracking.

Edited January 15, 2010 by Guest

[Jim Strickland]

You could try adapting BackMagic from SeedCode for this.

Or if you had FileMaker 10 it would be fairly straightforward with script triggers (of course you can trigger scripts on layout load in earlier version using a plugin).

Another method I've seen is to put a tiny web viewer on each layout that hits a Google Analytics page. That's kind of a fun way to go and you get more info with less work.

Would your web viewer idea only work if these layouts are accessed through Filemaker Web Service, or would they also work by accessing the layouts from within Filemaker Pro itself?

[Fitch]

It works just fine from within FileMaker. You'd send the layout name as part of the web viewer URL. I believe there was a DevCon session about this a few years ago.