Export records to excel from IWP

[Flo]

Hi folks,

I did not really know if I had to put this topic in the "Import/Export" or the "IWP" forum, so I put it here

As you all know, the filemaker command "export" is not compatible with the IWP. So there is no direct way to export records in a excel file from there.

I found a way (pretty complicated tho) but it SHOULD work. Could you please give me your opinion about it ? and IF BY LUCK, someone has the miracle solution, I will be glad to read it ;-)

So, my solution : If a user wants to exports a bunch of records from the IWP, it will put a "command" in a spool (layout) with the desired parameters. In my case, this will put : command_id, user_id (who wants to export), the status (i'll explain after) and some other fields.

THEN, I'll schedule script every x min (let's say every 5 min) that will check the spool-layout, ans see if there are any "Pending" command (the status i wrote before, "Pending", "Processing", "Error", "Done").

Once it has found a "pending command" it will export it.

ZOOM here

Ok, it sounds pretty weird and complicated but it's the only solution I've found so far (not fully implemented btw).

There you go, feel free to comment it

See ya

Edited September 14, 2010 by Guest

[bcooney]

Good job. What you've described is referred to as "server-side" processing or scripting, and is gaining much ground with the release of FM Go.

See http://www.zerobluetech.com/blog/filemaker-server-side-scripting/

However, what I have is a simple field flag_Queued_c (in my case Date_Complete is empty, so flag_Queued = 1), and my server script finds for those records to process.

[cuitw]

Monitoring pending export request sounds nice. Where do you export the records to if there are pending requests? To generate a link for users to download?

What I do is to create an excel spreadsheets in php and allow users to download the excel from their browser.