FileMaker and 10000FT Cloud App Integration

[jayivan]

A client is migrating their timesheet data entry from FileMaker to 10000FT--a cloud app service for project and resource management. However, we still need to capture that timesheet data in FileMaker, as 10000FT does not have the reporting functions already built out in FileMaker. 10000FT offers an API for web app integration, and their tech support departments promises that 10000FT can push data into FileMaker using their API.

 

Frankly, I'm at a loss of where to start for this though. It seems like I'd need to build a custom web app using the 10000FT API to grab the data and the FileMaker API to push data into FileMaker. But perhaps there's a simpler way to create custom functions to handle the API calls. See <http://10kft.github.io/api-documentation/#users_time_entries>.

 

I work with an interactive designer very comfortable with building custom web apps leveraging APIs, but he has no comfort level with FileMaker.

 

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated--the only thing that can't change are the data sources. We must use FileMaker and 10000FT.

 

 

[timdietrich]

Jay -

 

I think you're on the right track. I would handle it like this...

 

Develop a custom Web app, using PHP and the FM API for PHP.

 

First develop code to pull data from 10,000ft using their APIs. Their API documentation looks very well done, so that will help. You want to be sure that your calls are working properly, and you will probably want to be make them using filters. For example, the "Time Entries, by User" call can take optional "from" and "to" params.

 

Once you've got the API calls to 10,000ft working, switch your focus to getting the data being returned by their API into FileMaker. Without knowing what your database looks like, it is hard to say how difficult this will be. But based on the 10,000ft API docs, it looks like the data returned is nice and clean, so transforming their data into what your database is setup for shouldn't be an issue. You should be able to use the FM API for PHP to handle the creation of records, etc.

 

Then you need to decide how you want the process to initiate. You might be able to schedule it via FMS or a cron job, or maybe even have a user manually kick it off. Regardless, you'll have some good options.

 

-- Tim

[jayivan]

Thank you Tim. I worked with a coding friend to come up with a nice little python script which creates a csv with all the info I need in a format could easily pull be pulled into an import-table and then parsed from there. The python script ran great via the terminal by calling "python myscript.py".

 

Implementing the next phase is now having issues:

- the fm server-side script would immediately abort, so I used to chmod to allow the file to execute and followed instructions to add the fmserver to sudoers to enable the server to run python scripts <http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7601/~/specifing-a-user-account-to-run-system-level-scripts-with-filemaker-server>

- once doing that, the script would start to run but would error present an "error 2" and the csv would not be created

- so, i added a shebang to the script #!/usr/bin/python, confirmed this would run via terminal directly without adding python first, but that just lead to the script partially running by filemaker server and the user aborting (but the log viewer was not informative as to why).

 

I would prefer to not add a plugin to this workflow. The 10000ft API is very direct and the python script looks pretty simple as well. Am I missing something in the setup of a python script to be run by FileMaker Server? Would you recommend I skip over the FMS issues, and just setup something in launchd to create the csv?