Mac user in a PC environment - Will FM help/work?

[duncanos]

Hi there FM forum folks,

 

I used FM a loooong time ago, and really found it a useful tool. Many years on I find myself in a new business where they are MS/PC based and needing to work collaboratively with a small group of colleague on a Microsoft Access based DB. 

 

My needs are going to be pretty simple. Mostly I need to be able  to opening MS Access files, edit data and save the files again. In an ideal world, I would be able to use the data entry forms that my colleagues have created within Access too (this isn't a deal breaker though).

 

I don't need to be able to manipulate the data (as this is being visualised in Tableau), and the data set will be reasonably small (a few hundred records). 

 

I plan to download the 30 day trial to test it, but any advice form someone in a similarly PC-oriented environment would be hugely welcomed.

 

Thanks

 

Duncan 

[Josh Ormond]

1. Yes FileMaker works great on Windows. Last numbers I saw, the majority of FM users are on PCs.

 

2. You can "Open" the file using Send Event. But no editing the data directly from FM. I can be done. But there is a lot of trickery to automate it. And you need to know the name and location of the file. ODBC may be one option, but it's import style data movement. Or exporting a csv file ( or something similar ) and importing back in.

 

So what is the reason you want to use FM to open an Access database? They are similar types of products ( DBMS ), each with their own approach to database management.

[mikedr]

If you're just looking to open an Access DB with minimal fuss on a Mac, I highly recommend just installing Mac Parallels and running a Window VM inside. I have a small number of applications that are Windows only, and for 100% compatibility, it's an amazing solution.

[Lee Smith]

Hi duncan and welcome to the FM Forums,

 

This question comes up from time to time. Do a search for your key words and see what others have had to say. Here is one link that may be of some help. From MS Access to FileMaker

 

Here is the search I used "site fmforums.com microsoft access database and filemaker"

 

HTH

 

Lee