What*s the safest way to work with remote FM DB's?

[gczychi]

Hi,

is there any best practice on how to work with remote Filemaker databases when they are offline? Carrier signal too weak, etc.

I suppose the best bet would be to use the built-in functionality in Manage > External Data Sources and use the Filemaker format. But how can I check if the server is online? How to check if the data has safely landed?

Using an iPad, I need to collect some data (< 1k / transmission) and have it automatically sent to the Server (FM Pro running on a Mac mini). Meanwhile informing the iPad user if the data has been safely transferred and if not retrying for as long as the data has been transferred to the server -- and all of this completely transparent to the user (without any cryptic error messages; just for example a small indicator that the data hasn't been sent or has been sent).

How would you go about this?

(BTW, I intend to use a data separation model, at least two files: One for the display on Macs and iPads and one for the tables. The user interface file could be used to temporary store the collected data locally while the connection is down.)

Thanks a lot for any hints!

Gary

 

[TrulySimple]

Hi Gary,

One way to handle this is to use a separate mobile file that connects with a local connector file to your server where the host data file(s) are located. There are many ways to build a sync routine to synchronise the data that you wish and they can be fairly involved. I would recommend that you build the transfer in a Transaction so that the parent record with any related records posts completely to the server or not at all.  You can build such a sync routine from Beverly Voths white paper the 'official Filemaker' paper on sync, and modify it to be inside a transaction.  I also recommend looking at Colibri Solutions (James Wesolowski) GoConnect as a way to replace the local files on the iPad as you make changes to this file in development and going forward.

Hope that helps to point you in the right direction.

Cheers,

Ben

[Kris M]

GoZync by SeedCode/Geist Interactive is a solid solution for sync.

http://www.seedcode.com/filemaker-sync-gozync/

I'm a customer.

Mirror Sync by 360Works http://360works.com/filemaker-sync/
is another commercial solution.

 

If you want to roll your own then...

http://timdietrich.me/fmeasysync/

and check out the FileMaker sync guide by Katherine Russel

 

[gczychi]

Wow, very sophisticated solutions. Ill check these out and will come back. Since I (believe that I) need only a very simple functionality, I'll also see if I should make my own.

Thank you.

Gary