Webdirect - Offline ?

[Dermot]

Hi Folks,

We have a fairly heavy duty Filemaker system with a volume license currently running FM Server 14 and FM14 and will probably upgrade to V15 soon.

There are approx 60-70 PC users from 3 different sites logged on at any one time and all works great ... However, they now want their salesreps to be able to view filemaker info on their phones and also to edit/create records and send back to filemaker ... This is all obviously very easy with Filemaker Go, but the problem is that they use Windows phones and do NOT wish to change to iPhones :-(  ..... 

So we started looking at Webdirect which seems to be the real deal in FM15 ... but alas this wont work either because they need something which will work "offline" ... 

So, I thought I'd come and see if anyone has a solution to this or even any ideas on what we could do here ?

Again, any help would be "greatly" appreciated 

Many Thanks

Dermot

 

 

[rwoods]

Hi Dermot

It's a very common requirement for users on mobile platforms to want an 'offline' system that can be synced back to the 'HQ' system whenever a network connection is next available. There are a number of syncing frameworks and offerings available (some free, some chargeable) such as http://www.seedcode.com/filemaker-sync-gozync/ , http://360works.com/filemaker-sync/ , http://timdietrich.me/fmeasysync/ all of which have many happy customers.

Note also that the Windows Phone platform is not supported by FileMaker, so it may be a non-starter. The supported web browsers on mobile platforms are Mobile Safari 9.x on iOS 9.x and Chrome 48 minimum on Android 5.x and 6.x.

I hope this helps.

[Dermot]

Thanks R Woods,

Just had a look at these and you're correct , they all seem to refer to Filemaker Go,.

I'd love to hear of anyone who has done something similar with Windows phones ... Hmmm, the search goes on !!

Thanks again

Dermot

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Have you looked at Custom Web Publishing?

 

Steven

[rwoods]

Steven's idea is a good one, Custom Web Publishing is platform independent, and will work in any web browser. Plus Filemaker Server gives you everything you need to implement it.

From my point of view though, it requires a whole new set of skills (HTML5, PHP and good knowledge of security and preventing hacking attempts), so it's whether or not your organisation has those skills to hand, or is willing to invest in external people to do that for you.

WebDirect is easier, with some compromises, but much easier. You would just need to persuade them to toss the Windows phones in the bin (trash)!

[Dermot]

Thanks Guys,

Custom web publishing may indeed be the way to go but I guess it still doesn't allow them to work offline..

Im thinking we may need to do a combination of things like:-

1/ Have a solution to push data, that the windows phone user needs, to theirs phones into some kind of windows app .. 

2/ Allow the user to edit/create records on that app and have it send the info back to the server when the phone has a signal

3/ Then filemaker sucks that info back into the database..

Im sure someone has done something like this but I just cant find any examples ??

Cheers

Dermot