Category: Filemaker Development

For many businesses, mobility is the next big investment in their IT strategy. Some organizations are already implementing mobile strategies, whether it is officially supported by the company or employees using their personal devices for work tasks without the IT department's knowledge. Unsurprisingly, Apple devices are the first choice.

According to the most recent quarterly report by enterprise mobile services vendor Good Technology, Apple's iOS platform holds an 88 percent market share when it comes to business apps. When it comes to the devices themselves, Apple remains on top, at least with the more than 5,000 companies that were interviewed. The iPhone makes up 51 percent of activated smartphones, while the iPad accounts for 90 percent of tablet activations. Combined that is a 67 percent share.

The report also found 70 percent of enterprises believe that providing mobile devices and support to employees will be a "high" or "critical" priority over the next 12 months.

"We see more spending shift to software for mobile applications and middleware as well as the necessary management solutions to provision and manage mobile applications," the report reads. "At the end of the day, we may talk about mobile devices, but in reality it's all about the apps."

This means more companies can benefit from quality mobile applications and Apple has several. At the top of the list is FileMaker, the popular custom database solution that is designed for mobility and comes with a free app version called FileMaker Go, that is only available on an Apple iOS platform. The right FileMaker developer can help any company optimize the software.

One certainty of technology is that at some point it will fail. Computers and mobile devices are machines that run complicated software solutions that require updating. Eventually that hardware will start to break down and a software upgrade will have a glitch that causes it to start acting screwy. In most instances they can be easily fixed and the impact is minimal, however, that is not always the case.

A recent article from RT covered a press briefing that was given by U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf. She spoke about the problems that the U.S. Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) at the State Bureau of Consular Affairs have had that caused consulates across the world to lose the ability to issue visas.

According to Harf, the problem was born out of a system update. For several months the database had been experiencing technical issues but remained functional. On July 20, 2014, a software update was issued to fix the problems but had the opposite effect. For the next three days, the database was completely offline and was only partially brought online.

"We believe the root cause of the problem was a combination of software optimization and hardware compatibility issues," Harf said. "We believe there was no malicious intent. It's hardware and a software issue that we are working to fix."

During this downtime, over 200 U.S. consulates from around the world were unable to issue visas. This impacted businesses, personal travel, vacations and much more.

It is critical for companies to find and deploy the right custom database software. With the help of a solution provider that can design and maintain the system, any company gains a hand to avoid potential glitches.

Whenever you get like-minded people together that work in the same industry, there is going to talk about who is the best. There is a lot of this going on at large industry conventions and the recently held FileMaker Developers Conference was no different. However, it did declare a winner and handout a championship belt to the winner.

Part of the convention is the DevCon Developer Cup. This competition had 16 participants that competed in five rounds of challenges. Using all of their skills, competitors created quick and elegant solutions to common problems that all FileMaker developers face. One person who fought for the cup this year was Kyo Logic's co-founder Tim Neudecker.

There to attend the entire conference, Neudecker competed against the best developers in the industry but joked that he needed to remember how to code. After two rounds, he found himself in third place and kept up the solid performance to avoid the cuts and make it to the final challenge. In the end, he fell just short of winning, coming in second.

Besting was Christopher Schmitz, an application developer from Skeleton Key, one of our FileMaker Academy Partners. He takes home the championship belt, his name was added to the trophy and he gets bragging rights for eternity. While Neudecker did congratulate his colleague, he did flame the fires of competition with a tweet.

"We'll I was the first of the losers, 250 points behind Chris from #Skeletonkey congrats Chris. Next year I will take you down Rocky style."

Kyo Logic is extremely proud of Neudecker's performance.

Whenever a popular technology system is upgraded, it is going to take some time for individuals who are familiar with the previous incarnations to learn all of the new features. During times like this, professionals seek research materials that help explain the changes and any new features that set the upgrade apart.

For a number of tech solutions, professionals have been turning toward the Missing Manual series. This popular book catalog from O'Reilly Media acts as a "______ for Dummies" for a software systems like iOS, OS X, Windows, Microsoft Office, Adobe and Photoshop as well as hardware including all the iDevices, Kindle Fire, NOOK, and the Galaxy S5.

According to a recent press release from O'Reilly Media, it has now added FileMaker 13 to that list of "Missing Manual" titles. It covers a list of the new and old features including:

• A basic walkthrough of FileMaker
• Using FileMaker Go for mobile solutions
• Combining data tables into a singular solution
• Using calculations and scripts to quickly crunch numbers
• Creating professional documents with charts
• Sharing a database across a secure server with FileMaker Pro Advanced and FileMaker Pro Server.

While picking up a book like this can be helpful some professionals, it does not match the hands on learning that happens when a company partners with a FileMaker development firm that is certified in FileMaker 13. Instead of trying to interpret what the book is describing, individuals gain the knowledge of an experienced FileMaker professional that can walk through the entire solution and dive deeper into a personalized software solution that meets your specific needs.

One of the biggest challenges of data management is creating a smart way to access it. FileMaker is one of the top solutions on the market, and the way businesses are benefiting from using it shows why.

A recent article from ITR News profiled transportation company Ninatrans. In an effort to improve its operations, the company deployed a FileMaker Pro solution to better track and plan its controls and routes.

According to Benny Smets, the director of Ninatrans, the company started using FileMaker as a bill and order tracking system. The system performed so well that when the time came to upgrade other systems, the company transitioned them to FileMaker. This led to the creation of a transportation management solution that is used for recording data on employees, fleet customers, maintenance and controls.

One of the benefits that made FileMaker the obvious choice as a backbone solution is flexibility. With FileMaker Pro and Go, the business can create an in-depth database that can be accessed in real-time from a computer, iPhone or iPad. Ninatrans was also able to create a customer goods database tool that was client facing. Now, any customer can log on to the database and see exactly where their goods along the supply chain. This is a level of customization most systems do not offer.

Every client wants to have access to their data, whether it’s in weekly reports or instant data. With FileMaker, it is possible to offer all of this and give consumers the experience that keeps them coming back.

With the help of a FileMaker developer, any company will be able implement the software in an effective manner.

When most people think about core business software solutions, one of the key systems that comes to mind is Microsoft Excel. This popular spreadsheet software has been in existence since 1982 and has become synonymous with business reporting since 1988. If you were to walk into nearly any company and ask to see a sales report, there is a good chance that it will be handed to you in the form of an Excel spreadsheet.

While this seems to make the case that every business should be working hard with Excel, there are actually other systems that should be deployed that can make running a business much simpler. One of the most common is FileMaker.

A recent article from the Santa Fe New Mexican features an interview with David Jondreau, a FileMaker developer who previously helped organizations run through Excel. Because of the number of issues that companies were having trying to use basic spreadsheets as a core business system, Jondreau searched for a new manner of doing business and found it in the form of customer FileMaker development. This was a way to cut through the headaches and alleviate some of the struggle that companies face when using just spreadsheets.

"FileMaker is more than a glorified Excel program," Jondreau said. "FileMaker can produce more specific reports, such as a list of which customers frequent a business and what they buy. It's possible to generate such a report via Excel but it's challenging and requires a greater time investment."

He added that FileMaker can seem like it is nothing more than a lengthy list of unrelated items, but to an expert like Jondreau, it represents distinct graphics and rows, tables and categories that are easy to manage and do not overload users.

Small businesses are perfect for FileMaker

When it comes time to upgrade to a new software solution, many smaller organizations may be hesitant to make the the jump. Because they have limited resources, justifying any kind of investment is difficult. This especially true when words like "custom database" are thrown around. Company decision makers hear it and immediately start to hear a cash register ringing which causes them to hold the wallet tight.

However, FileMaker is a perfect solution for small businesses. It is an easy investment for a system that is user friendly and provides immediate benefits.

Jondreau said that his ideal client to work for is a smaller, local businesses. In just a few weeks and with a moderate investment, he is able to create a database from the ground up that meets the specific needs of a company and helps push operations to a new level.

Making this decision to invest in FileMaker can be easier said than done. However, there are quality software development firms out there that make the process easier. These organizations audit the existing solutions and business needs, before laying out a plan that specifically addresses these areas, while also adding benefits to other processes that were not expected at the beginning.

The idea of going mobile with your business is something every company considers. While some may believe that only organizations comfortable with technology can truly take advantage of these solutions. Nothing can be further from the the truth. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a business that creates and hangs signs, operations can be improved with the use of mobile technology.

A recent article from Small Biz Technology features an interview with Dean Stallone, the CEO of PMD Promotions. The purpose of the conversation was how the company was able to use FileMaker Pro and Go to create a new database solution that helped the company save $40,000 by digitizing several previously manual processes.

The company has been creating and hanging promotional material for 125 contractors in 22 cities. Their work has been placed in more than 50,000 independent storefronts nationwide. A large chunk of this business happens on the road as technicians move between clients and businesses to display new content.

"Although our business is highly mobile, our business processes weren't – until fairly recently," Stallone said. "By replacing paper-bound and manual processes with a simple, custom-developed application that runs on the iPod touch or iPhone, and our back-end operations system, we cut $40,000 a year in administrative overhead and created more productive, motivated field personnel."

He went on to discuss exactly how this was able to happen. The company has display contractors that work as the organization's representative on the ground. These individuals must work within several standards to ensure posters are removed when a campaign is over and coordinate all activity within venue partners where they are displayed. Traditionally, they carried clipboards, paper documentation and a digital camera to snap pictures and create reports.

That means that individuals need to carry a substantial amount of  physical items when making their rounds. On top of that, transferring the photos needed to happen through emails and fax. This requires office staff on the other end to retype all of this information into the existing reports. All of this is labor intensive, requires multiple steps and is open to potential errors.

However, with the new system that is powered by FileMaker, a custom database was created which can be accessed from a desktop or Apple mobile devices.

How it works

Now, the entire workday is handled through the new mobile application. Contractors download the day's schedule over the Wi-Fi in the office before leaving for the day. This includes instructions for each job, maps and tips. During each visit, they are able to take notes about the job directly into the app and can also take photos that can also be uploaded directly through the app.

This information is also updated in real-time, meaning that immediately after completing a job where all the information has been entered into the database through the mobile device, a worker in the office can pull up the same data. In all, it cut report generation time by 80 percent and nearly eliminated errors.

This is just one example of how FileMaker can help businesses dramatically improve operations and cut costs. With the help of a FileMaker support service, any organization can start down this path.

At the end of the week, someone will be rewarded with the championship belt and be called the best. This isn't some wrestling super show, but rather one of the many things currently happening in San Antonio, Texas, as the annual FileMaker Developments Conference has just started. The belt is one of the many events that are happening over the next four days and is awarded to the 2014 winner of the DevCon Developer Cup.

This year's event is using the theme "Business Without Boundaries" and features over 1,200 FileMaker developers gathering in one place to talk shop, view new products, learn about better ways of doing business and get technical questions and problems addressed.

Seminars and entertainment gatherings are scheduled all throughout the week. This includes looking at features of FileMaker, how certain industries like education and the medical field can benefit from using the solution, FileMaker Go and Weddirect.

The conference has been growing over the years and is attended by an ever-growing number of core companies.

"We look forward every year to meeting up at DevCon with our peers in the FileMaker Developer community," Julian Nadel, president and founder of Beezwax, a company that will be represented at the conference said in a press release. "This is our chance to share development technologies that we use, and learn about the techniques that other developers have successfully adopted."

Be sure to check back with this blog over the following week as we recap all of the major news that comes out of the conference.

Few enterprise solutions have had as big of an impact as tablets. Since the market was kicked started in 2010 when Apple introduced the iPad, tablets have exploded and have become a secondary tool in many industries, while also being able to handle nearly any task that employees need to accomplish on a daily basis.

A recent article from ComputerWeekly examined the different reasons why the iPad has become one of the biggest IT innovations of the last decade. The article also mentions that the best way to take advantage of these devices is to use Apple.

While it is clear that the tech giant has been at the head of the tablet push, it has also continued to innovate in such a way that the experience for consumers and businesses alike has improved. The iOS sandbox is constantly adding new apps and is often the first platform release choice of developers. Businesses have also experienced specific benefits in these upgrades including improved mobile device management systems and specific software like FileMaker.

"Apple-owned FileMaker provides a platform for developing applications, and an ecosystem of hosting service providers has sprung up to project FileMaker applications from the cloud," the article reads.

The tablet's impact on business is easy to see, but it can take a complex solution to incorporate these devices in a manner that is best for improving the specific operations of a given company. The right FileMaker developer, for example, can help any organization create a custom solution.

In many cases, sports can be the great equalizer that brings unlikely groups together for something bigger than themselves. We saw this over the last month as nations across the world came together to watch and celebrate the World Cup soccer tournament. Even Pope Francis tweeted about how sports can promote culture.

For this to happen, organizations need to be ready to help promote sports with the youth in their respective countries. In Germany, while residents are celebrating its World Cup victory, 3,000 schools in the country are using FileMaker to help promote sports and run events through the Federal Youth Games.

A recent article from Bildungs Klick recapped the FileMaker sponsored school sports days that are held in Germany. These have been run for the last decade as a way to promote healthy living, team building and friendly competition, while also evaluating potential talent that can be nurtured for bigger things.

According to Alfred Bonk, a senior teacher at the Elly-Heuss-Schule in Wiesbaden — a University Sports Center and partner school of competitive sports and elite school of football — by using FileMaker, teachers are able to quickly record all necessary data in real-time. This allows the games to be handled quickly as they are easy to prepare and evaluate.

"We will continue to use the software because we have had only positive experiences and we can carry out the Federal Youth Games so fast, easy and safe," Bonk told the news source.

FileMaker consultants can help any group create a similar program that helps organizations keep track of programs and improve overall operations.