Sharing Your FileMaker Pro Databases Over the Internet

In the last post we talked about sharing your FileMaker Pro databases over your Local Area Network (or LAN). But what if you want to access your databases outside your LAN?

The Easy Way
The easiest way is to get an Internet plan from your phone or cable provider that comes with an IP Block. This is a set of IP Addresses that you can assign to your host so you can access it over the Internet. This is not as cheap as your regular broadband plan but is the most straightforward, once you get to deal with your ISP. Make sure you get them to assign your host with a Public IP Address, and note this down.

Sharing Your FileMaker Pro Databases Over the Network

One of the core strengths of FileMaker Pro as a productivity tool is the ability to share your databases with other FileMaker Pro users easily. With this, you can put your data in one place and when someone adds or updates a record, everyone else using the database sees the changes.

Using Barcodes with FileMaker Pro

Barcodes are typically used in cases where you have to enter a lot of information quickly, and want to avoid data entry errors. A good example would be your supermarket check-out counter or a patient identification tag worn on the wrist. Instead of keying in a long series of letters and numbers for each item, a barcode scanner just scans the code, and it's automatically entered in the computer.

FileMaker Pro Database Optimization

For FileMaker Pro developers trying to squeeze in every bit of performance out of your databases, HOnza Koudelka of 24U Software is releasing a set of instructional videos about it. Visit the FM BENCH website (registration required) to view the free videos.

Can FileMaker Handle Your Database Needs?

Short answer: Yes, 90% of the time.

Here are some items based on FileMaker's Knowledgebase article Technical specifications of FileMaker Pro 11 and FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced:

FileMaker Pro 11.0v4 Updater Out

It's August, and FileMaker Inc. makes good on their promise to address the bugs in FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Advanced 11 with a new updater.

You'll get a prompt to update if you have automatic updates on. If not, you can go to Help > Check For Updates... to go to the updater web page. The update appears to be Mac OS X Lion only, and is around 194MB in size.

Free FileMaker Solution: FM Starting Point

One of the most comprehensive free solutions you can find is FM Starting Point, now at version 2.1, from Richard Carlton Consulting. Not only is it free for use, but it's also unlocked, so you can look at how everything works and modify the database as you want it.

Free FileMaker Solution: Excelisys Business Tracker 3

Aside from the templates and free solutions offered by FileMaker Inc, there are other companies that offer free solutions that you can use for your business. The Excelisys Business Tracker 3 is the more advanced version of the FileMaker Business tracker that FileMaker Inc offered as a free download several versions before. This newest release now takes advantage of the latest charting features in FileMaker 11 as well.

Free FileMaker Solution: Business Productivity Kit

Aside from the templates built in FileMaker Pro that you can use for your business, the FileMaker Trial site also lets you download several free solutions that you can use. One of them is the FileMaker "Business Productivity Kit."

Free FileMaker Solution: Invoices

Invoices is one of the 31 free Starter Solutions (another term for database templates) included with FileMaker Pro. Unlike the other templates bundled in the app, this one is something you can actually use in your business if you haven't tried downloading the Business Productivity Kit yet (which we'll discuss in the future) or other free solutions.

FileMaker Pro Works with Lion

After upgrading to Lion several days ago, aside from minor issues, FileMaker Pro 11 works just fine. Here are some I've come across so far:

I initially wrote that launching FileMaker Pro for the first time prompted you to install the Java Runtime Engine in Lion; it turns out that it's caused by a plug-in that uses Java.

FileMaker also crashed every time when quitting the application. I also thought that this was due to an incompatibility with Java or something related to the Restore functionality of Lion. Turns out this was also due to an old plug-in. Just to be sure, remove all the non-FileMaker Pro plug-ins in the /FileMaker/Extensions folder (they have the extension ".fmplugin") and put them back one by one if you're experiencing crashes with the app.

FileMaker Pro and Mac OS X Lion Compatibility

From the FileMaker Knowledgebase:
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and FileMaker 11 and Bento 4.

Basically, FileMaker Pro and Advanced 11 will work with Lion, save for some minor bugs in formatting and .xls file compatibility. FileMaker Server and Advanced 11 will work, except for anything related to web publishing. Software updates to address the bugs will be released on August (FileMaker Pro and Advanced) and October (FileMaker Server and Advanced).

For older versions, only FileMaker Pro and Advanced 10 will work (with issues) on Lion. Older versions of FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Advanced, FileMaker Server, and FileMaker Server Advanced will no longer work and no software updates will be issued for them.

Getting Started with FileMaker Pro

Want to use a database to start organizing your business and share information with everyone? Here's how you can get started right now: