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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Best database software out there
I've always been a bit of a technophobe, but as a small business owner, I grew out of spreadsheets long ago and realized I needed a database for invoicing, project management, and other business tasks. The thought of building a database nearly gave me hives but I tried FileMaker Pro and was pleasantly surprised. Templates let me get a jump start on designing my database and now with version 8.5 I've found it easier than ever to customize menus, use fields and tables, and create relationships between tables to make the database meet my needs. I can also easily export content as PDF files to exchange information with clients or contractors. I love this product! It makes file sharing and web publishing a breeze.
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Glad I finally upgraded to 8.5 . . .
Our small real estate agency (5 brokers) has been on FileMaker Pro 7 for a couple of years now. I hesitated upgrading to FM 8 because we had only just built a couple of solutions using 7. But then I saw the Web Viewer feature in FileMaker 8.5 and we had to have it. I had heard that upgrading might be a challenge, but it only took about an 45 mins. of work after installation to check that everything worked. We immediately began adding the new features of 8.5 to our apps. We have a customer database which is pretty extensive and shows pictures of their existing homes and images of the types of homes they are looking for. Our other solution ties into the multiple listing service, plus has our own home data files and we included links to Google Earth in the Web Viewer so our customers can log into our "homes database" and look at location, lot configuration and how the home is situated on the street. While checking out all the info associated with the listing, our buyers can check out all the images associted with it. Very cool. This has definitely given us the competitive edge against agencies larger than we are. What's more, we didn't have to hire a consultant to do this - although admittedly I've been using FileMaker for 2-1/2 years now. The price of this database is an absolute steal given what it's done for our business.
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Wonderful Alternative to Access
This program works well. It has a learning curve, although not nearly as steep as other databases. In addition, with versions 7 on up it is trivial to publish your databases to the web.
I recommend the quikstart books for getting started with Filemaker. It has no useful documentaion for beginners to databases.
It does however integrate beautifully with Excel and has very powerful reporting features. It also works perfectly in a cross platform (Mac and PC) environment.
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Worst Instructions I have ever encountered
This may be a good database program but I can't tell due to the truly awful instructions. They talk all about how to use a data base once it is constructed but how to actually create the layouts and instructions is just not covered in the provided manuals, online help or PDF file. You will have to spend hours trying to analyze the provided example files as to how to actually do things. The most basic explanation of how steps and procedure actually work or what is required is just not there.
The on line help is filled with jargon and confusing explanations. Some times the terms used will change within the explanation with no warning leading to more confusion. A typical example is in the developers manual on page 12 which explains how to copy a script. Problem is when it gets to the click on copy part, there is no copy option on the screen. I guess they just forgot to include it in the actual program. This is just one of many examples I have encountered. I doubt they ever had outside users actually try to use the program so they could understand what instructions were needed.
If you want to create your own system, not use one of the templets provided, then plan on many hours trying to understand how the basic nuts and bolts work. It will be mostly trial and error. And consider it necessary to purchase outside books and video tutorials. Considering I taught myself to program in assembly language in the early days and made a good living doing so and that I have learned programs such as SolidWorks parametric modeling I dont think the problem is on my end.
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This company has no respect for its users
This is a fine product until you upgrade past a version that uses a different file format. Then, very little will work. The company doesn't tend to write very good utilities that upgrades from one file format to another. For example, version 5 to 6 was a disaster. we had to rewrite everything. You couldn't just upgrade.
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