Hi All,

Is FileMaker the best choice for my wifes company?

My wife has a growing sales management company. She represents the USA
operations for a few French high-end textile brands. Her company only
provides the management of their US operations. She does not buy,
import, stock or resell (though that is where the money is :-)

She simply needs a sales tracking system from reserve on stock in
france to the final delivery and payment. The catch is that the sales
process is complicated and multi-facited. The textile is "to the trade
only". The buyers are almost always designers or architects. The need
is great for a system that can provide very fast access to an order's
status that is always changing. The average order process, from
original reserve to the final close of the order is around 3 months.

All the solutions for the industry are large and expensive because they
are only geared towards the manufacture or the showrooms. They include
a lot of stuff she doesn't need, like general ledger, inventory
look-up, complicated reporting, etc. Even QuickBooks is too much extra
stuff and not easly customized to the extent we need.

She just needs an accurat account of the status of each order with a
large are for notes and automated email notification to clients,
showrooms and France when the status of an order changes.

If possible we would like to streamline the order entry process. We
currently have to connect via VPN to the AS/400 in France and enter the
order, then rekey again for us. I would like to be able to enter the
order once into our system and through dynamic data link or batch,
update the AS/400 in france.

Sorry this is so long. Any help is greatly appreciated.

FileMaker, Servoy, ???

Thank you!

Tim

In article <2006121922112716807-tg@brennancompanycom>,
Tim <tg (AT) brennan-company (DOT) com> wrote:

FileMaker can be used to develop a database solution for your wife's
needs. There are some standard FileMaker templates that might help. The
great virtue of FileMaker is that it is a good tool that is easy to
learn to use, to build customized database solutions.

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Bill Collins

On 2006-12-19 22:32:07 -0500, Bill <bbcollins (AT) fake (DOT) net> said:

Thank you for your response.

What I like about FM is that it appears that we can easly expand and
add additional features without the high cost.

My first concern is purely a GUI or cosmetic one. I would like buttons
for Edit, Accept, Cancel, etc., much like an online application. I have
not seen this in any of the sample databases I have tried. Is this
simply not the style of FM?

Thank you!

FileMaker is primarily a system that is used as an application running on
computers, not a web page. This is why you don't see some of the same
conventions used in web pages. However, one very nice thing about FileMaker
is it's ability to deliver content on the web -- either by the "usual" means
of XML/PHP, or by the exciting "instant web publishing" facility built into
the product. IWP lets you build some pretty sophisticated stuff without
writing a line of code.Most importantly, it lets your customers interact
with the system without owning their own copy of FileMaker Pro.

"Tim" <tg (AT) brennan-company (DOT) com> wrote

In article <2006121923125175249-tg@brennancompanycom>,
Tim <tg (AT) brennan-company (DOT) com> wrote:

You can add pushbuttons to layouts to do all sorts of things. Some of
the things are available from a predefined list of pushbutton actions
that you can select. One of the actions is to perform a script that you
select. You can write scripts to do all sorts of things, and then use
pushbuttons to call the scripts.

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Bill Collins

So far I really like it. In one evening I was able to modify the
Business Productivity Kit to a degree that I an see the light at the
end of the tunnel. I come from an interface design background. It
appears that I can modify the GUI enough to get the feel I want.

I immediately got hung-up on one thing though. Our customer ID and
order ID's are generated by the AS/400 system in France. I can't figure
out how to change the BPK ID's to allow for user entry at creation of
record, then locked after that. Especially the order ID, no matter what
I do I can't get it to allow user entry at record creation. I guess it
is a calculation coming from somewhere outside the Sales defined
database. I'll keep trying.

Thank you for your help and I will come back to report progress.

Just a note on Servoy. I downloaded their demo and installed it. What a
pain!! Ssssslllllooooowwww as molasses. The Java ground my system to a
halt. It took around 15 minutes just to install. Then another 10
minutes just to open the sample CRM database and configure for first
time use. Then buggy as all get out when it did finally open. One thing
I "feel" with FM is that it is solid and fast. I hate buggy interfaces!

Maybe it is just my system (OS X 10.4.8, 2 GB DDR, 1 GHZ G4), but Java
still is not ready for prime time.

Tim



On 2006-12-20 08:20:02 -0500, Bill <bbcollins (AT) fake (DOT) net> said:

This ID is probably generated by a calculated result or auto-enterd as a
serial. These numbers have their use only when they can not be modified.
Probably you will find some relation connected by this ID. Such a relation
is going to be broken when you change the contents. If you realy need to
change the ID you can go two ways.

1. Create your own field (AS/400ID) as a normal field. Enter the data you
need manualy and connect anything you might need to that field.

2. Replace the existing ID by the new field. This last is only a sound idea
when you have totall control of your file. You have to understand how it is
working now. And you have to have a clear view if the ramifications of the
changes you are making.

Ursus

Yes, the Inventory ID is in table "Sales Orders" and has a relation to
table "Sales One Record". Invoice ID is alone in the "Sales One Record"
table.

If broken it breaks all reporting, scripts, etc. that relate to orders.

I will investigate your first suggestion. The same applies to our Customer ID.

Thank you!

Tim





On 2006-12-20 13:10:23 -0500, "Ursus" <ursus.kirk (AT) wanadoo (DOT) nl> said:

USER INTERFACE is my favorite subject, coming from a long line of PC-MAC
solution development. (CEO & Founder of COPS, Inc.)

YOU may design any interface you wish, you can make it web like, MS-DOS like
or anywhere in between. You can design buttons, rip off buttons, etc. -
open any folder in XP, select "customize" select "change Icon" you can then
get a screen shot of over 100 buttons, then crop, cut and past onto standard
FM buttons.

You can make shaded areas in PhotoShop and use for backgrounds, etc.

FM is basically a clean sheet of paper and you can do almost anything.

If you'd like to see some examples, I can send to you a few buttons I've
created and used.

The web metaphor is good place to start since most folks are adept at
browsing... e.g. home page instead of main menu page, etc.



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"Tim" <tg (AT) brennan-company (DOT) com> wrote

Tim,

In the long run investigating into the second options is far better. Having
multiple ID inside one table might be confusing. When you understand what
you are doing, you could remove the auto-enter of the ID and make the field
changeable. Then create a layout where you can access this field to enter
you number. On all other layouts (where you need it) show the field, but
protect it so it can not be entered on that layout. Generaly there would be
no reason to see your ID's anywhere. IF the ID's are unique you really have
to enter them manually. If you normally would choose the ID from an existing
list, you would create a tabele with this list and using this table in a
value list (or a portal) to choose from.

Happy exploring, there are many ways that will lead to your destiny. And if
it works you can be sattisfied. Later you can iron the wrinkles out.

Ursus



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