The Importance of Maintaining Data Integrity and Availability In FileMaker Pro Databases
By:
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
Comprehensive, real-time maintenance of data integrity and data availability in FileMaker Pro databases is an on-going and significant challenge for business owners, database developers, database administrators (DBA’s), and IS/IT managers in organizations of all types and sizes. Whether you are a government agency in the health care field, an airline maintenance department, a small business providing commercial dish-washing facilities for the food services industry, a business trade association or professional society, or a small dry-cleaning business contractor on a military base, you have to be able to rely on the fact that your data will be available when needed and that those data are accurate and complete.
Like the Dark Force from some science fiction movie, there are a host of elements that ceaselessly conspire to attack the availability and integrity of your data day in and day out. And hovering over many database installations are also a myriad of regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the European Union’s Basel II, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and the Buckley Act—to name just a few.
What can go wrong? And given that accidents can happen even in the best-regulated of households, when things do go wrong, how can DBA’s and IS/IT people fix them? And given that in many small businesses the business owner is the DBA and lacks formal DBA or IS/IT training, how does that business owner recover from what could be a disaster?
In this paper I will detail a number of errors and events that can occur. I will also explain some concepts for addressing, mitigating, and even reversing those errors. I will focus particularly on the difficult issues of deletion management, of backup reconciliation, both roll-back and roll-forward, and of regulatory compliance.
To read the rest of this article, http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/187893/
Adventures in Barcoding
As a fulltime educator, there’s never any shortage of new and exciting projects to inspire me and capture my interest. As an FM developer, though, it can sometimes be a bit of a stretch. Even new releases of FileMaker (like that‘ll happen any time soon…) can be a melancholy blend of “gee whiz” moments and feature request letdowns (”what?! They didn’t include facial recognition on container fields?! Damnit, I’ve been asking for that since version 4!”). Fortunately, we can sometimes count on our clients to throw something fun our way. Read more
Google Mapping in FileMaker
UPDATE: I’ve written a follow up to this post which shows how to produce a map with multiple addresses.
Google Mapping in FileMaker
I’m sure you’ve seen the Web Viewer maps in FileMaker. Sure, they’re serviceable, but you’ve got no control. And with Google recently adding “Search Results” and “My Maps” to the screen as well (a laudable feature, to be sure), the available real estate for the actual map shrunk by almost half. What can be done? I’ll show you how to roll you own mapping engine using PHP and the Google Map API.
Roll Your Own Edit Mode
The Problem
As FileMaker developers, we take a lot of things for granted. For example, FileMaker’s Browse Mode/Find Mode feature is actually pretty slick; just place a field on a layout and it becomes both a data-update field as well as a query field without additional coding. However, when a layout is set to “save record changes automatically”, the frequency of people thinking they are in Find mode when they are actually happily clobbering data is enough to drive the most laissez-faire FileMaker developer nuts.
Sometimes, calling such problems “training-issues” just isn’t enough.
One solution is to roll your own Edit Mode feature. This technique uses the power of global variables in FileMaker 8+. In this example, I am going to combine scripts, a global variable and a custom privilege set to regulate users’ record-edit access.
Note: this article in intended to illustrate a general technique, do not rely solely on this example to secure your database.
The Triad of Server
I recently attended a FileMaker, Inc. sponsored seminar about proper configuration of FileMaker® Server 8 and FileMaker® Server 8 Advanced. The day-long program featured members of the North American FileMaker System Engineer team.
At the outset of the program, the SE’s made a very critical point about successful deployment of FileMaker Pro solutions to FileMaker Server. That point bears repeating here. For a deployment to be successful, three keys parts must be properly configured and designed as well as properly aligned with one another:
•The Server hardware and operating system,
•The FileMaker Server services/daemons, and,
•The developer designed FileMaker Pro solution.
Typically, there has been some considerable discussion about the third point: solution design. The Certification Program, various on-line resources, educational programs, seminars, etc. focus on this. FileMaker Tech Support, the SE’s, the development engineers, and a few senior developers have provided guidance and information about the second point: the FileMaker Server services or daemons.
However, there has been very little discussion about the first item: server hardware and operating system requirements. Outside of the Server Best Practices White Paper authored by Wim Decorte [http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/techbrief_fm8_server.pdf] and some postings that he and I have made to various forums, there has been very little discussion about this until the SE’s started this series of seminars.
I want to commend the SE’s for conducting these seminars and to commend FileMaker, Inc. for providing them. They are absolutely critical in my view to having successful FileMaker deployment experiences. The responsibility remains however for us as developers to acquaint ourselves with the requirements of all three parts of the Triad of Server and to learn and follow best practices for successful deployments of solutions hosted by FileMaker Server 8 or FileMaker Server 8 Advanced.
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance (1997-2007)
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified developer