We have several clients who have asked us to create web-based logins for their customers.
For example, a printing company in Canada asked us to build a site which would allow their customers to go to the company website, and click on a link that says, “Customer Login”. Once they enter their user name and password, they would see a special online ordering page, and be able to quickly create a new order. This company has many customers who place weekly orders which vary by just a small amount from week to week. Imagine how much office and secretarial labor hours are saved for them. Instead of paying someone to answer the phone all day, and change a regular customer’s order by a few hundred pieces, they can just let their customers do all the ‘work’ for them. This saves our client time, and it allows their customers to adjust their order any time of day. They don’t have to just wait to do it during business hours. So basically, our client is earning business 24/7 thanks to their site.
How’s it work?
Using FileMaker’s special Web Direct technology, when the customer logs into the company website, they are actually accessing the FileMaker on a special public facing web-page. Once they have entered their credentials, they are presented with their ordering information. When they submit that, FileMaker processes that order, and does a bit of a security check, and then a new order is created on the Jobs table of the custom business application which we build for them. The instant they click “submit”, the printing department can see that new job order and start working on it.
This kind of customization is only possible when you are integrating web pages with FileMaker, and using both of them in conjunction with each other.