FileMaker Pro 17 has been released. It has a lot of great new features which will make your business more productive and efficient. Here are just a few of them:
1. Sensors
The software is now coming with a nice set of tools to track sensors in your iPad and iPhone. Sensors which can be tracked and captured in FileMaker are location, air pressure, accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer and battery level. So basically, anything which your iPhone can track, is now available to the FileMaker Go app as well.
2. Admin Console
Completely redesigned, lightweight and streamlined. It is going to be less confusing to use now. I really like it.
3. Master-Detail Layouts
FileMaker now makes it easier than ever to use what’s called the “master-detail” portals. This is actually something which HighPower Data has been providing for years. But now with the built-in features of FileMaker Pro, we can do it for you even more quickly. Master-Detail presents a list of all records for a certain table in a portal, usually on the left, but it can be anywhere. Clicking on any of the items, brings up the complete details in the detail view for that record.
4. Multiple Email Attachments!
This is a big one. We have had to do many work-arounds in the past to allow clients to send out more than one email attachment. Now it can be done natively in FileMaker. This will save a lot of time and money.
5. Copy & Paste Custom Menus
Custom menu’s are really useful tools used to present a different set of menu items to each person, depending upon their privilege set. They are rather tedious to set up, and then when you need to move one from one file to another, in the past there was no way to do so, and you had to manually set it up again. But now with copy and paste, this is another time-saving feature in FileMaker 17, which will also save development cost.
6. Group Object Selection
One of the nice features of FileMaker is the ability to group objects together so that once you have them arranged nicely, you can make sure they don’t move. But the problem with this, is that if you needed to make minor adjustments to any of the objects or fields, you had to ungroup them. But now with Group Object Selection, you can simply pick one out of the bunch, and make your changes without having to disturb the set.
7. Show Custom Dialogue can receive variables now
This is another behind the scenes time saver. Anytime we required user feedback in the past through a dialogue box, we had to create a global field to enter the information, and then, usually, transfer it to a variable or wherever it needed to go. Now we can automatically load it into a variable, saving additional development time, and saving you money.
8. Data Migration Tool
Moving FileMaker files around, or upgrading the server, or any files on it, has been a big job. But the data migration tool, which I understand is still in command line format, just made that job a whole lot easier. It takes the task from hours down to just minutes now.
9. Notifications on iPad or iPhone
Almost every app on the iPhone and iPad can send you notifications when needed. In the past FileMaker Go could only do this if it was in the foreground, or active state. But now, we can schedule notifications to appear at any time. They can be place on a timer, or in response to certain conditions pick up via sensors (see #1 above). Then we can present the user with 1,2,or 3 button choices. Very nice!
10. Auto-complete
Nice little feature on fields now to quickly complete the typing for you. No need to program this in anymore.
11. Drag & Drop on iPad
Because iPad now allows the split view, it is possible to see two applications at once. Now you can drag from one, non-FileMaker app directly into FileMaker Go. Sweet!
12. FileMaker API
This has been in beta-mode for about 18 months. But now it is ready for primetime. This allows FileMaker to speak with other applications and exchange detailed data.
13. Automatic Account Lockout
This is a security feature. When someone tries to log in to the app and fails, after five times, they are locked out for a while.
So there you have it.
Lots of great new features in FileMaker 17!
These will make the interface more pleasing and user friendly, and they will save time and money.
At HighPower Data Solutions, we are looking forward to using this on our next new project!