Complete Transcript of Ryan Rosenberg – FileMaker Interview Host – Alan Ashendorf on Let's Talk Computers August 8 2007
Alan: If you have a business, you are going to have lots of data – and managing data is how a business survives. How can we easily manage all of our data? Joining us from the FileMaker Developer Conference in Orlando, Florida, is Ryan Rosenberg, Vice President of Marketing and Services with FileMaker, Inc. And welcome back to Let’s Talk Computers, Ryan.
Ryan: Thanks, Alan. Glad to be here.
Alan: This is the 12th annual gathering of all the FileMaker enthusiasts from all over the world. What makes this event so special?
Ryan: With over 1,300 people that come to the Conference – they’re coming here to find out essentially, what’s up with FileMaker; to learn the latest techniques; to improve their skills; and to take those ideas back to their companies and organizations and to make themselves more productive and help their companies out.
Some of the people coming here are coming here for the first time and might be new to FileMaker and we’re teaching them some of the basics. But, for some of our experts, as well, we have advanced sessions that allow them to go “under the hood”, so to speak and find out what’s going on deep inside FileMaker and to take advanced techniques back to their companies.
Alan: And, along with all the training that you have at this year’s Conference, you have some exciting new announcements. And I know that all of your attendees are very excited about that.
Ryan: There are some major advancements here in our product line. Two things that people are especially excited about: One is our enhanced abilities to work with the Web, (in particular, we have some new technologies for people who want a PHP-driven web site that links to FileMaker). The new PHP SET Assistant that allows even a non-programmer to create a fully functional PHP set. People are excited about that.
The other thing that’s drawing just as much interest is our new ability to link directly to SQL sources. So, again, FileMaker has always been a great tool for providing a solution to a data management problem, very quickly, very efficiently. But, sometimes that solution might sit on its own and need to interact with solutions the company already has. What FileMaker 9 now has, is the ability to directly link FileMaker to MySQL, to SQL Server, or even to Oracle – so there are a lot of classes on that; and people are very excited about the potential for that type of integration.
Alan: You just had a brand new rollout of FileMaker Pro 9 and this has a whole lot of new features, both for people who are working with legacy apps and new people that are just wanting to get the job done, aren’t they?
Ryan: That’s right. There are sort of two broad areas – first of all, it’s just the fact that FileMaker is easier than ever. Our commitment to FileMaker from the first release we ever did, until the last release we ever do, we want to be the “easy-to-use database solution”.
We want to be the tool that is powerful, but lets you accomplish your task easier than ever. So, there’s a whole host of enhancements that allow to do better reporting; to more quickly find and start-up their solutions; to be able to format data on the screen – so that when they need to know what’s going on inside their organization, it can show up. That’s one part of it.
The second big advancement in the FileMaker product line is the ability to connect FileMaker out to those other systems, whether it’s the Web or whether they’re SQL systems. That’s a bit for the people that are using FileMaker for a stand-alone and a bit for people who are trying to integrate FileMaker into the rest of the organization.
Alan: The integration – that’s what is so important. Every business just does not exist in a vacuum. They have databases that are in Oracle, SQL, Access databases. And you have to fit right into the middle of it, to be kind of the central hub and you have to play nice, don’t you?
Ryan: For years people have integrating FileMaker with those systems – for example people might have a web site and they are capturing information and putting it into a MySQL database. What often happens though, is from there, there’s some sort of a manual process, where they may extract information out of that SQL database, copy it into FileMaker or the other way – they’ll extract information out of FileMaker, and copy it over there. What we have done is to eliminate any of that manual process.
Now, you can directly connect FileMaker to the other database in “real time”. So, let’s say that when someone enters something into that database, it immediately appears into FileMaker. When you update information in FileMaker, it immediately is transmitted to the other databases.
Also, people are using FileMaker to bring information together from multiple sources; pull it all together in FileMaker and use FileMaker as a way of analyzing and reporting that information.
Alan: And you have made it so much easier for people to start working with FileMaker Pro, because now you have a Quick Start Screen that allows us just to jump right in there.
Ryan: We are really pleased with the reception that Quick Start Screen has gotten. The Quick Start Screen allows a new user, someone that’s never used FileMaker before, to have immediate access to our Learning Center. This is a Center that’s full of information, including over 30 videos to help a new user get started with FileMaker. The Learning Center also has information for intermediate and advanced users. It’s got a little something for everyone and you can get there right from the Quick Start of FileMaker.
The other thing the Quick Start Screen gives is access to all the FileMaker databases. And you might think – Big Deal? What if you only have one or two databases? It turns out that in many organizations people may have 40-50; I’ve even heard of 100 databases, before. You can imagine how difficult it is for a user when they’re opening up FileMaker to find all of those databases. Now, we let you bring them all together in one place and even set your Favorites, so that you get instant access to the information that you have stored into FileMaker.
Alan: When you’re about instant access to data – this is what’s so important. A user has to be able to see this on the screen and you have something called Conditional Formatting. How does that work?
Ryan: Conditional Formatting is an exciting new feature that’s in FileMaker Pro 9. If you think about the information that you’ve got, it’s one thing to just see it displayed on the screen. It’s another thing for the database to intelligently tell you what is most critical about that information. And that’s what Conditional Formatting is really about.
Let’s say, for example, you may have inventory that you’re storing, (keeping track of how many items that you have in inventory) and you want to be warned when your inventory looks at your item and it drops too low. You want the database to do that for you, automatically. What Conditional Formatting lets you do, is - it let’s you open up a dialog box and with just a few clicks, you set some conditions that tells FileMaker that “Whenever this inventory drops below a certain point, I want you to warn me.”
Those conditions can be as simple as “If it drops below 10, warn me”, or as complicated as a whole formula’s worth. Such as, “If this is running low and this is running low”, “I want you to warn me so that I can create a new order form.” It’s something that is very powerful, but this one of the hallmarks of FileMaker, it’s point and click easy for the new user.
Alan: All of this can be done without writing any kind of code, whatsoever. You have it so that we can lay out some of our screens and decide exactly how it looks for the user, right?
Ryan: The thing that FileMaker has always gone for is the idea that you can get a lot done, without having to write code; without even having to know how to program. Adding fields of information to FileMaker, if they’re in your database to a particular layout is as simple as selecting the fields; dragging it over; and dropping it where you want it to go.
Adding formatting to that field will allow you to be warned when there are changes that occur, is as simple as opening up a dialog box and selecting what you want to have happen. But, there’s always a power layer below that. In Conditional Formatting, for example, if you want to you can go beyond the dialog box and drop down into a programming level, and you have very sophisticated things you want to get done.
Alan: You’re talking about most users that are working with the FileMaker Database System – you’re going to have multiple people probably designing the application and you make it so easy that you can actually send an email link and have somebody pop up the database and work right with it.
Ryan: I’m very pleased with that new feature. One of the reasons people put their information in a database in the first place, as you mentioned, is because they want to share it. FileMaker has a lot of sharing options. You can share with our servers, or you can even just link up to 9 copies of FileMaker together, and share pier to pier.
However, the trick is in knowing how to find the information that is on the other person’s computer. And the Send Link makes that easy. You simply open a database and if I want to share it with you, I select the Send Link option and it will email you an email, telling you how to get to the database. Inside that email is a link. You click on it with your mouse; it will fire up a copy of FileMaker and open up that remote database for you. There’s nothing to learn and nothing to remember.
Alan: You talked a little bit about how it connects to new sources, (SQL Databases) – but now you have it where it can work on the Web.
Ryan: There are two levels of doing that. One is what we call our PHP API, which is for a person that already know a little bit about PHP or very importantly, are working with someone who knows about PHP.
A lot of times people will build a FileMaker Database and then maybe they will have a Web Developer that they need to work with – and that person can now use tools they are comfortable with, in order to read and write FileMaker Data. We wanted to take it a step further from that. We realized that many of our users didn’t know PHP or if they did, maybe they still wanted something to get them started really quickly.
We built something that as far as I can tell, is unique – the PHP Site Assistant. I don’t think there’s anything like this in the world. This allows people to open up a FileMaker Database; you create your solution and then go into the Site Assistant and within a relatively few clicks, they can define a fully functional database for the Web that is built entirely on PHP.
So, they put a FileMaker server in; you run the Site Assistant; you define what type of a website you’re looking for: Do you want to search for information? Do you want to have a data entry form? Do you want to show a list of information? You with finish the Site Assistant and out pops the PHP code and the HTML pages and you simply take those and post them on your website and you’re ready to go.
Now, if you are a more advanced user or you’re working with some one who’s advanced, you can open those pages and edit the underlying code and modify it, but you don’t have to; it works all by itself, without requiring any modification.
Alan: You know, the hardest thing for any kind of developer, or a programmer, to do is to get started. You have tons of tutorials and videos that have been included with this version, right?
Ryan: That’s right. And we’ve got a whole series of options: The learning Center that you can get to right from the Quick Start Screen or from the Help Menu. That’s has got 30 videos that you can go through; there’s also a Beyond the Basics Tab for users that are past that first milestone and they want to get into more depth of FileMaker. We have also added links from the Help Menu to all of our documentation, including our extensive Tutorial, that’s available with FileMaker.
In addition, FileMaker offers a number of Starter Kits, as we call them. You can download them for free from our Website. These are wholly functional solutions that you can either use or more interestingly for many people, open them up and modify them and you can learn as you go through them – how to put a solution of your own, together. So, there are a lot of resources available for FileMaker.
In addition, we have recently launched the FileMaker Technical Network. This is a relatively inexpensive, (only $99 a year) program that anyone can join and it includes a whole host of benefits for those that want to learn FileMaker, including a very active online forum where you can communicate with other users, as well as FileMaker experts.
That’s a brand new program that’s just been launched and it’s proving to be very popular.
Alan: FileMaker comes in two flavors – you have FileMaker Pro 9 and FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced. What is the difference?
Ryan: FileMaker 9 Advanced is for users that have maybe been using FileMaker a little while and they want complete and total control of every aspect of their FileMaker Solution. A lot of times it is when you are building solutions, not just for yourself, but maybe for yourself and for a whole work group to use.
Examples of features that are in FileMaker 9 Advanced are things such as the ability to modify tool bars and menus, remove all items from the menus; if you want to build a solution where users can only interact with buttons. To create your own tool bars.
There is also advanced tools for determining the health of databases and looking at the underlying architecture and structure of complex databases
Alan: What is the price of these two?
Ryan: FileMaker Pro 9 is $299 and FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced is $499. We are running a special right now on FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced that allows you get a full year of our Technical Network, along with it. And this Technical Network is a great solution. It allows you to go online. There’s a forum where you interact with other FileMaker Developers. There’s technical information you can download that’s included; there’s a whole host of benefits that comes with the FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced.
Alan: Ryan, if somebody would like to find more information about the new FileMaker Pro 9 and also look at the tutorials, where would they go?
Ryan: www.filemaker.com You can take a look at all the tutorials that are for free. All they need to do is download one of our trial versions of FileMaker and then once they have installed the trial version, it will lead them right to those videos, like from the first screen and they can get a feel for how FileMaker works and determine if it’s right for them.
Alan: Ryan, it’s been our pleasure to have you as our guest here, on Let’s Talk Computers, showing us how we can build our own applications; build them fast, and without having to know all of these programming languages. We look forward to having you back on the air again, talking about some of the other exciting features, real soon.
Ryan: Thanks. I’ve really enjoyed coming on your show.