Business Challenge
For Toronto–based Dr. Beatrice Beaubien, the new features in FileMaker Pro 10 represent a strong response to developers' requests and she's very pleased. "The overhaul of the interface is a dramatic …change. …I anticipate the users' reception to the changes will be very positive," she says.
Dr. Beaubien should know. She is the self–described wearer of many developer hats. "My role," she says, "runs the gamut of needs analysis, solution development and coding, user support and server maintenance." She is really enthusiastic about the new script triggers in FileMaker Pro 10 saying, "The importance of the script triggers can't be underestimated. They are the key to tracking changes in regulated environments such as risk management, the financial sector and healthcare.
"Additionally they provide the capabilities to roll back changes in the case of undesired modifications, or roll forward in the case of inadvertent data loss, and they make sophisticated field validation more elegant and powerful. Also, script triggers play an invaluable role in streamlining navigation and creating user–centric layouts. They will be an integral part of all new databases I develop for a large pediatric hospital."
Beatrice also welcomes the new saved finds capability and sort–on–the–fly feature, which, she predicts, will be very popular with her users. 'Dynamic reports are a significant new boon for everyone," she explains. "New data viewing tools — persistent sorting, adding fields on the fly in Table view, saved finds, viewing sub–summary reports in Browse mode — hand control of reporting to the user. This will make life simpler for the developer, and in turn will empower our clients who will be able now to slice–and–dice their own data interpretations. Researchers at the hospital (as well as finance staff in any industry) will welcome these innovations.
