FileMaker in the hands of Storganise
Overall Satisfaction with FileMaker Pro
As a Filemaker Pro developer, our company assesses the needs of small to medium businesses and will often recommend, and supply, a bespoke Filemaker Pro package. We use the software ourselves, in our office administration, invoicing, expenses, data collection, contact management, and inventory management. It is used across the whole company and saves us hours of admin by centralising the data we work with.
- Easy to use - we create very basic apps at one end of the scale, up to whole suites of software at the other. At the entry level, it is quick to learn and can have a "citizen developer" creating something useable and rewarding within hours.
- Expandable - we recommend starting small with an answer to your most pressing requirement. Then as your staff get used to the way the software helps, there will naturally begin the questions - "Can we get it to do this...?"
- Unlimited - there is no real limit to the size and quantity of data that can be stored. We have happy customers with small contacts applications under 50MB and others with huge archives of Music and Video over 100GB
- Constantly Updating - there are new releases of the software every year or so, adding extra functionality for new directions to be taken, but the core of the software remains the same
- As developers, there are areas we like to see updated. In the new version 16 a lot of these have been done.
- Scalable usage of mobile licenses would be a good step forward to allow transient mobile users to access the main database without the need for an extra licence
- A revamped system for finding developers through Apple's website would be nice. The current one is a little out dated.
- Our largest client, a Comedy Promoter in the UK, have a suite of software that we created and developed for them over the last few years. The initial outlay was questioned, however the streamlining of the company and the hours saved in unnecessary admin have enabled them to grow at a much faster rate, without the need for extra support staff. The historical data collected now informs the new markets that they are exploring, removing the guesswork and instead creating new opportunities that would otherwise not have been exploited.
- A smaller client of ours, an Events Crewing company, have a very simple contacts management application in Filemaker, which has been created to allow automatic updating from a Web Form by potential employees. This enables the boss to be on site while being able to vet new members of staff remotely. It is estimated that the initial cost of the software was recouped in the first month, and two years later they have grown in size by 33% whilst retaining the same permanent workforce, who still work the same hours.
- The software can also be made for a single job - a Tour Manager for a major UK touring artist came to us with 300 US visas to fill in. We simply overlaid fields onto the scan of the form, and utilised the data from their established Filemaker contacts database to auto-fill the forms for them. These were then auto-emailed to each of the contacts, who updated any incorrect data, signed and returned the forms and a job that would have taken around 3 weeks took less than 2 days.
I used to work with Access some years ago, and liked the rigid structure. It had rules that were easy to adhere to, and once learnt, it was a powerful way to collect data.
When I discovered FileMaker, I had to completely unlearn what I had thought were the boundaries of data collection and display. Unlike Access, there are no limits, borders or rigid rules to adhere to. If you have a specific set of tasks that you do, and need a specific bit of software to allow you to do it, Filemaker can usually fit the bill.
When I discovered FileMaker, I had to completely unlearn what I had thought were the boundaries of data collection and display. Unlike Access, there are no limits, borders or rigid rules to adhere to. If you have a specific set of tasks that you do, and need a specific bit of software to allow you to do it, Filemaker can usually fit the bill.