Item: Claris FileMaker
Rating: 10
Author: Mike Memme

Overall Satisfaction with FileMaker Pro

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

FileMaker Pro is being used across the whole organization. We originally used it to track the houses we've built. Once that foundation was established we expanded its use to manage almost every process in the organization. We use it for budgeting, tracking opportunities, automatic contract generation, construction scheduling, colour selections, options management, change orders, and after sales service. We use it to feed real time information to our website, we've created an online purchaser portal, and our staff have both desktop and mobile access to the data.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Highly customizable. The software is easy to set up to match our existing processes.
Fast customization. New features can be added quickly and easily.
Open standards. Easy to get info from and push info to the outside world.

Cons

Have had challenges feeding data to a php website. Are moving to the new Restful API for this.
Would like to be able to send rich text emails. Can now do it with CURL commands but not the easiest.
Has very detailed layout editing tools, but built in themes with more auto layout functionality would be helpful.

Return on Investment

Our unique approach to residential construction has made us the clear leaders in our marketplace.
We get the best trade partners to work with because we're the most organized. Our trades want us to sell our custom FileMaker solution to our competitors.
Our budgeting is real time and agile so we're always on top of our costs.
We only enter information once and are able to share it in real time with everyone inside and outside of our corporation.

Alternatives Considered

20 years ago we had to choose between Microsoft Access and Claris FileMaker Pro. We chose FileMaker Pro because it was easier to use. As our systems have evolved around FileMaker Pro we haven't looked at any competitors as we're too far along to start over again with a new programming foundation.

Support Rating

The forums are great with lots of helpful experts and the staff monitor them to provide help where needed. There have been a couple of unique technical issues I've had to deal with that I haven't been able to get resolved so I chose to score this a 9 instead of a 10.

Key Insights

Do you think Claris FileMaker delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Claris FileMaker's feature set?

Yes

Did Claris FileMaker live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Claris FileMaker go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Claris FileMaker again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

In our situation it is well suited to our organization because one of the owners of the construction company has some programming experience and was able to use FileMaker to make all of the existing systems in the organization electronic. It has been a work in progress and the system has grown with the organization. When we want to shift to meet new market needs or changing government regulations we can move quickly to adjust our electronic processes.

It is well suited to teams or organizations that do things differently than their competitors and want their electronic systems to be reflection of who they are instead of using a canned system that forces them to work the same way everyone else does.

It is not well suited to teams where there is high turnover of employees and managers as custom systems may never get a foothold or be maintained in that environment.

Comments

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