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Using FileMaker for Effective Document Management
Does your
company use a file server to store shared documents? Are
files and folders on your file server related to records in
your FileMaker database? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could
upload files directly to your file server from a FileMaker
record and let the system automatically create any necessary
folders? How about a button on a FileMaker record that
automatically opens a related folder on the file server so
you can quickly access files that others have uploaded to
the server?
The Problem
At IT
Solutions, we were recently presented with this exact
challenge during a FileMaker development project. To protect
the innocent and keep it simple, I’ll use a school analogy
to explain the problem and the solution.
We were dealing
with two different roles that needed to access files on the
same file server. One role, we’ll call them teachers, had
full access to the server and could upload or download files
at will. The other role, we’ll call them teacher aides, had
limited access and needed to be able to upload files to
certain folders on the server and to get read-only access to
the contents of a different folders on the server.
The file server
structure mimicked the data structure in the FileMaker
database. There was a folder on the file server for each
class and a folder for each student within the class. Inside
each student folder was a drop box folder and a report card
folder. The teachers needed a quick way to open a student’s
folder or to create one if didn’t already exist. The aides
needed to be able to upload files to the drop box for a
given student and to view a PDF of the report card. All of
this access to the server needed to happen from a student’s
record in FileMaker.
We faced a few
challenges along the way. First, we were dealing with a
cross-platform environment. Some users were using Macs and
some were using PCs. This wasn’t a problem for FileMaker,
but we had to dynamically connect to the server depending on
the platform which required a few extra layers of
programming. Second, we needed a way to connect the folder
names with their respective FileMaker records. This wasn’t a
problem when creating the folder from within FileMaker, but
because some users had open access to the file server, we
couldn’t prevent folder names from being manually changed.
We needed to warn the user in FileMaker if no server folder
matched the student record.
The Solution
We were able to
harness the power of FileMaker scripting, conditional
formatting and a 3rd party plug-in to fully integrate the
FileMaker database with the existing file server. Each role
had its own set of layouts so we could create separate
buttons unique to the role. The buttons could have easily
been dynamic with a just little extra programming but it
wasn’t necessary in this case.
We added a
button to the teacher’s version of the student layout that
connected with the corresponding student’s folder on the
file server. Clicking the button simply opened the server
folder in Windows Explorer, if the teacher was on a PC, or
in a Finder window, if the teacher was on a Mac. If the
button appeared gray, then the teacher knew that the folder
had not been created. Clicking the gray button created the
folder automatically with the proper name, and then opened
it for direct interaction. If the button appeared yellow,
then the teacher knew that the folder should have existed
but for some reason the FileMaker record did not have a
match, and therefore the user needed to go directly to the
server to investigate the problem.
On the teacher
aide’s version of the student layout were two buttons, an
upload button and a report card button. The upload button
would take the aide to a FileMaker layout where he or she
could drag-and-drop files from the hard drive right onto a
box on the FileMaker layout, which would automatically copy
the files into the student’s drop box server folder. The
report card button opened the report card folder for the
current student. The teacher aide could access the report
card files without the ability to change them, delete them
or move other files into the report card server folder.
This
integration between FileMaker and the file server
streamlined the customer’s document management processes. It
gave all users quick access to needed information directly
from FileMaker student records while the documents remained
protected on a remote file server. We leveraged the
technology infrastructure already in place and used
FileMaker as an easy-to-use access point for the server.
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