MightyData

FileMaker and WordPress Consultants

Standards Matter

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Imagine going to a new city, renting a car, and driving to a new location without a GPS or access to Google Maps. You would be lost without a landmark or even a general understanding of the neighborhood. This experience is similar for the FileMaker developer who takes over a solution from another developer. In the typical situation, you have to follow the trail of breadcrumbs from the original developer.

These breadcrumbs, or development standards, organize the code so someone else can follow your work. The better the organization, the easier it is for the developer (yourself or someone else) to come back later and get oriented with the solution. The code is simply the elements in the FileMaker database: tables, fields, relationships, layouts, scripts, etc.

If you ask two FileMaker developers about their standards, you will get three opinions—one from each developer and a combination of the two. While there are strong opinions on the best way to do it, most developers agree the most important thing is to choose a set of standards and be consistent as you create your solution.

To help you get started with your development standards, here are some free resources from the FileMaker community.

  • FileMaker Naming Conventions and Standards – A good introduction to development standards for the intermediate FileMaker developer by DB Services, similar to those we use at MightyData.
  • FileMaker Development Conventions – In November 2005, FileMaker Inc. published a PDF by a group of leading FileMaker developers. It is in-depth and thought-provoking, although it can overwhelm the novice developer.
  • The Importance of Naming Conventions – CoreSolutions has been publishing development standards for over 10 years. They follow a modified version of the FileMaker Development Conventions by FMI.
  • FileMakerStandards.org – This wiki is a grassroots movement started by Matt Petrowsky. On this site, Matt and his colleagues explain their development standards and why they chose them.
  • FileMaker Coding Conventions – A video by Matt for FileMaker Magazine introducing the standards that became FileMakerStandards.org.
  • Anchor/Buoy Design Methodology – An outstanding presentation by Kevin Frank explaining the Anchor-Buoy method of organizing table occurrences (TOs) in the relationship graph.
  • Six Fried Rice Methodology – Two articles from the blog of Six Fried Rice explaining some important development standards: separation model and anchor-buoy.
  • Special Edition Using FileMaker 8 – Although the book was written for an earlier version of FileMaker, Chapter 27 is an excellent introduction to development standards including those used by the authors at Soliant Consulting.

The Freedom of Flexibility

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Independence Schools

The technology boom made a mighty impact on the way we communicate, share, and disseminate information. This impact can be summed up in two words—the Internet. For Independence Public Schools, it was time to replace the district’s outdated and restrictive FoxPro system with a more efficient and flexible Web-based application that could bring more freedom and flexibility to the process of coordinating children’s resource services between the city, state, and local agencies.

“There was an obvious duplication of services and paperwork across the 14 school campuses, city, and state agencies,” explains Debbie Marlowe, Associate Superintendent of Special Services for Independence Public Schools. “We also saw poor dissemination of information about the services, not to mention shrinking dollars and high turnover of personnel, who had little continuity of knowledge.”

Information was collected into a specified format rather than a database, necessitating hours of manual changes whenever the State of Missouri revised its administrative requirements. While each campus and agency had different eligibility documentation and criteria, it turned out they were all asking for basically the same information. The district then decided to create a single document that met the needs of all agencies and could quickly communicate information back and forth.

Technology

MightyData developed a Web-based system that offered tremendous flexibility when combined with a database. This new system was developed in two parts: a back-end that consisted of a database housing all the data and managing all procedures; and HTML pages that utilized a Web server. The low-cost solution allowed existing hardware to be used and because it was web-based, training was easy. The site posted two critical documents on each student, which were kept on a uniform platform. In addition to offering easy modification, the site allows several levels of secure access by all agencies involved.

The first document, the Diagnostic Summary, pulls together all the evaluative information on how a student diagnosis was made or not made by a committee overseeing Special Education enrollment. The second document, called the Collaborative Support Plan (CSP), serves as an Individual Education Plan (IEP), detailing the specific services that will be provided for the student once admitted. It also tracks his progress across teachers, case coordinators, and other school administrators. The unique factor here is how many different people contribute data to a primary document.

Transformation

What MightyData created is a system that is exceptionally flexible for us and certainly up-to-the-minute because all campuses can access our site with a Web browser, says Debbie.

“It is quite simple to change data, and to do administrative tasks in no time.” Not only did Debbie enthusiastically endorse the system’s versatility and easy Internet access to her peers nationwide, but she also presented the new system to education experts in Washington, DC, and Denver, as well as the State of Missouri.

Since then, MightyData has been called upon to help the Independence School District train its staff and other area districts that implement the system in the future. This will undoubtedly help other school districts better serve their special education students and families. “What was once a horror for me,” recounts Debbie, “is now a simple matter with the FileMaker-based system that MightyData shaped for us.”

It has dramatically improved the quality of service and communication we can provide students, and at a reduced cost to our taxpayers.

For Independence, that’s the freedom of flexibility that comes with technology to transform.

Far Beyond Data Entry

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Milex Southern

Milex Southern, a family-owned distributor of medical supplies for women’s healthcare based in Weatherford, Texas, decided to completely overhaul and upgrade its UNIX-based accounting system. And for good reason. Saddled with a menu-driven, non-intuitive, text-only configuration, it became increasingly difficult to process orders as the company grew. Milex knew it needed to go beyond the entry-level productivity of UNIX to a more versatile and highly intuitive Mac-driven system—FileMaker.

“In our business, we must be able to track lot numbers carefully and expand the number of fields we utilize. FileMaker Pro is very open, user-friendly and lets you work the way you want to. It’s also reasonably priced,” explains Bob Jenkins, Milex general manager.

Technology

As part of a multiple phase rollout, MightyData was tasked to build a comprehensive data management system in FileMaker. The customized application was designed to perform all order entry, order processing, accounts receivable, inventory control and reporting functions. However, there were some potential challenges for Milex that needed to be addressed.

The FDA requires that all medical products be issued in lot numbers, which can take endless hours to track. Plus, certain states have a complex sales structure, with a separate sales tax rate for each municipality. Both required too much time and effort. To solve these challenges, MightyData built an automatic tracking capability into the system to speed up lot number verification and streamlined monthly tax reports to generate accurately calculated rates, quickly and efficiently.

MightyData helped us get the exact reports that we need, says Bob.

Transformation

Milex has seen significant increases in productivity with the newly installed entry system. For example, online access to accounts meant that file folders no longer needed to be stored and re-filed manually. The program also keeps both sales reps and office staff apprised of important data.

Now our reps get their sales totals each day, so they know exactly what products have been sold.

“They are also tracked through each product category, so they can focus on which products are selling well and which are underperforming.”

When Milex added four more states to its existing service area, it was able to seamlessly ramp up with its existing system by adding a faster server. In fact, staffers were able to input and set up all data from the new states in just 15 minutes!

With innovative solutions from MightyData, you’ll always go far beyond entry level. Just ask the mighty Milex family.

Rapid Performance Gains

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Lettermen Sports

MightyData developed an order management system for Lettermen Sports several years ago. Lettermen Sports is one of the premier sports apparel production companies in Minnesota with locations in Blaine and Plymouth and a large production facility where it completes nearly 300 orders per week for sports apparel screen printing, lettering and shipping.

The primary purpose of its FileMaker application is to manage the flow of orders through its production facility. A core facet of the solution is its interface with the SQL-based point-of-sale program, CounterPoint. The FileMaker solution was developed by MightyData to import orders and order detail from CounterPoint.

Performance of the import/update process began to lag behind the increasingly fast pace of the business as the record counts in some of the FileMaker tables grew to over 300,000. With the update process taking an average of 23 minutes, the in-house FileMaker server performance was being compromised by the load. Employee productivity was reduced by having to wait for orders to be imported, and by the performance hit to the FileMaker server.

Lettermen Sports’ management approached MightyData to re-design the order import process to accomplish the following:

  • Reduce the time required to import and update orders from CounterPoint to FileMaker
  • Automate the import process
  • Eliminate the 24-hour delay for new and updated CounterPoint orders to be created/updated in the FileMaker database

Technology

MightyData’s technical team arrived at a solution to redesign the import/update process to more closely match the current needs of the business. The original import/update process involved importing data from the point-of-sale solution using FileMaker’s import script step to update matching records and create new records that were unmatched. Import subscripts were then used to import data from across the CounterPoint solution so that data required for shop floor production was available in the FileMaker database.

This approach was very effective at ensuring that all data was successfully imported as the solution would import across all orders and line item detail each time the update was run. As the business rules evolved, however, the update process became more complex. Combined with high record counts, a new approach was required.

The new design was based on only working with new and changed records in the CounterPoint system. In so doing, the number of order records that the scripts were required to process was reduced dramatically, to just 3 or 4 at a time. Conveniently enough, CounterPoint provides an order creation and update timestamp which is updated any time an order or its line-item detail is changed. This allowed for a complete overhaul of the scripting process that simultaneously accomplished all three of the customer’s goals. Furthermore, all script execution was moved to the server, allowing staff to focus on order production and not on managing the update process.

Transformation

This project is an excellent an example of how value is driven by the interface of a customer’s need with great technical planning and execution in a spirit of partnership with the customer to get the job done well. The new solution reduced the update execution from an average of 23.4 minutes to just 2.5 seconds – a 99% performance gain.

While technically impressive, the real value comes from production staff getting new orders and updates no longer than 30 minutes after they are recorded in the point-of-sale system. If even that is too long, the update can be run manually in a few seconds, giving the team immediate access to new order data.

As an added bonus, MightyData also gets to work with some really good people at Lettermen Sports. They help us help them. And that partnership makes all the difference.

A Welcome Insurance Policy

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Willis of Texas

Willis of Texas is a leading insurance broker and part of Willis Group Holdings, one of the largest insurance brokerage firms nationwide. Ron Moore, Managing Director, developed a basic FileMaker system more than a decade ago to keep track of vital client data such as employee coverage plans, deductions, premiums, and other administered programs. “We deal in group health, life and disability benefits plans,” explains Ron. “Clients must maintain data on all their employees. FileMaker Pro is a tool that allows us to help our clients to manage this data.”

As the scope and complexity of business increased, Ron knew it was time to renew the insurance policy on the system he built years ago. That meant leaving the system upgrade to the professionals—”to take it beyond what I could do,” says Ron.

The Technology

Ron turned to Mike McAbee, Willis’s Senior Systems Analyst, and Kirk Bowman, Visionary of Value, of MightyData. These two technology-driven powerhouses were the welcome insurance policy Ron was looking for to transform a basic FileMaker Pro system into a mighty, but versatile, data management tool for those keeping track of employee benefits programs.

“The system has seven to fifteen tables to manage the various components that determine in which benefits a person can enroll, the payroll deductions for employees, and the premiums owed to vendors,” explains Mike. “We have modules that allow us to do direct imports from human resources, exports to payroll, and exports to files for carriers.”

The Transformation

Willis of Texas introduced a Web interface that was designed by MightyData. The Benefits2000 interface lets employees enter their benefits information.

There’s no need to go to Human Resources and fill out a form, comments Mike.

“And there’s no need to send that form to us to be entered into the database. With the web interface, the information comes directly from the employee to us—and we can send it on directly to the insurance carriers. That capability allows us to provide even more personal, more accurate service to our clients and their employees.”

Because of this technology transformation, clients of Willis of Texas and their employees are benefiting every day from the power of FileMaker Pro—not only an award-winning database software application, but also a welcome insurance policy.

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