FileMaker 11 Released

Continuing the onward and upward march was the recent release of FileMaker 11, featuring some very nice charting capabilities, and a raft of developer and user improvements. Here's a quick recap on the highlights:

Charting
Graphs can now easily be produced from data, in an Excel-like manner. You have a choice of Bar, Horizontal bar, Line, Area and Pie graphs.

QuickFind
There's a new version of Find available, which searches multiple fields on a screen for data that you enter. Up until now, a find has targeted just one field at a time.

Quick Reports
If you use Filemaker to create your own reports, you'™ll find the new spreadsheet functionality of Quick reports a boon. You can group and summarise data on the fly and easily modify reports by adding, sorting or hiding fields and records.

Reduced Screen-flicker on Windows
The annoying screen flicker that was present in some Windows operations has been much reduced.

FileMaker 11 Server
In a testament to the superb project management at FMI, they updated Server at the same time: FileMaker Server Advanced now has no limit on the number of users apart from the limitations of your network and server hardware of course. This reflects FMI's confidence in the performance and reliability of their database engine: improvements made in the previous version are now well proven.

FM Server includes an array of features and enhancements as well, including Backup to Clone, better security, better admin console stability, and more statistics.

All-in-all FileMaker 11 is a solid and easy update that we recommend everyone take up. Let us know if you need a hand with licensing or installation.

FAQs
Can we have some of our users upgrade to FM11 and others remain on FM10?
Yes, although it would pay to discuss it your developer, because if your system is being changed to take advantage of new FM11 features, we'll need to bear in mind that not all users will be able to use the features. It won't break anything for FM10 users if they encounter FM11 features, but they won't be able to use the new features.

Do we need to upgrade FM10 Server if we upgrade some or all of our clients?
No, FM11 will connect to a FM10 Server.

What are the systems requirements?
Mac users: Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later; Windows: Windows Vista or 7

Is a conversion process necessary to migrate the data?
No, FM11 will open a FM10 database without any conversion.