DIY: Tempting Templates

If you want to build your own app for your business, then FileMaker is just the platform: powerful, yet accessible enough for those focussed on solving problems, especially if you have a bent for code. But where do you begin?

In this article Stu takes a look at the latest template files from FileMaker Inc., files that get you up and running with a basic working solution, but they're open for you to then add-on and customise:

New And Improved

FileMaker have just released a series of three new templates that allow users the ability to have a starting point in terms of a featured solution.

We think these are a great idea, and are a real step up on what was on offer in the former starter solutions. They meet some really core needs for some organisations/businesses and for quite a number, may well be all they need.

The three templates are:

• Memberships

• Job Tracking

• Event Management

In each case, an organisation could pick up on these and use them to manage their member base, job management and events respectively. The basic requirements are covered and all you need are some FileMaker licenses, somewhere to host the database, and you're away.

What makes us happy, as professional developers, is that it gives those of you taking the DIY approach a sound starting point, so that if you come to us for help or to pick up where you've left off, the foundations are both standardised and well structured! 

These templates allow you to get a clean, basic app in place, and then build in the features unique to your organisation, industry or way of doing things. There are also a bunch of ready made add-ons, tutorials and guides accessible from the FileMaker site to help you along the way — www.filemaker.com/templates

And of course we're very happy to help with guidance, one-on-one tuition, or to pick up where you leave off to carry on development. 

Features

Looking a little more in-depth at each of the templates:

Memberships

This one is ideally suited to the organisation that needs to manage a membership base along with campaigns/donations.

The core features are:

• Member details including name, address, contact details, whether they are active or inactive, along with your interactions with them

• Building a campaign and tracking the donations against a target

• Viewing and exporting all campaign and donation data

This is a great entry level way to manage a membership, but we can already see that you would want to hook this into a website (so donations can be taken online), more reporting features, user management etc.

Job Tracking

Like the membership template this one includes all the things you need to track jobs, all within a single well build database.

The core features are:

• A basic CRM to allow you to list all staff and clients

• The ability to setup a job, which in this template they are based on a building/construction business

• Setup jobs and tasks and assign staff to each

• Have staff track their time entries and mark whether they are billable or non billable

• View all time logged against a job or task

With job tracking being one of the primary types of solution we build for clients, we know this template will be popular. It'll probably get you to a point where you want a lot more, such as an iOS app (using FileMaker Go) to allow staff to track their work while out on the road or worksite, more reporting,  the ability to record material costings, and so forth, which would all make this a more fully featured application.

Event Management

Managing an event from start to finish is a huge job, and all to often done via a stack of spreadsheets. Having an orderly way to manage an event will take away a big headache and allow you to focus on the more important tasks at hand.

The core features are:

• Add an event including the the date and location

• Add sessions, with date and start/finish times

• Manage all attendees to the event

• Create a registration list that can be exported as a PDF

Once again this template is a great start, and the features included may be all that is required for an organisation to run an event. Taking it the next step further, you could add web integration so attendees could view and book sessions. You may also have different sessions at different locations, have a limit on how many people can attend any session, have the ability to manage payments (if it’s a paid event).

As you can see by the above, these templates are a good starting point and they may meet all the needs of some organisations. Or it might be that you want to further develop them yourself, in which case FileMaker have given guidance on how these can be extended further.

So we say give them a try, see what you think (you can use the FileMaker trial license to start with), if you need a hand down the track do reach out to us, we would love to discuss your requirements.