Revolution as front-end to Filemaker?

[mluka]

Hi, all.

Here's my situation: in this life, I'm a dry-cleaner (I had been in Data Processing for a long time in a previous life).

We're currently using a commercial application that covers counter-work (order entry, tracking, billing). But it's simply not flexible enough for our needs and doesn't give us the access to the data that I would like to have.

Volume-wise, we have 3,000+ customers, generate about 20,000 orders per year with about 60,000 line items per year. The equipment currently in use (which we'd like to keep) is Windows based.

I was thinking of using Filemaker Pro 8. Primarily because I'm already quite familiar with the product. However, some preliminary work on the user interface has pretty well convinced me that Filemaker would not be able to deliver that part of the solution.

I would like to solicit opinions, comments, etc. on this idea: use Revolution for the user interface and Filemaker as the database.

Is there anyone on this forum who has done this? With FM Pro or another database? In a production, real-life environment? How robust and reliable is the ODBC support in Revolution?

All comments are welcome and thanks in advance!

[vidkid]

Mluka,

Perhaps you could explain why you think Filemaker won't do the job for your interface? Are you planning on setting up the database on a separate machine, or will everything run on one box?

I've done quite a bit of Filemaker work and am currently building a RR solution for income tax prep. I am kind of divided myself on which is best for what applications. I've read somewhere either on these forums or in one of the newsletter articles RR puts out about using RR as the front-end to Filemaker. I am very interested in the outcome of your question as I have the same question. Right now I am leaning away from using RR as the front-end because I think it may complicate code maintenance, but that may just me being lazy.

Bruce

[mluka]

OK, vidkid, I'll keep you posted. But right now, I can't even configure the bloody FM Pro ODBC driver on my machine. And the time I can spend on this exercise is very limited...

But I'll post here any results of my research.

[mluka]

Mluka,

Perhaps you could explain why you think Filemaker won't do the job for your interface?

The main reason is that the interface has to be very easy to use and learn. The rotation rate among the counter staff is quite high and the company can't afford to train them in using FM.

All events and most user actions have to be done with buttons and scripting. Also, some aspects of FM make it difficult to display and manage the data properly; for instance, I remember that having more than one portal on a given table (on the same layout) was a real challenge and choosing which portal was active at any given time was problematic.

Anyway, I spent about the equivalent of 20 days' work (over many months, though) building a quick and dirty prototype and came away feeling that it would just be too much effort to program the interface we want using FM scripting.

This was about a year ago.

Now, the presure is on again to replace the existing solution. Hence, my interest in Revolution.

But I LOVE FM as a database, though!

Best regards.