GoZync3

Date Formats

These are the notes for GoZync 3. Docs for the latest version of GoZync--GoZync 4--can be found here. GoZync 4 is a free upgrade and is highly recommended (hint: it's faster).

Dates don't seem to be Zyncing correctly, but text fields are. What's going on?

The scripts in GoZync represent all your data as "text" in the document we pass back and forth. Converting dates to and from text is the only place where FileMaker fails to respect "Use System Formats". In these cases FM uses the date format initialized when the file was created. If your file was created with UK dates, for example, it will conflict with GoZync's file, which was created with US dates.

Fortunately, this is easy to fix. Cloning a file (Save a Copy As / Clone) wipes this date information and resets it using the format of the machine that next opens the file. So making a clone of GoZyncHosted and GoZyncMobile should get you sorted. (If you're using one of our mobile files like "QuickContact" you'll want to clone that as well.)

If you only have a few dates you could also simply intercept our SetField steps for those fields and force the dates into your format with FileMaker's date function. But cloning is a system-wide fix, and will apply to any new date fields you add to your solution later.

How to make a clone GoZync

This isn't hard, but like many things in FileMaker, it helps to do things in order.

1. Update to the latest GoZync version
First off, as of version 3.16, GoZync recreates the interface and value list records it needs when a newly created clone is opened. So we strongly recommend you implement the changes in the latest version of GoZync before making your clones.
If you're already hosting GoZync, pull it off your server and do this work locally. Test the sync at least once to make sure you're syncing locally (with all files on one computer) again, especially if you changed your External Data Sources. If it's been a while since you had GoZync off your server, you may have forgotten how to get it syncing in Pro on one machine, read "Playing with GoZync in FileMaker Pro" here.
2. Capture your integration settings.
Next, cloning will erase the integration information you entered into GoZyncHosted. That's not as bad as it sounds, since most of the work of integrating is adding the layouts and table occurrences. All you'll have to do is add the dashboard records for each main layout you're syncing and fill out the first tab of the integration instructions for each layout.*
To make this easier, visit the dashboard of GoZyncHosted and write down the name of each entry listed there. Now click on "Integration & Options" and proceed to integration: for each one and write down the File, Layout, and Table Occurrence from that first integration tab. Do this for the Hosted and Mobile sides. Return to the Zync Options and jot down those settings. At the end of this you'll recreate these settings in your new empty file.
*Note that if you created field mappings (the optional 5th tab in GoZync's integration, those records will need to be recreated as well.
3. Save a clone
Backup your file (really) and the select "Save a Copy As" and select "Clone". Do this for GoZyncHosted and GoZyncMobile. Close FileMaker and throw away your original copies of each file (you have a backup, right?) before replacing them with the cloned copies. Change the name of each file by removing "clone" and the space in front of it.
4. Re-Enter your integration data
Open GoZyncHosted, and using the notes you took in step 2, re-create your integration records. Once you fill out tab 1 of the integration for each layout, you should be able to click through tabs 2-4 and see everything just light up green.
5. Sync.
Open GoZyncMobile and both your hosted and local files. For this first sync, open your mobile file and sync each of your sync layouts (the ones you created during integration) using the "Zync It - This Table" script.
This will move the integration records into GoZyncMobile and make sure you didn't get any integration records wrong.

That's it.

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