Overview:
My Design Studio database (macOSX) I created to manage amends to over 300+ items or artwork betwen five users. I have a record created for each artwork with fields created for the: user, artwork code, size, amends and so on. All amends I manually copy into the relevant field.
For initially creating the artwork this works great.

Problem:
Hundreds of amends come in over emails,faxes & phone and content changes 3-4 times in a very short time period. Nobody can tell when the amends have been made and which are the latest.

Can I?:

1 - Get Filemaker Pro 7 to send an email to the user telling them that this record needs action?

2 - Flag up the on the database that a certain record needs attention? ie change the text colour when an amend has been added and allow the user to change it back once corrected.

3 - Have Filemaker Pro 7 scan an email account which I send amends to with the record reference - it then imports the text into relevant fields and sends an email to the relevant user to alert them of a change.

4 - Amends are pdf based and attached to a container can I create a button to launch the pdf in Acrobat so I can check it, then another button to attach the pdf to an email and send it to the client.

5 - Can I track all these amends so I have a log at then end of the job.

6 - Could I set up an on line web site so the client can directly see the most updated pdf amend and input amends into which then get sent direct to the Filemaker database.

7 - Can I create a button to make me a cup of tea at 3.30pm?

any help would be great even a point in the right direction

George

ps I am new to this

Long wish list =)

georgecapellos wrote:Can I?:

1 - Get Filemaker Pro 7 to send an email to the user telling them that this record needs action?

Sure, though from your description I don't know *when* a record would need action. One option would be to set up an "agent" machine for processing inbound emails and running some routine processes. You'd use a couple plugins for this: re'd recommend Waves in Motion's Events plugin to run automated processes, and SMTPit to send mail. More about how ro use these plugins in your situation follows below, but I'd recommend Wave's in Motion's article on Robots as an introduction to this idea of having an agent run yuor automated processes. Once you set one of these up, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

georgecapellos wrote:2 - Flag up the on the database that a certain record needs attention? ie change the text colour when an amend has been added and allow the user to change it back once corrected.

Search file make help for "text style" and you'll learn about the calculations available to format text. Using these in an auto-enter calculation can allow you to apply calculated formatting to a regular text field (a field you can still edit).

georgecapellos wrote:3 - Have Filemaker Pro 7 scan an email account which I send amends to with the record reference - it then imports the text into relevant fields and sends an email to the relevant user to alert them of a change.

Of course. You'd use a slightly different plugin to read mail (POP3it) though I imagine you'd read it on the same agent machine described above so that you could run a single script every x minutes that would process incoming mail and then email relevant users after manipulating the appropriate FM records.

georgecapellos wrote:4 - Amends are pdf based and attached to a container can I create a button to launch the pdf in Acrobat so I can check it, then another button to attach the pdf to an email and send it to the client.

On the emailing side, SMPTit supports attachments, so you could certainly get the email-to-a-client thing working. As for opening your PDFs, once you store the PDF in a container field, FM7 will let you export the field contents so that you can get the pdf out with a script- other scripts could then open it in its native application or attach it to your email.

georgecapellos wrote:5 - Can I track all these amends so I have a log at then end of the job.

Sure. By judiciously adding logging actions to the relevant scripts, you can build a text log of all sorts of database activity pertaining to a record.

georgecapellos wrote:6 - Could I set up an on line web site so the client can directly see the most updated pdf amend and input amends into which then get sent direct to the Filemaker database.

The details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this forum, but FileMaker 7 provides two ways to do this: Instant Web Publishing and Custom Web Publishing. Both would require FileMaker Server Advanced to deploy the site to more than a few users. Check out FMI's description of Server Advanced for more info.

georgecapellos wrote:7 - Can I create a button to make me a cup of tea at 3.30pm?

Unfortunately we can't do tea. But we can get you a coffee cup.

Create a new AppleScript called CoffeeBreak. The contents of the script will be

Code: Select all

tell application "Terminal"
   activate
   do script "fmsadmin PAUSE"
end tell

Place this inside the the /Library/FileMaker Server 7/Data/Scripts/ folder.

Now open FileMaker Server Admin and click the Schedules button. Choose Action menu > Schedules > New Schedule and choose RunScriptFile for the the type of task; select "CoffeBreak" from the list of available scripts. In the Schedule section choose "daily" and every <1> days to specify the frequency. Enter 3:30pm as your start time. Click Accept.

Unfortunately we can't do tea. But we can get you a coffee cup.

Create a new AppleScript called CoffeeBreak. The contents of the script will be

Code:
tell application "Terminal"
activate
do script "fmsadmin PAUSE"
end tell

Place this inside the the /Library/FileMaker Server 7/Data/Scripts/ folder.

Now open FileMaker Server Admin and click the Schedules button. Choose Action menu > Schedules > New Schedule and choose RunScriptFile for the the type of task; select "CoffeBreak" from the list of available scripts. In the Schedule section choose "daily" and every <1> days to specify the frequency. Enter 3:30pm as your start time. Click Accept.

Absolutely hilarious.

If I would've been drinking, you'd owe me a keyboard.

FAO: Court Bowman

Thanks very much for your quick response, I have managed to solve item 2 from your advice and that is great for the moment. A time stamp proved to be very useful.

Item 7 (Coffee break script), well I think I might anoy a few people, but looks like fun! (I will do it anyway)

The rest of your advice sounds great but a little beyond me at the mo, can anyone recomend somewhere in the UK London area where I can get training?

George Capellos