FileMaker is marketed as being the world’s #1 easy to use database application, so is it not entirely unreasonable to think that you can buy a licence and get creating?

In theory, not at all.  FileMaker is easy to pick up and have a fiddle with, and I’m fairly confident that you could have a basic database together to record details of your projects, customers etc. in just a couple of hours, probably less.   But, if good database design & development was as simple as just recording information, I wouldn’t be writing this, and I wouldn’t have been working with FileMaker for eight years!

Probably before even buying FileMaker, the first exercise is to sit down and plan in details what you want to achieve – what ‘entities’ of information exist in your business (clients, suppliers, subconractors, invoices, purchase orders, etc) and how they relate to each other.  You then need to consider the functionality you require from your solution, and at this point it’s often useful to get the input of everyone who will be using it – they will each have their own ‘wish list’ and ideas for how to become more efficient.  It is important to have a clear understanding of what your finished solution will do before you go anywhere near FileMaker to start creating something.   As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.

As a professional FileMaker developer, I have been asked on a number of occasions to work with a solution that has been developed in-house to add functionality or just “tidy it up a bit”.   Working with someone else’s database is naturally more difficult than your own, as everyone’s style is different, but working with someone else’s database with no documentation whatsoever is incredibly difficult, especially if they haven’t followed any sort of naming convention for tables, fields and scripts etc.   When you’ve not looked at it from a developer’s perspective for a while, even your own work can be confusing, and for this reason I cannot stress enough the importance of documenting your work to a degree that it could be easily understood by anyone with an understanding of FileMaker.   A couple of useful resources are the ‘White Paper for FMP Novices‘ and ‘Database Design for FMP‘ white papers by Foundation Database Systems (scroll down the download page for the second one).

Consider carefully if you have the time available to learn the skills you will need to develop a fully-fledged solution in FileMaker.   Bear in mind that a developer is likely to be reluctant to take a half-baked solution that you’ve been working on, and turn it into the fully-fledged solution you intended it to be, especially if you’ve not documented it and thought it through fully – it is often easier for them to start from scratch.   That isn’t to say you won’t be able to find a developer happy to work with you, in a consulting role, but it pays to have that conversation before you start, if you are unsure as to the time you can commit to the project.

There are many good books that can teach you most of what you need to know, not to mention the FileMaker Pro 10 Bible, and FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual, both available now.

When you’re looking for a FileMaker Developer, and you’re UK based, should you be talking to UK-based or overseas developers?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each, and how can freelance job boards help or hinder you?

A client of mine found my details on a freelance job board, and approached me directly about a project he had in mind and was looking for a developer to take on.  They had posted this project on at least once freelance job board, with the intention of having sensible conversations with a few developers and choosing one to give the project to, based on their own criteria.  In theory, this is a good idea, as you will often get project bids from a handful of experienced developers and be able to open discussions with them privately once you’ve received their bids

The experience my client had, however, was less than ideal.  They were flooded with ‘proposals’ from people who hadn’t even heard of FileMaker, let alone had any development experience telling my client that he “was doing it all wrong” and “shouldn’t be using FileMaker” for this particular project.  Of course, they were wrong.  Not because FileMaker is the best solution for developing absolutely everything, because it isn’t necessarily, but because that was what the client had decided and there was no reason based on the content of the board posting to suggest otherwise.

The problem here, in my view, is one of language and culture.  Whilst I’m sure that there are many overseas developers who are perfectly fluent in English and that understand our work culture, they aren’t the ones that regularly post irrelevant responses on freelance job boards.  As a developer, for some reason I’m fairly regularly contacted by offshore (usually Indian) software developers suggesting that I stop developing and effectively become a reseller for them.    None of them I’ve ever spoken to have had any sort of experience with FileMaker development, yet tell me that they can “learn it quickly” and be at skilled developer level within a week.

The trouble is, when I mention offshore here, I’m talking about the likes of India, the Phillipines, and so-forth.  There is no reason why an American developer couldn’t work for a UK client, and deliver an outstanding solution, however there would be little if anything to gain in cost savings, which appears to be pretty much the only reason for “offshoring” everything these days.

Disadvantages of a UK client working with a UK-based FileMaker developer?  Not sure there are any, and I’m not just saying that because it’s what I do.  You speak the same language, are in the same time zone, and if necessarily can physically meet.  Yes the project might cost you more than going overseas for the work, but I’d bet you’d spend less time chasing missed deadlines, explaining in piegon-English how your business works and worrying how much it’ll cost to fix broken code written in a language you don’t understand.