Hi everyone. I have a rather large project I’d like to undertake, but I can’t seem to find many tutorials in terms of how to build something like this. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction? Basically, I want to build the following:
A client information processing platform that interacts with the website and the programs on internal company computers. Here’s how it should work:
Client fills out a form.
Data is passed to E-Mail and to the server that then goes to a FileMaker Pro file.
Form information goes to FileMaker Pro on company computer and fills in all specified fields automatically.
One field in FileMaker Pro can be used for manual status updates and can be updated at will and data saved for later.
Your post seems to indicate you don’t know PHP at any level at all. This forum is for advanced topics, so such posts tend to be ignored. Your question is barely more technical than those of clients and only serve to raise questions like
Why Filemaker? Why not MySQL like nearly every other PHP ap?
Why go to an email then put that email directly into a Filemaker file? This indicates to me you don’t know how web forms work at all.
I could go on but won’t. All PHP programs take information from webforms, commit to a database, and display reports on some level. So a study of the existing programs, like Joomla or Drupal is in order. One of them might be close enough to what you need to do. Or it might need modifying. Hard to say.
Excluding PHP_CLI and PHP_GTK then. I’m pretty sure it’s a safe bet those account for only 1 in a 1000 PHP scripts, so the generalization still stands.
If I say “All mammals give live birth” that is technically incorrect since at least one mammal species, the platypus, lays eggs. But such technicalities aren’t normally required and such pedantry is normally displayed only by know-it-alls and smart alecks not interested in giving anyone any real help but instead solely interested in showing how smart they are.
PHP is normally used to build web applications. I’ve used PHP_CLI for backend admin tools of a web application, but only because I wanted to reuse data model code from the web application. So I’m quite aware that it can be used for other things. Your gainsay adds absolutely nothing to this conversation.
Regarding my level of PHP coding experience, I can build my own forms and PHP scripts to interact on the front end with no issue. My question comes into play when trying to get these forms to interact on a server level and output the data into another program like I describe.
To answer your questions:
Because Filemaker is what is being used by the office.
Please re-read my question (below). I’m not talking about putting the email directly into a Filemaker file. The form submits the inquiry to a specified E-Mail address and also submits the information to the server, then into a file maker file after it reaches the server. So an @ address gets the exact email submission, while the same submission can be sent to Filemaker at the same time as well.
Data is passed to E-Mail and to the server that then goes to a FileMaker Pro file.
Any help you can provide by pointing me towards tutorials that can help me accomplish this would be fantastic.
Filemaker is relational, therefore it should have some sort of connectivity. My first thought with unusual database engines is to use ODBC, but that’s a windows thing and Filemaker IIRC is usually Mac. It has to be possible, I’ve connected PHP to an Access database before and anyone familiar with Access should know what kind of a nightmare that was
(Funny part about it is I told the boss we should use MySQL or MSSQL if he wants to stay on MS tech. He insisted on Access so hey, he’s the boss. The results where so nightmarishly slow he came back asking for MySQL implementation cause, at this point the funds where running too low for MSSQL. Fortunately for him I’d taken care to keep my SQL portable and the move over the MySQL was as painless as a driver class switch.)
