ISO FileMaker Magazine

When you need to display data which is dynamic by nature, it tends to boil down to who's viewing the data and how do they need it presented. There's typically more than one way to solve the same problem and knowing what your options are helps you make a good decision when it comes to displaying that data.

In this video, I showcase what I would consider are the top three methods of displaying dynamic data. Starting with the easiest method first, we talk about how to make things easier by using a templating method to get the dynamic data on screen or for hard copy output.

From there, I discuss the other options you can use for presenting data dynamically from within FileMaker.

What would a database solution be without the ability to send email? Well, it would be a database solution without the ability to send email - but who wants that right?

Email is obviously an integral part of our modern day communication. And, despite what the Twitters, Facebooks and Instagrams of the world would have you believe, email is here to stay.

The easiest way to add email support to a FileMaker database is to simply use the Send Mail script step. But, that’s boring, and sometimes it doesn’t work. Especially when you’re using an email client not supported by FileMaker. The Send Mail step alone also has limited use when, most of the time, the intended objective is to integrate data from the database.

Therefore, we need to integrate the data from our fields. The easiest way to do this is to use FileMaker’s <<mergeFields>> right within the content of a text block somewhere on the layout, or off to the side of the layout, and then using the function GetLayoutObjectAttribute ( “My_Merge_Email” ; "content" ).

The problem we hit is that this is not user friendly. You don’t often give users the ability to edit layouts. So why not emulate the way FileMaker works with merge fields and simply do the same thing using data which is stored within fields?

This video showcases one of the most streamlined and easy-to-implement solutions for handling merge values into content stored within a field. Using the content provided here you’ll have an email merging and sending solution within mere minutes every time you need it!