At this year's FileMaker conference in Salzburg, I gave a presentation on how to connect a FileMaker database to other systems such as online stores, content management systems like WordPress or Typo3 or other SQL databases. In my presentation, I used a connection from FileMaker to an xt:Commerce or Gambio online store as an example. I will show you a method for easily integrating any external database that can be accessed via ODBC into a FileMaker database. In this way, data from all kinds of third-party systems can be integrated into a FileMaker solution and brought to the PC or Mac desktop and, with FileMaker Go, to the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
In my workshop, I explain how an online store (e.g. xt:Commerce or Gambio) can be connected to a FileMaker database. I will first show how database tables from online stores that are based on a MySQL database can be transferred together with their content to any FileMaker database with just a few mouse clicks. Based on the data tables transferred to FileMaker, a script-controlled connection to any existing FileMaker database can then be realized. The workshop shows how articles can be exported from FileMaker to an online store at the touch of a button and how orders and customer data can be imported from the online store into the FileMaker database.
With such a solution, the administration of an online store can be greatly simplified and recurring operational processes such as the recording of customer and order data can be automated in FileMaker.
Topic overview:
- Access to MySQL databases with ODBC
- Setting up an ODBC data source under Mac OS X and Windows
- Transferring data tables from an online store to FileMaker
- Script-controlled connection of the store data to any FileMaker database
- Creating and changing data records in a MySQL database from FileMaker
