Hi. We have a number of customers currently that are changing their account types (some new variable are added some are taken away, etc...) It does not look like most of what is available script (logic) wise is appropriate (I do not want to run the create script, am not removing and adding billing items, etc...) but I need changes to occur outside of Optigold when the type is changed... One idea that I have is to create a "Generic" script and then when an account is changed from one type to another the changee would click "Scripts", "Auto Server Run Generic Script" and select (say) "Update This" which would post the stuff I need posted in the places I need them placed. (Unless I am missing a "if account type changes automatically do this" script variable in the scripting tools...in which case please let me know.) This, however, requires extra steps for Optigold users and opens the door to things being forgotten (even scripts not running right for other reasons, etc...) and so another idea is to run an export, say once a day, of the user-id and account types, and then feed them into the places they need fed. As far as I know though this also requires a number of cumbersome human steps (to run the export and then act on it, etc...) (Perhaps something with automated tasks could do this...every night extract userid and type and post it to a file...then I could have a script act on that file in the morning?) What would be best (I think) would be if I could make an ODBC connection to the filemaker database and poll it for the information I need (useid, account type, status). I was wondering, thus if anyone has any experience with that and/or what/how to ask it for those values? Thanks! Sam - FSI
I have been able to go in through the web interface (essentially) and extract useful data using XML strings and the url of my web interface. Is that the basic model that you are getting at? And if so is there a way that I can change the Optigold filemaker "style sheet" settings? It appears that when I query a record in (say) mainmenu.fp5, it neccessarily gives me the whole record (sans web-security_.fp5 disabled content) which is cumbersome (especially for large scale checks). (That is if I wish to query a username for its account type (or all of them to look for changes) I get back nearly the whole record, many empty fields, etc... which I have to later filter....which slow things down a lot on the web interface.) This could certainly be me misunderstanding the filemaker/xml dynamic, but generally it seems that I should be able to make style-sheet changes with filemaker and then have xml ask for what I want in that style (like "just username and type fields" for a quicker extraction of all (without all of the extras)...but it looks greyed out in my Optigold. Am I on the right track even?
FileMaker uses the layout tag (-lay) for determining what fields to give you. The data model (in the support section) defines what fields are on what layouts (if you are needing to get at something specific).