Database Project

I got the opportunity to work with FileMaker Pro 11 this week. You may remember the Excel Project I completed a couple weeks ago. This was very similar in regards to organizing data and making it more useful. I already had a good deal of experience with Excel, but with FileMaker Pro 11 is was starting from scratch. I had never used this software before. Consequently, I learned a great deal more than I did with the excel project. 

• The first skill I learned was how to set up validation of fields. This is very useful in reducing the number of careless errors that appear in a given report. You can either make a list of acceptable "values" that can appear in a certain field, or you specify acceptable values using an equation with operators. Validation is helpful, but only scratches the surface of what FileMaker Pro is capable of. 
• Next, I learned how to create forms using the layout function. This is more of an organization and aesthetic tool. Forms show a single entry with all specified fields. You could make a form that only lists name, birthday, and gender. I don't know how that particular information would be useful in a business environment, but it could be done. Forms are a very clean way of displaying data. 
• The penultimate skill I learned was how to use queries, or "finds" in the case of FileMaker Pro. It's a simple procedure of filtering data by whatever you want really. You want to see all the people with birthdays after January 18, 1975? Easy. How about all the people who are male, from Orlando, and have two dogs? As long as you have a field for gender, city, and number of dogs, you can find this information with a few clicks. 
• Best of all, I learned how to create reports. Yay... Reports, while boring, are a powerful tool for sorting data, organizing it in a clear format, and getting it ready to print. With reports, there are no limitations to how you can sort your data. You can apply finds and print out targeted data. While I learned a lot about FileMaker Pro, there is still so much to be learned. 

There are only a couple enhancements that I can think of that would improve the effectiveness of the database. The first would be a validation for both the Join Date and Left Date. These should be validated through an equation that would not allow dates before the company opened or after the current date. It would be a simple validation and would help to avoid simple errors while entering dates.  It might also be useful to add a saved find that shows all people who have left the gym. By using the find "<=//" in the left date field, only people who have left the gym will show up. These are a couple changes that could reduce mistakes and make the database more useful. 

I also attempted to create a script. I feel that it went very smoothly. I didn't run into any problems, and it worked exactly as I thought it would. There are certain situations in which scripts could be incredibly useful, but for this project it didn't improve efficiency at all. It was a good learning experience for when I use scripts in the future.