Late last year we went live with a website that was fundamentally a big database that was accessed and maintained through a browser. It was fantastic because it was secure, easy to design around, flexible to port the data to other websites for other purposes, and maybe most importantly – accessible to anyone in the office that had an Internet connection and a web browser. At home, at work, on the beach, where ever – as long as they were connected to the web, they were connected to their live data.

Here's the basic web interface.

Where the app fell short was when it was time to do something like mailing labels, a custom export (first name, last name, email, etc), form letters on letterhead, or even custom searches. This all sounds easy enough. In fact I think I’ve done all this stuff in the mid-90′s with Microsoft Works. But it was a real bitch to do through the browser.

Enter FileMaker. The little database program that I’ve been working with since the mid-90′s is all grown up and does amazing tricks. One of those tricks is to let you connect to an online MySQL database to view and edit live data. Problems solved!

Here's the FileMaker view. Look at all those layouts & reports!

Once I was connected,creating custom layouts and reports was easier than ever. The FileMaker / MySQL combo gave the client the best of both worlds.