FileMaker migration to a custom web app

Why businesses plan a FileMaker migration

FileMaker is a capable platform, and plenty of businesses have run on a FileMaker solution for years. Most of the moves we see are not because FileMaker stopped working, but because the business changed around it:

• The solution was built by one in-house power user or a single FileMaker consultant, and that person is retiring, leaving or hard to reach.
• Licensing is per user, so adding seasonal staff, contractors or a whole new department means buying more licenses each time.
• Staff on Windows, Chromebooks or phones need access, and the full experience is really built for FileMaker Pro on a desktop and FileMaker Go on Apple devices.
• You want customers or partners to log in and see their own records, and WebDirect was not designed to be a public-facing portal at scale.
• Finding FileMaker developers is harder than finding developers for mainstream web technologies, so even small changes wait in a queue.
• The file has grown over the years into hundreds of layouts and scripts that nobody fully understands.

FileMaker alternatives compared

If you are looking for a FileMaker alternative, these are the paths businesses usually weigh up:

• Stay on FileMaker and move to Claris FileMaker Cloud or a hosted FileMaker Server. Least disruption, and a good choice if the solution fits well and you have a reliable FileMaker developer. It solves hosting, not the licensing or developer questions.
• Move to a no-code tool such as Airtable, Zoho Creator or Knack. These work for simpler databases. Complex scripts, calculated fields and printed layouts such as invoices are hard to recreate, and pricing grows with users and records.
• Move to Power Apps if you are a Microsoft 365 business. Fits teams already on Microsoft tools, but rebuilding FileMaker scripts and relationships takes real work and licensing depends on the features you use.
• Rebuild as a custom web app. Your tables move to a standard database such as PostgreSQL, your layouts become web screens, and scripts become code that any web developer can maintain. Anyone with a browser can use it, with no per-seat platform license.

What we bring across from FileMaker

A FileMaker file mixes data, design and logic in one place, so the migration covers more than the records:

• Tables and the relationship graph, mapped to a properly structured database.
• Calculation and summary fields, rewritten as logic and checked against FileMaker’s results.
• Scripts and buttons, turned into actions, automations and scheduled jobs.
• Layouts, including printed ones such as invoices, work orders and labels.
• Container fields, so stored PDFs, photos and signatures come with the records they belong to.
• Value lists, privilege sets and user accounts, mapped to roles and permissions in the new app.

How a FileMaker migration works

1. Review the solutionWe go through the tables, relationships, scripts and layouts, and list what each part does and who uses it.
2. Talk to the people who use itWe find the steps that live outside the file: exports to Excel, printed reports, things people track on paper.
3. Design the web appYou click through designs of the new screens first, so the workflow feels familiar and the awkward parts get fixed.
4. Build in roundsWe build the most used areas first and you review each round with real screens and test data.
5. Export and check the dataRecords and container files are exported and imported, then counts, totals and key reports are compared with you.
6. Switch overYour team moves to the web app on an agreed date, and the FileMaker file is kept as a read-only archive.

What it costs

Custom projects at Zoti start at $499/month, on a monthly plan covering design, development, hosting and ongoing changes. The price depends on how many tables, scripts and layouts the solution has and how much stored data needs to move. You get a written quote before work begins, after we have reviewed the FileMaker file. Since the new app has no per-user platform license, adding people later does not add license fees.