Hello there,
anyone-else here suffering from removing the great feature of FMS16 and before to be able to watch the log within the admin-console?
curious to know how you work around?
I used it mostly to debug PSoS scripts and to observe how connected clients interacted. Zabbix won’t help since it requires another service to run on the server.
Maybe others feel the same here and we can request to bring this amazing feature back! Thanks
Fortunately we got a new console with 17, but lost many features 
. Will we get those in V 19, maybe the next roadmap will tell.
I have to say my faith in FileMaker in going down. I just don’t get what Claris is doing to FileMaker. V 18 is a failure. If 19 is the same, times will be hard. Is someone trying to kill the product ?
I would not expect the “live log” to come back to the admin console.
As for what to do in it’s place? Zabbix or Nutshell Console are likely your best 2 options.
Claris is trying to position itself as a player in the mash-up service-space. Being able to connect to all the web APIs without writing code will be great. It’s a big selling point. It’s something that has been possible - to greater or lesser extent - forever with FMP. However, it did require the developer to have some good web knowledge. Nowadays there are a lot of great web services with good APIs, making it very easy to connect. In addition, there are specialised tools that are crushing FileMaker, such as HubSpot, because they are doing one thing well.
The FileMaker product has been stuck because it can do anything but a) it does nothing out of the box (low value for plug-n-play consumers) and (2) it is seen as a toy (low value for IT consumers). I’ve always seen FileMaker as being like Lego. You can make anything you like ( except a circle ). For decades now, Lego does not sell a box of bricks. It sells kits that make a specific object.
I wish they would do more to allow us to get server onto Linux. It is extremely difficult to explain that FMS will not run on the world’s most common and popular server platform. The biggest hurdle I find with clients is that they want the product but they want low cost of entry servers and that means CentOS/RHEL/Debian linux running on a VM.
How do you define “crushing FileMaker”? They only have 64k customers worldwide. They are also not the same type of product at all. That would be like comparing FileMaker to MailChimp.
The direction that Claris, as a whole, and the FileMaker side of the company are going is very exciting. Todd Geist had an excellent article, and DevCon session talking about how FileMaker fits into the current business flows and where it is heading. Great stuff all around.
What I mean is that these services are thriving in spaces that FileMaker could do very well.
The direction that Claris is taking should improve things because HubSpot and others can be plugged into the FileMaker workflow.
Gotcha. Makes sense.
There are a couple of things in fms we are missing here - and I have no solution handy
We are working in environments where we have no access to the server machine but the admin console (that also means that sometimes we are really missing the old ‘upload’ feature that allowed to upload directly via admin-console)
At the moment, we can not use external tools here
I have to agree with you Malcolm. We’re seriously considering abandoning our SaaS model, at least for smaller companies, not for any technical reason but due to the intransigence of Claris’s licensing, we can’t compete with new vertical products that allow both cheap hosting and customisation.
We’re OK with our SBA products, where we can do shared hosting, but the minute we try to compete with another vertical product that allows customisation, then the prospect of not only our small company customer having to have their own server, but the additional overheads for us to manage the thing, makes it a non-starter.
We frequently receive forwarded emails from our customers highlighting these new offerings.
FileMaker is a fantastic product, but despite us having some of the most secure Windows servers out there and that no customer ever has access to any of these servers (everything is controlled by us) we have been talking to deaf ears at Claris on this for 4-years now.
We can’t use FMC as we need Windows Servers for things like streaming Microsoft Word as part of our own ‘platform’, which FileMaker is part of. I’m afraid, I believe calling FileMaker a platform is a misnomer. A platform is something you can build upon to meet your needs. Our needs are our businesses needs, not what we are told we can or cannot do and with shared hosting “unlikely to ever return”, we continue to look at every option open to us, as are our customers.
I’d ask that my comments aren’t turned into a Claris or licensing bashing session after this. We love FileMaker and really like our Claris contacts, but I just don’t believe the direction they are traveling will meet our business requirements in the future, which is really hard to say having been unofficial evangelists for over 30 years.
I’m suffering from the lack of consistency:
agreed!
Although we are FBA, we do no longer sell licenses (we do help customers in license questions - by calling the license-guru (Klemens from the german filemaker-magazin). They process the ‘buying’ - part for us.
Further on, we got customers with sensitive data - therefore we can not store data in a foreign country (means no FMC). Makes me somewhat nervous when thinking about possible scenarios in the future (all cloud, all renting,).
We did tests with AWS anyway - but learned that there is no (human) support, at least not for our level of knowledge (tried to move an install from a location in the US to Frankfurt…)
Another problem here is that we feel like squares that won’t fit in round holes (remember John Appleseed?) - we got customers with only one client but with the need of a server, customers with less than 4 clients, small companies with the need of online-forms (connection licenses…), etc.
Beside of this, we feel quite comfortable with filemaker as a platform - but life won’t become easier with all things like api, server management (v18 is better than 17 in some aspects)
Yes, the square peg in the round hole is how we also feel. Ironically, we are genuinely trying to use FileMaker as a platform to provide professional systems in vertical markets. However, I don’t believe we are included within Claris’s focus, which is a shame as we can sell more licenses very quickly for them having these systems ready for use.
However, we’ve carried out a lot more traditional LAN based development for customers this year, which has given us good income, some taking 12-months to develop, but Claris will only get a small income as the system is complex but the client is small and have no interest in a cloud based solution.
This is what I have failed to communicate with them. We can sell more licenses with more freedom, but it appears that licenses are no longer their focus, subscription is via their cloud product. This is fine if their cloud product meets business requirements, which I believe it does in some cases, but not all. The cloud first strategy will further alienate their traditional customer base, so I hope it attracts a new type of customer for them.
If we were to consider another platform to achieve our business goals, would we choose one that is trying to move in this direction, or one that is designed from ground up for it? I watched an AWS database webinar last Tuesday and the presenters (Moshe Shelly, Solutions Architect AWS and Yaki Zakai Architecture AWS) emphasised ‘do not get locked in using a proprietary database’ and then went on to extol the virtue of their own databases. This is the partner FileMaker have chosen for their FMC (although I am intrigued by the rebranding ‘FileMaker Cloud for AWS’, is there a hidden message there?) and here AWS are saying ‘don’t do it’.
At the moment, we have a good income from FileMaker based work, but unless we can obtain some constructive business related communication with Claris, I’m not optimistic this is going to continue. However, until that day (might) come, we’ll continue to be as positive as we can and be a proactive partner of Claris and still enjoy the capabilities of their current product.
When co-hosting was made a license violation, there was big talk of security concerns as the very reason for this step. There was a benefit of doubt at the time. Now there is evidence that this was a heavy-handed business grab. What‘s next?
What do you see as different between FMS17 and FMS18 regarding the AdminAPI? I’m looking at my Postman collections, and they are almost completely identical, except for the v1 vs v2 part of the URL, and how you log out.
Sorry, this is simply not true. The security issues may not have been FileMaker security issues...but there were absolutely security issues. And since users, and some ( not all, but some ), hosting providers refused to help close some of the security gaps caused by users ( read that hosting their sensitive data with Admin/no password ), FileMaker was forced to act.
I respectfully disagree. The EULA already dispensed the platform provider from any kind of liability for a user or hosting provider omission in terms of security.
This is like leasing a 6-seat mini van and the carmaker makes me sign a contract that makes taking other people than 1st degree family members for a ride a violation of contract, because he has no trust in my driving skills.
Take a look at Todd’s blog post and his session at DevCon. There is beginning a shift in how custom apps are being used. Instead of rebuilding the service that others have already perfected ( or made way better and cheaper ), there is often a need to connect services. Custom Application Networks and Innovation - Geist Interactive
There are some areas that I am not completely on board with yet. However, this is a real shift that is happening. The days of building standalone custom apps where FileMaker is the single source of truth are fading. I believe there are still a ton of businesses out there using such apps, but there are new businesses coming and growing that don’t want to install an application, and will pay for 4-7 SAAS apps that all do part of what they need. What they need at that point, is a bridge app, as Todd calls it. Something to bring together the data, and help them run their business. FileMaker and Claris Connect will help fill those needs.
It will be an interesting time to see where things go from here.
I stated in my original post - zabbix is not an alternative - I would like to know if other developers suffer from the same deprecation of the live log like we do and try to find a way to communicate it to Claris aka FMI …
While I understand your analogy, it’s not related to the reason the change was made. Everyone screams when they see data breaches in the news…but then when it’s pointed out to them that their data is exposed and vulnerable, they shrug it off. To this day, you can go to a shared server running an older version of FMS and access a lot of data from hundreds of companies.
That is the only reason for the change. Claris had to do something to protect the reputation of the platform, because the users were leaving themselves exposed. Forcing them to have a private server, to a large extent, helps with that…and if nothing more, limits the footprint of what an attacker can access to a single company.
It was pretty smart really. The sad thing is the effect it had on companies there were diligent with their files, both client companies, and the hosting providers themselves that were very security conscious.
The new admin console lost valuable features. Doing daily business with the product’s own admin console should be a no-brainer. Less tech-savvy admins will not dabble with zabbix or other third-party tools.