Show data from FileMaker on a Dashboard on a website

Hello dear FileMaker developers!

I have a potential new customer here. He would like to provide his customers with the analyses of surveys among their employees as a dashboard. The results of the surveys reside in a FileMaker database.

What is the best way?
One idea is to show the dashboard on a WordPress website. To see the data, customers have to log in to the website. Of course, each customer is only allowed to see their own data.

Who could help me with this? First of all, it's about the rough way how this can be realized. When it comes to the realization, I would like to book someone.

Or do you think this would be too complicated? Webdirect and Concurrent Connections would make more sense?

Best regards
Udo

Well, I would just run a scheduled script every few minutes to collect the data and write a html file to some folder, which can be reached from the web.
So the file is served without Web Direct and provides the results.

Or you write a PHP script doing it via data API on demand.

Or you load web direct in an IFRAME to go to a database with guest account to show the layout.

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There are multiple possibilities. Probably most deciding factor are the skills needed.

One option would be to push data to Wordpress by scheduled scripts (or triggered PSOS). That would need Wordpress skills to use WP api and make custom data collections there. This would be the most performant way but might be overkill. Data would be "cached" to WP and no calls to FMS outside.

Skills needed: More WP deveploment knowledge (WP, PHP, MySql) and some FM skills to create the script in FM end.

Another option would be to one of the FM's apis: Data api, odata or xml api. Last one is only one that currently doesn't use data api usage limits. In this case I would create a script in FM that generates the data (and gives wanted customer's data only). That script would be called from WP. WP plugin could be written that calls the FM script with data api, odata or xml api, and then handles the data to wanted format. I would probably start with this one because it is more simple than the first option.
Skills needed: FileMaker, PHP, some WP knowledge to make it.

Then another possibility would be to push data to some data/charting service that could be used. Depends what data and how it will need to be shown.

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Another possibility is to process in FileMaker and push the data to a SQL table via ODBC or ESS. The website would be coded to use the SQL table to display the dashboard. AMP skills are all that's needed to create the website. This option could allow customers some degree of indirect interaction with the FileMaker solution.

Lastly, though not a website approach, you could simply email a PDF form of the dashboard to customers if the dashboard is not interactive. This keeps all code to FileMaker. This also assumes the information contained in the survey results are sufficiently non-sensitive that they can be sent via email, insecure while in transit.

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Thank you @MonkeybreadSoftware , @villegld , @bdbd for your valuable suggestions!
I will think about the different options you suggested and then maybe discuss one or two of the options with the customer.
:blush:

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I was running a system for a small finance company that was designed to allow clients to monitor their accounts via the web. We used a combination of FileMaker in the cloud with Wordpress. Because security was paramount we needed to have a lot of separation. We also designed the system so that the most exposed element (Wordpress) carried the least data.

Client Side
Client logs into Wordpress with name/email
Client dashboard displayed
The dashboard triggers a Data API query. Wordpress displays the result.
Only data stored in WP is Users, and help pages
No financial information is stored in Wordpress.

Infrastructure
Server 1: Private: Accounts
Server 2: Private: Data transformation
Server 3: Public: Claris Cloud
Server 4: Public: Wordpress

Scheduled Automatic Processes
Data transferred daily from S1 to S2.
Data processed on S2 to transform from raw state to match tables in FMP
Processed data transferred daily from S2 to S3 via Data API

Manual Processes: Internal
New customers entered into FMP on S3

Triggered Automatic Process
New subscriber account generated in Wordpress on S4 when new customer account is confirmed.

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Thank you @Malcolm for your detailed description.

A new thought:
From the looks of it, my customer could also purchase a site license from Claris. He has only a few employees. He would have to take a Site License with 25 users (= minimum). The Site License seems to allow customers and subcontractors to also access the FileMaker database via Webdirect.
This would offer the possibility to implement everything directly in FileMaker. Even the surveys could be done via Webdirect in that case.

Can anyone of you confirm this?

The idea came to me when I went through the hosting and licensing options on @FabriceN's website fmcloud.fm.

I can confirm this. A site license treats employees and contractors alike. Claris also told me it allows customers to access a solution via WebDirect to address the customer portal use case. Unsure if the license allows it or Claris tolerates this. User count matters here.

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Thank you @bdbd ! That's cool! Then I will suggest this way to the customer.

Thanks again to all for your great suggestions. I will keep them in mind. Maybe I can use one or the other in another situation.

Since You are imho from Germany: You can always call Klemens Kegebein from the FileMaker-Magazin by phone - he knows licensing the best, in every detail

I believe bdbd is correct

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Yes you can!
Since you mention it, by asking fmcloud.fm’s chatbot, you will always find the best license for your situation by answering a few questions. Customers already saved more than $100,000 combined, just in licensing, compared to their previous license. Mostly because of the Site license but not only that.
And… it knows the prices in ALL countries.

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In fact, I had talked to Klemens on the phone a few days ago. However, I had made the mistake of asking him specific things instead of telling him about the customer's situation.
I tried several things to get an answer as soon as possible. I emailed both their support and Klemens yesterday after browsing fmcloud.

@FabriceN has already replied here this morning and also by mail.

Thank you @FabriceN for your answer here and also for your email.

I'll leave @bdbd 's post marked as the solution, since he was the first to confirm my reasoning.

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