Today I got Zapier plus the free "fmgateway" (connects FMS to Zapier) working with Outlook.
The best news is that since this is a single trigger and a single action , it's totally free forever at Zapier (as long as there aren't too many emails). Their paid plans are very reasonable also, if needed.
The fmgateway connector writes directly to the FMS tables using the action I chose. You pick the field names as you set up the "Zap" (a Zap is the trigger plus actions). All interactive. No Data API, no coding. I like coding, but heck, this was just too cool!
You can request a free invitation of the fmgateway here:
I became curious as to how fmgateway connects to FMS, and so I followed the link above.
From some of the requirement steps, it looks as though it uses the Data API. This is not in any way to say that you haven't made a great find -- on the contrary, it seems like an excellent fit for you. I'm just trying to clarify (for myself) the technology that is underneath this that makes it work.
fmGateway absolutely rocks. Use it for dozens of clients now, Ken and the guys at soSIMPLE are rockstars! It's honestly the main reason why I haven't even bothered to try out Claris Connect - Zapier has loads more options, and has a free tier, so it's a no-brainer from that perspective.
Sorry, yes, you're right...what I meant to write was that there is no explicit Data API stuff you have to do other then having it turned on and configuring fmgateway. It's as seamlesss as possible.
OTOH, when I called FMI to ask about CC, the support person I spoke with didn't know exactly what was required for CC to do the same thing (for not nearly free). He implied some manual Data API work would be needed. In fairness, however, he really didn't seem to have any confidence in what he was saying and had to put me on hold for every question so he could get help...
I had posted a question on the Zapier forum that was answered in minutes. Perfectly.
+1
Zapier is also less expensive for my uses even when the free tier doesn't work (like you have multiple steps in your Zap). Like FMS (though I do use it), I'm baffled at the pricing points for CC (which I don't use and don't see how I ever would).
Thanks James!
I should also say their site documentation is a bit out of date. In your screenshot it references FileMaker 17, but I can confirm fmgateway works with FMS 19 also. The company will be updating their text here to FMP current versions after I brought this to their attention yesterday.
A very minor documentation oversight given the awesome technical, free, working tool they make available.
Just an amazing tool!
James, don't know if you've tried this, but when I fill in the script area in fmgateway, it seems to hold the server connection open and doesn't actually run the script until a bit later. I can't manually run the script either as I'm told that record is in use by me. However, if I remove the run script script name, it works fine and I can execute the script manually. It's not a big deal since the client can just do an automated script step of some kind.
Have you encountered this?
Thanks,
Hi Oliver - I've found that the scripts actually run OK, but don't disconnect, so they hold the connection open. For this reason, I create a custom private set with the fmdisconnect attribute set to 2 mins or so...
I saw that connection hold-open issue also. Where is the "fmdisconnect" attribute? Is that set in the Zapier setup?
There is also another minor, but annoying, bug with the fmgateway I found. That is, if you have an empty table and you try to "Refresh Fields" in Zapier, the metadata does not get sent back and the screen refreshes but with no DB fields.
As long as you have at least one record, then you can click Refresh Fields (in Zapier), see the fields, and then map them to FMP fields.
Since the fmgateway website still has not been updated beyond FileMaker 17, considering these two rather obvious bugs, it doesn't seem that this free connector is a high priority for the company. Don't know for sure, of course and I did hear back from them eventually. Nice folks.
Sorry, the correct term I was looking for was 'Extended Attribute' - as defined in the Filemaker file Security Settings. You can specify how long a user should be disconnected after:
