Impending FileMaker Pro migration
FileMaker Pro version 9 was recently released. FileMaker is rather silly about its version numbering; FileMaker 8 was released less than two years ago, and FileMaker 7 only 18 months before that, and really, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the three versions; they are all cross-compatible in terms of file format and server access, and the feature enhancements in later versions probably won’t be of major interest to most users.
However, we still see a lot of databases and servers in L&S running even earlier versions of FileMaker, as far back as FileMaker 5.5 or 6. Those versions are over five years old, and most importantly, they are not cross-compatible with any of the newer versions. That is, you can’t open a FileMaker 6 database with version 7, 8, or 9, and vice versa. Because more and more departments are using different versions, it’s becoming harder to share databases, and to support the older software versions.
For LSCR-supported databases, we’re working on a migration plan that will move all of our FileMaker 5.5 and 6 databases to one of the more modern versions. We’ll be implementing this plan over the next few months, and we’ll be asking customers who are still using the legacy versions to purchase upgraded software when we migrate their department. It won’t be necessary to upgrade if you currently have FileMaker 7 or 8, but we want to be off FileMaker 5.5 and 6 by the end of the calendar year.
If you run your own databases and/or database server, I highly recommend developing your own migration plan at this time. Moving databases from the older versions to the FileMaker 7/8/9 format is not particularly difficult, but it does require some attention and work on the part of the database developer. FileMaker, Inc. has a good collection of documents on how to approach the process yourself, or you can contract with LSCR to manage your migration.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
We upgraded our suite of 60+ files a few months ago, it was a lot of work with all the testing and stuff but the outcome was definatley worth it, with all of the new features we now have access to, such as variables, script parameters, the web viewer, script organisation etc.
One thing we found very useful in preperation for the upgrade was MetaData Magic, very useful in predicting potentional upgrade problems.
Comment by Adam Dempsey — July 30, 2007 @ 3:20 am
I was looking at this, and I think you might want to clarify…
It’s not that you can’t open an older database (pre-version 7) with a newer version (version 7 & up), you can. It’ll just convert it to the new version, leaving an unconverted copy behind, as well. The real problem is that you can’t open a converted database with an older version of FileMaker.
Comment by R. Amsbury — August 6, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
Thanks for the comments; MetaData Magic looks interesting, although it’s not inexpensive (pricing starts at $200, based on the number of database files; there is a free demo to download). It could definitely be useful if you have large or complex databases.
And yes, FileMaker 7/8/9 can open databases from earlier versions of FileMaker; when you do so, the database will be converted to the new format, which FileMaker 5.5/6 won’t be able to read. Thanks for the clarification, Robert.
Comment by tom — August 7, 2007 @ 10:36 am