“Every moment you spend in our platform is an act of trust – you trust that the platform will be here and Claris will be here to support you, so your development skills are more valuable in the future than they were yesterday.” — Brad Freitag, CEO, Claris
The pact we have with our developers is essential because without you, our software does nothing. You rely on our technologies to deliver the significant capabilities, allowing you to solve the hard problems that matter to your organization. Our latest release, Claris FileMaker 19.6, delivers the promises we’ve made to you by continuing to invest and advance FileMaker.
FileMaker 19.6 gives you highly anticipated tools that many developers requested. We heard the collective voice of our community — thanks for all of your suggestions — and we’re pleased to launch a release that offers more improvements in performance, reliability, and security than ever before.
These enhancements make the FileMaker platform the best rapid application development environment to build customized, integrated apps even faster and more efficiently than any other platform on the market. Check out what’s new and why the Claris Platinum Partners we interviewed can’t wait to put the features to great use.
Gain better control and data integrity with transactions.
“This FileMaker release is significant. There’s a possibility to make solutions run faster if you’re leveraging transactions and for code to be more concise. The code becomes more readable and maintainable, with a potential for even more longevity.” — Vincenzo Menanno, chief innovation officer for Beezwax Datatools Inc.
Since transactions provide better control and higher data integrity through automation, it’s no wonder why the Claris Community is eager for this enhancement. Using scripts, you can make changes to records in batches and automatically roll back those changes if an error occurs during the operation.
Use transactions to create, edit, and delete sets of records. This feature is ideal for accounting, invoicing, and other financial apps when it’s important to have modifications to a group of records happen simultaneously, ensuring your logic executes accurately.
Quickly create clone only backups.
“On large databases with very resource-constrained servers, clones can take 30 minutes to do. Now with FileMaker 19.6, that’s gone. We’ve tested this thoroughly and very large files cloned almost instantly. We did a test on a 40-gigabyte file, and it cloned in about six seconds. It’s amazing to see in action.” — Todd Geist, chief technology officer with Proof+Geist
Couldn’t agree with you more, Todd. Creating a clone of an app hosted in FileMaker Server without having to back up data or verify the file really saves developers a lot of time.
Administration gets even easier.
“Every improvement in the FileMaker Admin Console is valuable, especially the feature remaining available when the server is down.” — Russell Watson, lead FileMaker developer at Günther Business Solutions
Gain more fine-tuned control over app access with new Administrator Roles function in the FileMaker Admin Console. This enhancement gives you the ability to administer a subset of available apps using a distinct username and password along with a chosen subset of privileges. Plus, you can access FileMaker Server Admin Console even when the database server goes down, expediting troubleshooting and file management.
Trust enhanced security and authentication.
“The FileMaker Admin API now has a public API key, which we can generate — great for DevOps and automation. Now we can generate an API key, which allows us to use the FileMaker Admin API, but we can revoke the key at any time. This feature is something I plan to make heavy use of, that’s for certain.” — Todd Geist
Developers have more granular security and authentication features at their fingertips to ensure apps remain secure and private. For example, the FileMaker Admin API can be authenticated using public key infrastructure (PKI), allowing other applications to leverage the FileMaker Admin API without being given full access credentials to FileMaker Server. Plus, you can now use Apple ID to sign into Claris apps for more streamlined authentication.
In addition, FileMaker Server Admin Console and FileMaker Admin API let you restrict access by IP addresses to reduce the chance of a brute force attack. And to further protect unauthorized access, Filter Databases is now enabled by default, which requires authentication credentials to view files on FileMaker Server (also usable with FileMaker Data API). Something to know: Disabling this option might expose your database list to unauthorized third parties. Learn more.
"Can’t wait to use it!”
When we asked our three partners to give us their closing thoughts, all stated their eagerness to use the new features. Here are a few additional remarks.
“I’m not aware of any other Claris release with the sheer number of changes that were made in FileMaker 19.6. The extreme volume of items the Claris Engineering team addressed in a given cycle is bigger than ever before.” — Todd Geist
“FileMaker 19.6 changed keyboard shortcuts, which revolutionizes using them on my German keyboard. This enhancement makes my daily work so much easier! Shortcuts may seem like a small thing, but for the international community, this change is huge. I also appreciate the set dictionary script step — an improvement that’s quite beneficial for non-American users.” — Russell Watson
“Some of the things within the recent FileMaker release are small, like my favorite little feature, the UTC microsecond buddy …it’s going to be a big deal. A lot of these little gems are scattered throughout this release. And the enhancements aren’t just on FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Server has some good benefits as well. I’m excited to see how much work Claris has done, and I’m really grateful these enhancements are now in developers’ hands.” — Vincenzo Menanno
The features explained above are only a handful of the enhancements included in this FileMaker release as well as more than 100 bug fixes. Check out the release notes to learn all about FileMaker 19.6.
Get your hands on this release.
Before you upgrade, be aware the future of FileMaker is the new Claris platform, which extends the power of FileMaker with cloud technologies so you can solve more problems across your entire organization. And with either of our bundle programs, you get both FileMaker 19.6 as well as the Claris platform, letting you continue to run FileMaker apps at no risk while you plan and develop for the future with Claris.
- Option 1: site licensing. Problem Solvers Circle eliminates barriers to access with streamlined licensing that gives everyone in your entire organization the freedom to use the entire Claris platform — that's Claris Pro (the FileMaker experience you know and trust), Claris Studio, and Claris Connect.
- Option 2: volume licensing. With Claris Platform Bundle, you get the same platform tool set listed above, but only a certain number of users have platform access — this is like the licensing you have now.
If you choose to go with a bundle program, know you have the flexibility to decide term options as well — one, two, or three-year terms. Something you’re interested in? Learn more.