Can FileMaker import an Access database?
Jay Boshara
please bear with me.
I am a grant administrator at the University of Iowa, and I have a Microsoft
Access database of student contacts that includes their names, addresses,
SS#, gender, race, and a few other parameters. I am the only person who
uses this database. I just got a new Apple iMac computer, and the way I
have been working with the database is to run Connectix's Virtual PC (with
Windows XP Home) in order to run Access XP on my iMac. However, this has
been a huge pain in the neck and has caused all sorts of work-stopping
problems. So, I would like to get rid of Virtual PC and Access and just use
the Mac OS 10.2 version of FileMaker Pro to develop and work with my
database. But this causes other problems, so following are several
questions about FileMaker:
1) Can FileMaker Pro import an Access database, and if so, how well will
this work? My Access database is not very complicated -- it's really just a
list of contacts (about 200) with their addresses, emails, phone numbers,
race, gender, academic area of interest, etc. There's no special logic or
relational stuff going on.
2) If FileMaker cannot directly import an Access database, can I import it
by converting/exporting the Access database table to an Excel spreadsheet,
then importing the Excel file into FileMaker?
3) If I am able to get my database into FMP, how can I share my database
(this will be rare) with colleagues who only have Access on their Wintel
machines? Is there some way to export my FMP database in some format that
can be read by Access (Excel, for instance)?
4) Does FMP have the same querying capabilities as Access? Often I will
need to separate out all the contacts in the database who are female, or
African American, or some other parameter -- while excluding all the other
contacts who are NOT female, or African American, or whatever. Can FMP
query out records that meet certain criteria? If so, can this new group of
contacts be exported to an Excel spreadsheet (using the OS X-version of
Excel)?
5) What is the latest OS X-version of FMP, and when was it released? Does
it work well in Mac OS 10.2? Is there a good chance that a full version
number upgrade will come out soon?
6) What else should I know before I make this decision?
Thanks in advance for you help. If possible, please send your responses to
Jay-B...@uiowa.edu.
Tim Booth
Jay Boshara wrote:
>
> I am new to this newsgroup and not so knowledgeable about databases, so
> please bear with me.
Not a problem. Side note: This is possibly one of the nicest and
most helpful newsgroups I have ever been associated with, in my
10+ years on Usenet.
>
> I am a grant administrator at the University of Iowa, and I have a Microsoft
> Access database of student contacts that includes their names, addresses,
> SS#, gender, race, and a few other parameters. I am the only person who
> uses this database. I just got a new Apple iMac computer, and the way I
> have been working with the database is to run Connectix's Virtual PC (with
> Windows XP Home) in order to run Access XP on my iMac. However, this has
> been a huge pain in the neck and has caused all sorts of work-stopping
> problems. So, I would like to get rid of Virtual PC and Access and just use
> the Mac OS 10.2 version of FileMaker Pro to develop and work with my
> database. But this causes other problems, so following are several
> questions about FileMaker:
>
> 1) Can FileMaker Pro import an Access database, and if so, how well will
> this work? My Access database is not very complicated -- it's really just a
> list of contacts (about 200) with their addresses, emails, phone numbers,
> race, gender, academic area of interest, etc. There's no special logic or
> relational stuff going on.
If it is not relational, then there are absolutely no issues I
can think of with importing the data. But not completely directly...
>
> 2) If FileMaker cannot directly import an Access database, can I import it
> by converting/exporting the Access database table to an Excel spreadsheet,
> then importing the Excel file into FileMaker?
Yes, this is the way.
>
> 3) If I am able to get my database into FMP, how can I share my database
> (this will be rare) with colleagues who only have Access on their Wintel
> machines? Is there some way to export my FMP database in some format that
> can be read by Access (Excel, for instance)?
You could use the inbuilt Web Companion to allow them to look
at it over the internet (even if that is only to the desk
next to yours). And you can export to a range of industry formats
(.tab, .mer, .csv)
>
> 4) Does FMP have the same querying capabilities as Access?
Quite frankly, better.
> Often I will
> need to separate out all the contacts in the database who are female, or
> African American, or some other parameter -- while excluding all the other
> contacts who are NOT female, or African American, or whatever. Can FMP
> query out records that meet certain criteria? If so, can this new group of
> contacts be exported to an Excel spreadsheet (using the OS X-version of
> Excel)?
Yes and yes.
The Find mode of FileMaker is considerably more intuitive than Access.
>
> 5) What is the latest OS X-version of FMP, and when was it released? Does
> it work well in Mac OS 10.2? Is there a good chance that a full version
> number upgrade will come out soon?
6.0v4 was released last week. 7.0 will be out Q2 2003 from memory.
>
> 6) What else should I know before I make this decision?
>
> Thanks in advance for you help. If possible, please send your responses to
> Jay-B...@uiowa.edu.
That's not the address you posted from, but anyway, yes, a copy to there
as well.
Cheers
Webko
JodiBee
I am in the midst of converting an Access database to an FMP database.
In short, it is worth every little step that I take. FMP is far
easier to administer, from ALL aspects, and is much more stable than
Access. I exported my Access query/tables to Excel and then imported
them directly into FMP. The only hitch was obtaining a "clean" export
from Access, sometimes data shifted to the right which put it in the
wrong column. After a few goes you eventually get a clean dataset.
The other option was to use ODBC, but I found this messy and time
consuming and familiarity with SQL is a must to go down this road.
FMP doesn't have queries per se, but you can calculate anything you
need to either in fields or scripts. Once you get your head around
the change in syntax it will be much easier than you could have hoped
for.
Al
> Hi,
>
> I am in the midst of converting an Access database to an FMP database.
>
I just bought my first Mac this past weekend, and this was one of my
main concerns. I am no database expert (far from it). In fact, I spent
the last year or so learning Access inch by slow inch. I really only
started using it to create a database to track all aspects of my
workouts. This includes running, swimming, rowing, weights, diet, etc.
I have created some really nice forms and subforms based on queries,
and pop up forms that link the data on open, etc. Nice weekly,
monthly, and lifetime queries based on the data.
Of course, now I will need to purchase a copy of Filemaker and learn
that. Can I really do all of the above in Filemaker?
Al in Nebraska
Tim Booth
Yes. Just not the same way.
Cheers
Webko