Today’s the day for a new FileMaker review! Word is spreading that Claris has just released FileMaker 2023. It’s big news, and we are excited to tell you all about it. We were honored to have Claris representatives join us just five days ago as the very first guests on our podcast, the FileMaker DevCast: Everything FileMaker. Listen on PodBean or Apple Podcasts. We think you’ll find the conversation engaging and informative.
We talked with Rick Kalman, Director of Product Management, and Ronnie Rios, Product Owner for Claris Connect. They answered a lot of questions and gave us great insight on what’s been happening behind the scenes and about the continued expansion and modernization of the FileMaker and Claris platforms.
We covered the launch of FileMaker 2023, with the free Claris Connect tier, and other aspects such as OAuth 2.0, updated audit logging, FileMaker Go, internal version numbering, the Set Error logging script step, Docker, and the future of WebDirect as Claris Studio evolves. Thank you, Rick and Ronnie! Our FileMaker developers appreciate your input, and you are welcome back anytime.
It’s the newest version of the Claris FileMaker platform.
“Building on the success of the Claris FileMaker 19 open platform, FileMaker 2023 allows you to create the most robust and secure operational apps faster than ever before. This latest version of FileMaker focuses on supporting the scale modern businesses require to stay competitive.
— Claris International
Claris continues, “With FileMaker 2023, you can trigger a Claris Connect flow with a simple script step, so it’s easier than ever to integrate your custom apps with all the other apps your business relies on every day. You’ll have the ability to automate workflows that eliminate manual tasks and dramatically increase productivity.
Claris Connect will be available with a free plan, so you can jump right in to connecting your FileMaker apps to your other apps like Slack, Twilio, Outlook, and a LOT more.
Upgrading to FileMaker 2023 automatically delivers significant security, performance, and availability improvements. During our podcast Rick provided a wealth of information about how this change will benefit you and your clients.
Rick shared, “In May we will have been on the FileMaker19 set of releases for three years. And in that time, we’ve had significant enhancements to the platform. One of the things that we began to understand is, people are used to us advancing the product by whole numbers and not to stay on what I call the 19-dot-x timeframe. And so may not have been aware that we’ve been advancing the product that entire time. So because we don’t do annual monolithic releases anymore – we do, on average, about three or four releases a year – we decided it made more sense to move to a naming convention where it’s the year or the season of when the software is applicable.”
This perspective reflects the sentiment shared by Claris in yesterday’s company announcement, “Referencing current FileMaker versions by release year will naturally represent the ongoing iterations of the FileMaker platform. The release year numbering pattern also makes it abundantly obvious to users that they have the current FileMaker version, with the latest features and the best performance, security, and reliability.”
Rick explained, “Sometimes we put features in for the citizen developers and ease of use. But this release is squarely focused on the professional developer, and also there’s some significant stuff for server administrators.
My definition of a professional developer is someone that makes their living, or a significant portion of their living, creating and supporting FileMaker applications. These days, a lot of consultants do more than just FileMaker and they have other other tools in their toolbox, but at least someone who is making their living off of that. Someone who knows the platform, is familiar with it, and is looking to to do more with it.”
Rick provided more detail about how he sees the platform working together. “The Claris platform is built on top of the FileMaker platform and all of its mature capabilities. So within the Claris platform, there’s something called Claris Pro. That is FileMaker Pro, full stop. And then it has some additional capabilities that it needs, to be able to talk to the Claris platform. The Claris platform is everything you’ve come to know in the FileMaker platform, all of the parts of it, and then with the addition of Claris Connect and the introduction of Claris studio.
Claris Studio is a modern web-based app experience and allows you to really easily deploy web forms and other web applications. And it’s got a two-way communication ability between Claris Pro and the Claris Studio data. Claris Studio is sitting on top of a Mongo data stack and of course FileMaker uses Draco, and so the differences are fundamentally the ability to be aware and intercommunicate into that platform. So I would say it’s the FileMaker platform with the addition of Connect, and the enhancement in the availability of a much more modern web stack.”
Listen to the FileMaker DevCast to hear Rick share about some of his favorite new features of FileMaker 2023. There was only time to touch on a few of them, so you can also review this more extensive list below.
SCALABILITY *
*Connections are limited by hardware, custom app design, active users, operating system, or license agreement/subscription.
SECURITY
DATA RELIABILITY
WEBDIRECT
DEPLOYMENT
INTEGRATION
FILEMAKER GO
LATEST OS/CHIP SUPPORT
Addressed hundreds of customer-impacting bugs
Yes! Ronnie Rios covered the aspects of Claris Connect during the DevCast. You can jump right in and use any of the connectors from the Claris Connect App Directory. It’s easier than ever to simplify and automate so many things for your clients, with just a little bit of setup.
Ronnie explained, “From a capability standpoint, nothing. You’re going to get everything that is included in Claris Connect. There is no limitation there. Where there’s going to be a difference is in how many calls you can execute within a timeframe. For the free tier, we’re going to be limiting it to 500 steps a month, which would be great for most new use cases – to get you up and running, to learn the platform. If you outpace that then you have plans where you can continuously grow.
Because the Claris platform includes Connect, it includes Studio as well as, as the FileMaker platform is rebranded as the Claris platform. And so not only are we going to make Connect available, but we’re also introducing a new script step in FileMaker that allows you to trigger a Connect flow via script steps. We’re beginning to bring those products together, more closely and completely, into the Claris platform. You’ll see more and more features on one side being powered by the other.”
Ronnie outlined some elements of the new script step. He said when talking to customers about the biggest pain points in using Claris Connect with FileMaker, the feedback was about getting a flow going – the amount of steps and the back-and-forth required. So this script step starts to reduce the work needed to set things up and get up and running.
The flow trigger in Claris Connect remains the same. But now there is a new script step in FileMaker 2023. It will work with the script trigger from the FileMaker server connectors. But it will also work with existing web hooks from the HTTP utility, or both.
Claris continues to reiterate their commitment to the FileMaker platform, while also developing the exciting potential of Claris Pro and Claris Studio. Are they satisfied with stale and stodgy? No way.
“Thousands of businesses run their operations with FileMaker apps at the core of their tech stack — some for decades — and over 50,000 developers build apps on the FileMaker platform. Claris Partners lead the way in delivering value to our customers. We believe getting our customers to the most performant, stable, and reliable version of the FileMaker platform benefits us all. Let’s look forward to working together to promote and deploy FileMaker 2023.
This release is included for anyone who has current annual licensing. Check your license link, or contact your licensing representative.
We’re pretty jazzed about the improvements that this new version brings and we’re glad to work with such a powerful and stable solution. If you are a Claris FileMaker developer, leave us a comment about how FileMaker 2023 will impact your processes and approaches.
Are you a business owner or manager who would like to modernize and enhance elements of your existing solution? Or are you ready to move beyond Excel spreadsheets and your burgeoning collection of notes and documents and into the world of FileMaker 2023?
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