When we first started working on the next calendar I wrote down a short list of the things I thought were hard to do in the currently shipping version. The new calendar had to make these things easier.
Here is an excerpt from that list:
- “Has to be faster– opening over WAN is just too slow and that is more and more the deployment we’re seeing: almost everyone has at least one remote user.”
- “Adding new columns to the resource scheduling screen“
- “Adding new layouts (go back to native tabs)”
- “Synching with iCal”
- “Resizing layouts”
- “Adding a new filter we hadn’t anticipated”
- “Showing events from more than one table”
- “Modifying the event detail layout so it could become the hub of a user’s workflow”
- “Pasting the calendar into your own file”
15 Comments
Have you seen the product addressbookserver.com? (not the Apple product)
It is an address book and calendar server and includes a method to connect to the address book and calendar data through mysql / ODBC.
http://trac.addressbookserver.com/trac/wiki/FileMaker_Configuration
This has not been tested by me, but would seem to offer a direct connection from Filemaker to the Address Book and Calendar data.
It would be also nice to integrate calendar entries into the billing section.
As such, one would be able to easily create a time billing system.
ie a calendar entry could be marked as billable for the amount of time designated and for the $ amount designated. Each user would have a hourly rate etc…
We’re definitely going to be doing that, though not in the first calendar coming out in January (our replacement for Pro). Billing will be in the subsequent replacement for Pro Complete. We’re basing the billing component on a couple of cool mods requested over the last two years where we added invoice line items right to the appointment detail screen. So you can easily bill the appointment’s duration, but also easily add products or other services right there. And since you’re effectively making the invoice there, you’ll be able to print it right from the appointment as well. Should make ass sorts of professional services billing simpler.
Ed, since you already license Complete, so I’m not sure I understand your question. If you’d like to get inside the new calendar and see how it works you can purchase it at a discount (purchase an “upgrade”). We’ll have pricing when we’re closer to launch.
If we upgrade to Pro Complete, are we able to get Pro to see how things work?
Have you looked at directly supporting the CardDAV server (address book server) that is built into Snow Leopard Server?
Probably not doing CardDAV yet, just an improved version of the vcard export / import in our current calendar. But you never know. (Address book just isn’t a business platform–it’s so single user–but import export to refresh its contents onto your mobile devices seems to make sense.)
iCal integration is kinda important.
Do you think that you can either:
1. do it without a plugin?
2. support the iCal connector plugin?
3. develop a custom plugin?
4 or ?
We have an amazing solution to this on tap… more soon.
Address Book sync for contacts?
I don’t know if it’s possible, but something I’d like to see, because it would make the work in our industry MUCH more efficient, is an easy way to duplicate an event from the calendar, like the drag and drop.
Hi Kyra- we’ve added the ability to option-drag an event to duplicate it (hold down the option key while dragging). Is that what you had in mind?
Partly because I have since before FM’s Custom Menus and partly to get pop-down menus attached to any button/object. I also find Dacons Menu writer much easier to use and I do get a pile of other little ‘features’ which FM still doesn’t offer. Originally used CNS Menus way back but now use most of Dacons plugins. I find them easy and elegant.
Wish list looks pretty much like one I would have written. iCal integration not that important as xplat is now the order of the day. Resizing layouts is very important to Windows users, Showing events from more than one table is magic.
In a previous comment I noted that we are using the current calendar as an activity ‘hub’ for virtually every action a client can do from phoneIN, phoneOUT, onsite etc…many of which are not time related conventional calendar items. We’re also combining Todo activities into the Calendar table to get a combined overall view.
I’ve reset a ‘Home’ screen showing a Calendar Week in smaller portals and a list of todo items on the same screen, by user, as the first screen a user sees on daily login. Also converting most menus to pop down’s (Dacons MenuControl)
Slick. Wondering why you’re using Dacons instead of FileMaker’s Custom Menus. (Yea, you’ll love the mix of tables in the same view.)