This tutorial describes how to connect GroupMail Business Edition to contacts stored in a FileMaker Pro® database. I am using FileMaker Pro 9 (installed locally) on a PC. The process is similar for older versions of FileMaker and a similar approach can be used for FileMaker Server editions.
This approach configures a group within GroupMail that allows you to work directly with your contact data stored in FileMaker Pro.
There are 4 steps involved
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Step 1: Sharing the FileMaker Pro Database |
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Start FileMaker Pro and open the Database you wish to access from GroupMail. First off it is recommended that you set a password for the FileMaker file via the File->Change Password... menu option. Now from the menu choose File->Sharing->ODBC/JDBC... to display the ODBC.JDBC Sharing Settings screen shown below.
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Set the ODBC/JDBC Sharing: option to On and set the ODBC/JBBC access to file to either All users or Specify users by privilege set. Choose OK to save the sharing settings
Note: It is not recommended that you have spaces in the database file name or in the field/column names as these will most likely cause problems when attempting to connect with ODBC.
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Step 2: Set up ODBC Driver |
In brief to set up the ODBC driver
- Run the ODBC installation included with your FileMaker CD from the location \cDBC\ODBC Client Driver Installer\
- Set up a Data Source Name (DSN) in Windows for this driver
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Both the above steps are described in the following FileMaker document. The relevant sections are Chapter 2, Page 12, ODBC client driver installation (Windows) and Chapter 3, Page 17 Accessing a FileMaker database file from a Windows application for installing ODBC and the FileMaker DSN respectively.
In my case I was using a trial version of FileMaker so did not have access to the FileMaker CD, but I was able to download it from the FileMaker site here. |
I named the System DSN I configured for FileMaker FileMaker Source as shown in the screen below. In my case this points to the FMMailingList.fp7 database that I want to access from GroupMail.
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In the following section we will use this DSN to configure a group in GroupMail to access contacts in our mailing list. |
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Step 3: Create Database connection in GroupMail |
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Open GroupMail and choose Tools->Database Connections Manager from the menu. To configure a new database connection to out FileMaker database choose New. This displays the Create a New Database Connection screen shown below.
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Enter a descriptive Name and click the Wizard button to show the Data Link Properties screen shows below.
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Choose the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers from the list and choose Next
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Select the FileMaker Source DSN created previously, and enter a User name and Password and tick the Allow saving password check box. Click the Test Connection button to verify the connection is working, if all is working the message box below should appear.
Note: that the user name and password details are set in FileMaker. If running the desktop edition of FileMaker Pro, you will need to ensure the FileMaker Pro is running and the database is open in order to successfully test the connection.
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Choose OK on the Data Link Properties screen to return to Create a New Database Connection shown below.
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You will note that the Connection String is now populated. You will need to select the Static option from the Cursor Type list. Finally choose OK to complete the configuration of the FileMaker Pro database connection in GroupMail, after making a note of the Name, FileMaker FMMailinglist Database in this case. |
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Step 4: Create Group in GroupMail |
Now we will set up a group in GroupMail that uses the database connection created in the previous step. This will allow us to view and send mailings to these contacts stored in FileMaker.
If you are running the desktop edition of FileMaker Pro you will need to start FileMaker and open the database you require access to.
Now open GroupMail and click the Groups icon on the main toolbar, and choose New Group from the left navigation pane. The Create a New Group screen is displayed.
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Select the External Database ... option and choose Next. Select the Database connection created in the previous step from the list (FileMaker FMMailinglist Database in our case) and choose Next again to display the Select Records step shown below.
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The FileMaker Pro database FMMailingList is automatically selected in the Specify Database Table list. By default this will return all contacts from this database. If for example we only wanted contacts from this database where there is an email address, click on the [Filters] link to add a filter to accomplish this as shown below.
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Instead of using filters, SQL can be used to return the required contacts, on the Create a New Group screen click on the [SQL] link to display the Advanced SQL Query shown below.
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The above SQL returns the same contacts as the previous Filters example. Use the Results... to verify that it returns the required contact details. Note: As mentioned previously if there are spaces or some other non alpha-numeric characters in the database name or the field names then this may result in some problems when attempting to access the FileMaker data from GroupMail using ODBC.
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Choose OK to return to the Create a New Group screen and choose Next to continue.
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Choose the field name that contains the email address of the contact from the FileMaker Pro database, and choose Next to continue
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Finally specify a group name choose Create to complete the process. The name specified should now appear in the groups listing in GroupMail. Double-click on the group to show the View and Manage Recipients screen shown below.
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It may be possible to add, update and delete your contacts in the FileMaker Pro database directly from GroupMail (depending on the user privilege set being used in FileMaker). Please be aware that when working with groups where the recipients are stored in another application / database (FileMaker in this case), most if not all GroupMail operations will be slower than if the recipients were stored in a standard GroupMail group.
Other than the performance issue you should be able to access the contacts in FileMaker pretty seamlessly once the configuration steps are completed.
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