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By Hayden Hobbs 
Posted on 
August 10th, 2022 
in 
Free Downloads, Claris FileMaker

FileMaker Dashboards
When making a robust solution
in FileMaker that you want to suit your needs best, it’s important to consider
the app's purpose and projected user
pool. As more and more
users enter the file and use it for their needs, the higher the priority to filter
down the system's records on a per-user basis
becomes. Thankfully, with
the addition of a system dashboard to your FileMaker project, you gain a fast
and user-friendly way to present the data
of each user without the need for slow
and bulky found sets.

Why A Dashboard Matters

Consider a FileMaker solution where you are presented with a form view of Sales Invoices upon opening it. The system will likely be unsorted, and
the only way to see the Sales Invoices for a particular user is to search in Find Mode for that user and then tab through each individual record. It will
be a slow, arduous process to view all that data, especially as the size of your data set grows. However, with the addition of a system dashboard, you
can now view all of that data from a splash screen. Before, it would have required performing a find search and clicking through each record; now,
you can simply scroll through a portal with all the relevant data. A dashboard saves you and your users time, efficiency, and money.

Creating a Dashboard
To create a dashboard for your system, the initial step will
be to create a new table; this new table will be used as the ‘mediator’ of
sorts for each
table you have in your system. This table will be called "SESSION”
and will be based on the individual user session at any given time. With this,
each
user can see their own relevant data from the moment the file loads up for
them, increasing efficiency.
Create
a new layout for SESSION and set up a navigation from this new layout to the
pre-existing layouts and create an in-layout navigation—we’ll
be using a tab
control for this example. Set up the tabs to correlate to your data sets: we’ve
made tabs for sales tasks, a calendar displaying these
tasks, sales prospects,
sales quotes and invoices, as well as shipping. For each data set, we’ll need
to create a relationship between our new
SESSION table and the corresponding
data table.

These relationships will be

based on global fields within the SESSION table—this allows the dashboard to
remain the same no matter what record
you’re on, allowing each user to keep
their dashboard the same for their entire time in the system. Code examples of
how to create a filter for the
dashboard using these global fields are provided
in the sample file, the FM Quickstart dashboard. FM Quickstart is DB Services' free FileMaker
ERP template. The full FM Quickstart template can be downloaded for free on our official FM Quickstart website.

In this example, the dashboard has already been created. However, for the purposes of this article, you can still follow along.
Back on the dashboard, create a new portal for each tab you’ve made using these new relationships. Each of these portals forms the basis
of the
value of a dashboard in your system: a quick, easy way to view your data
without having to go looking for it. You can even edit these relationships to
add additional parameters to filter these portals. The more
filters you add, the more you can fine-tune the data you view! 

Conclusion
Dashboards in FileMaker solutions are an excellent way to increase your app's value and speed up your users' workflow. They
remove the need for
constantly using found sets to view the data you want and
allow you to view the entire system in a quick sweep—right from opening the
project.
The return on investment for a system dashboard is incredibly high,
and we firmly believe that they are a valuable necessity in any new FileMaker
project. If you'd like assistance creating a dashboard in your FileMaker solution, DB Services is ready to help. Contact us today and let's talk about
what we can accomplish together!

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Hayden Hobbs
Hayden is a reliable, patient, and consistent application developer who takes pride in creating systems that help clients reach their
goals. She will go above and beyond to help a client or coworker when they are in need and enjoys collaborating with and supporting
others.