dotfmp.berlin 2023

Using proven technologies and industry best practices to develop robust, responsive web applications that integrate with a wide range of data sources, web services, APIs and backend technologies. 

There is not always an app for that. Despite the existence of millions of apps, there is still plenty of room for innovation and improvement. A custom app can put your product or service in the hands of new customers. 

Mobile development is not just for apps. A majority of your clients are likely interacting with your website and applications using their mobile devices. Responsive design, small screen-friendly functionality, and speed over cellular networks should be a part of the strategy when developing or designing any digital product.

Software product development combines software engineering principles with agile methodologies to enable iterative development, frequent testing, and continuous deployment. The process involves several key phases, including requirement analysis, system design, implementation, and maintenance. Essential tools used in the process include version control systems, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and automated testing frameworks.

Imagine a world where you log in to a single application that handles all your business needs. Integrating the disparate applications you use into a single functional application using pre-built or custom APIs can lead to this single app world. The bidirectional movement of data can happen seamlessly in the background of your application saving you time and money.

Software ages quickly. Rethinking your system may be daunting, but procrastinating can be costly. Leverage your existing solution with innovations, including a new definition of how you work today.

Mapped out over months (or years) in phases, priorities can line up with budget. We approach redesigns incrementally: improvement with integrity, and future flexibility, comes step-by-step.

Upgrading to the latest FileMaker version provides advanced capabilities such as improved scripting tools, robust integrations, and enhanced multi-device support. It includes better encryption standards, native JSON and RESTful API support, and compatibility with the newest OS platforms. The upgrade boosts database performance, introduces AI and machine learning enhancements for automation, and ensures compliance with modern security protocols. Upgrading is also a time to review your solutions, analyzing issues that need to be addressed, and even rethinking to best support changes in your goals and workflow.

Improving FileMaker performance involves analyzing bottlenecks in scripts, layouts, and schema. Techniques include minimizing unstored calculations, optimizing relationships, and using server-side scripts. Indexing fields properly, consolidating layout elements, and employing efficient queries reduce load times. For hosted solutions, network latency and concurrent user load must be balanced with FileMaker Server settings. Regular maintenance—such as file compaction, log monitoring, and hardware tuning—ensures sustained performance gains.

InspectorPro builds better collaboration, performance, and insight for FileMaker teams. We can help you learn from InspectorPro’s insights to see how best to make improvements.

Beezwax uses InspectorPro to analyze your FileMaker solution. Our consultants identify issues in scripting logic, relationship graphs, and structure, offering detailed insights on bottlenecks, technical debt, and optimization paths. The consultation is ideal for users needing in-depth, actionable intelligence for high-stakes deployments or major upgrades.

Consulting Options 

• Setup & Onboarding - Get InspectorPro installed, configured, and running—fast.
• Slack + GitHub Integration - Automate alerts and version tracking with best-practice workflows.
• Custom Reports & Dashboards - Tailor InspectorPro outputs to match your team’s review process.
• Code Review & Risk Analysis - Identify red flags, performance bottlenecks, and technical debt.
• Version Comparison Insights - Track changes across deployments and refactors with GitHub integration.
• Automated Workflows - Set up recurring scans, alerts, and backups that run like clockwork.
• Team Training - Empower your dev team with InspectorPro best practices and troubleshooting tips.
• Schema Clean-up Projects - Remove dead tables, fields, TOs, and scripts based on InspectorPro analysis.
• DevOps for FileMaker - We help you treat your FileMaker development DevOps practices—version control, automation, and collaboration.

Got something else in mind? Need a hand? Or ready to dive in? Let’s get started.

Book a Consultation

Properly architected systems are more reliable, scalable, and easier to automate. The relationships between various components within the system should be defined in advance to provide optimal performance and security.

Securing AI systems extends beyond model alignment and prompt filtering. Architectures need scoped service accounts, least-privilege IAM, secret rotation, and isolated execution contexts. Telemetry captures prompt, retrieval context, tool calls, and output, with immutable audit logs tied to user and session identity. Data flows require classification, redaction, and access policies across vector stores, retrieval indices, and downstream systems. Threat models cover prompt injection, exfiltration via tool use, and over-permissive integrations.

We bring you modern UX, design patterns and best practices because good design is always a goal, from how software looks to how it works for users.

Beezwax regularly offers FileMaker training -- for users and developers -- tailored to your organization and your skill set.

Claris Connect is a powerful automation and integration platform designed to link various applications, databases, and cloud services. It enables businesses to create seamless workflows using prebuilt connectors and API integrations. With event-driven triggers, webhooks, and conditional logic, Claris Connect reduces manual data handling, enhances system interoperability, and accelerates digital transformation. It supports low-code and no-code development, making automation accessible while ensuring robust security, scalability, and efficiency across business operations. 

Claris Connect Available Apps

Marketing & Email: Active Campaign, Autopilot, Mailchimp, Mailgun, Sendgrid.

Education: Apple School Manager, Custom SIS.

Collaboration & Productivity: Asana, Calendly, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Trello, Zoom.

Developer Tools: AWS Lambda, AWS S3, AWS SES, AWS SNS, AWS SQS, Claris FileMaker Cloud, Claris FileMaker Server, MySQL Database, OpenAI, Particle.

Cloud Storage: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive.

CRM & Support: Freshdesk, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk.

Artificial Intelligence: Clarifai, Google Translate, MonkeyLearn.

Project Management: Jira, Smartsheet.

E-Commerce: Shopify, WooCommerce.

Electronic Signature: DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, iTrust.

Messaging: Chatwork, Twilio.

Payments & Accounting: QuickBooks, Stripe, Xero.

Other Services: Eventbrite, SurveyMonkey, Typeform, WordPress.

Our team of FileMaker experts will utilize InspectorPro 8 to conduct audits of your FileMaker solutions, identifying inefficiencies, broken dependencies, and security risks. InspectorPro 8 is an advanced analysis tool designed for FileMaker, it utilizes DDR (Database Design Report) data to generate visual reports, highlighting schema relationships, script references, and security settings. Its ability to cross-reference dependencies makes it essential for managing complex FileMaker solutions efficiently.

With JavaScript and FileMaker, you can create layout components and widgets that can be viewed in the Web Viewer, visualize data using AJAX, and integrate RESTful Web services.

Looking for the Latest? InspectorPro 8 Has Arrived: Upgrade Your Workflow Now!

Better collaboration, performance, and insight for your FileMaker teams.

Using InspectorPro, FileMaker developers can analyze their solutions to gain insight into performance. It can detect problems and warnings, identify references and dependencies for any element, compare differences between solutions, and review security privileges. InspectorPro allows you to share development progress with your team. This can help you to stay organized and to work more efficiently.

Use InspectorPro to analyze your FileMaker solutions:

• Detect problems and warnings
• Identify references and dependencies
• Compare differences between solutions
• Process DDR on Server (PDoS)
• Share development progress with your team
• And so much more...

Video Resources:

• Registering InspectorPro
• Generating XML DDR
• Importing a DDR
• Adding Accounts
• Navigation
• Search with LOgiCATOR
• Comparisons
• References
• Manual References
• Problem Reports
• Global Search
• Dependencies
• Notes
• Tags
• Slack integration
• Targets
• Styles
• Security Perspective
• Table Distance
• Script Monitor
• Extra Information

InspectorPro Consultation:

InspectorPro builds better collaboration, performance and insight for FileMaker teams. We can help you learn from InspectorPro’s insights to see how best to make improvements.

A consultation will help you maximize InspectorPro's capabilities and make the most of its reports. Learn More

 

Better insight, performance and collaboration for FileMaker teams.

Using InspectorPro, FileMaker developers can analyze their solutions to gain insight into performance. It can detect problems and warnings, identify references and dependencies for any element, compare differences between solutions, and review security privileges. InspectorPro allows you to share development progress with your team. This can help you to stay organized and to work more efficiently.

Use InspectorPro to analyze your FileMaker solutions:

• Investigate and catalog problems in your solutions. 
• Build a checklist of development fixes.
• View references and dependencies, analyzing their impact on your solution.
• Keep track of changes, when they were made and by whom.
• Share this info via FileMaker Server, Slack, etc, while collaborating with a larger team.

The Power of FileMaker XML 

Now that FileMaker provides Save a Copy as XML, InspectorPro can collect, analyze and report on a more complete set of metadata. This enables InspectorPro to better collect, analyze and report on the architecture and code in your FileMaker solutions.

InspectorPro Consultation

InspectorPro builds better collaboration, performance and insight for FileMaker teams. We can help you learn from InspectorPro’s insights to see how best to make improvements.

A consultation will help you maximize InspectorPro's capabilities and make the most of its reports. Learn More

Video User Guide & Introduction

Chief Innovation Officer at Beezwax, Vince Mennano, walks you through this in-depth tutorial on using Inspector Pro 8! In this video, you will learn the essential steps to start with Inspector Pro 8, from setting up your account to leveraging powerful features for analyzing and managing your FileMaker 2024 solutions.

Between the time we write this to the time you read it, technology has changed. Technology is constantly evolving, and yesterday's advanced skills might be today's basic skills. Staying on top of the changes can be difficult, so working with trainers is a great way to keep up with the pace of advances.

InspectorPro Is Now Free: GitHub Versioning, Slack Alerts, and Powerful Analysis for FileMaker 

InspectorPro is the result of thousands of hours of FileMaker expertise—and it’s yours, free. Using InspectorPro, FileMaker developers can analyze their solutions to gain insight into performance. It can detect problems and warnings, identify references and dependencies for any element, compare differences between solutions, and review security privileges. InspectorPro also integrates with Slack for real-time alerts and GitHub for version tracking and change attribution. This makes it easy to share development progress with your team, stay organized, and work more efficiently.  

Use InspectorPro to analyze your FileMaker solutions:

• Investigate and catalog problems in your solutions.
• Build a checklist of development fixes.
• View references and dependencies, analyzing their impact on your solution.
• Automatically summarize scripts in plain language using AI.
• Track changes—who made them and when—using GitHub.
• Get notified of schema changes via Slack alerts.

The Power of FileMaker XML

Now that FileMaker provides Save a Copy as XML, InspectorPro can collect, analyze and report on a more complete set of metadata. This enables InspectorPro to better collect, analyze and report on the architecture and code in your FileMaker solutions.

InspectorPro Consultation

InspectorPro builds better collaboration, performance and insight for FileMaker teams. We can help you learn from InspectorPro’s insights to see how best to make improvements.

A consultation will help you maximize InspectorPro's capabilities and make the most of its reports. Learn More

Video User Guide & Introduction

Chief Innovation Officer at Beezwax, Vince Menanno, walks you through this in-depth tutorial on using InspectorPro! In this video, you will learn the essential steps to start with InspectorPro, from setting up your account to leveraging powerful features for analyzing and managing your FileMaker solutions.

LOgiCATOR is:

• the modern, powerful yet intuitive search UI your FileMaker apps need 
• fully modular and easy to integrate highly customizable 
• a pioneering example of a new way to add lightweight, modular functionality to FileMaker solutions 
• a great tool for learning how to use FileMaker card windows and JSON functions 
• totally free!

Learn about how to install and use bBox on our Wiki. 

Additional Resources 

• Download
• Documentation wiki
• Function List
• bzPython - Python with FileMaker
• pandas with Python for FileMaker data analysis
• XML parsing with FileMaker and bBox
• curl HTTP post from FileMaker
• Installing xhtml2pdf on OS X
• JavaScript for FileMaker with bBox
• bBox 1.04 with updates for FM DAPI, XPath, SQLite 
• bBox v0.99 with JavaScript, Python 3 and M1 Apple silicon support 
• bBox for FileMaker v0.98 with M1, GraphicsMagick & Sips

bzAuditLog is a comprehensive auditing solution that allows you to easily track changes made to your data. With just two tables, one field, and one script, you can log all modifications made to your database, as well as schema changes.

With bzAuditLog, you can have peace of mind knowing that all data modifications are being tracked, giving you a clear picture of who is making changes to your database and when.

bzBond takes Claris FileMaker web integrations to the next level, providing tools to support you on your web technology journey.

From dynamic and responsive user experiences to ultra-focused server-side microservices, bzBond blends web and FileMaker best practices to help you create, deploy, and enhance reliable web-powered solutions.

End-to-end web integration tools:

• bzBond-js - JavaScript API for getting FileMaker/Claris Pro script results to web viewers using JavaScript promises
• bzBond-claris - FileMaker/Claris Pro assets for managing bzBond-js interactions and storing, deploying and testing web code
• bzBond-server - extensible server-based microservice that enables JavaScript in the FileMaker/Claris Server script engine

Also includes:

• create-bzbond-app - create new bzBond-integrations with a single command
• bzBondRelay - run JavaScript code right from FileMaker/Claris Pro scripts on client or server
• bzBond-web-template - the core of bzBond web integrations, including bzBond-js and build tools for seamless deployment in solutions

Transport Management for Schools and School Districts has never been easier. 

This module provides functionality that we can deliver to you, as part of a custom development project. Please download a demo, or indicate your interest by clicking the "heart" above.

The bzPubber Module

bzPubber generates and organizes content in ePub standard format.

ePub is a standard format for digital books and online publications. It's supported natively by Windows and Android and it's one of the official formats for the Apple Books store.

If your content exists in other web applications, such as a CMS or blog or documentation repo, you can export this content into digital publications on-demand, and update or customize the output in an industry-standard format.

Use cases for bzPubber include:

• Publishing
• Technical Writing
• Documentation
• Product Marketing
• Screenwriting
• Content Management

bzPubber

• Generate - output ePub content organized with Title, Author, URLs, Chapters, Cover, Intro, ToC and more
• Format - in addition to text content, bzPubber helps manage CSS, images, vectors and other HTML elements in your digital publications
• Organize - update existing content, or manage reformatting of chapters or other sections

And more…

Digital Rights Management - DRM support is part of ePub standards and can be implemented in a custom development project.

Built with Ruby

bzPubber is based on ePubber, an open source Ruby gem created by our Senior Web Developer, Federico Ramirez. It's another important developer tool in our toolbox.

With bzPubber, we can generate ePub files with Ruby, and painlessly integrate this functionality into a web application.