Learning Claris FileMaker

FM Quickstart is a free CRM template, custom built by a team of certified FileMaker developers.

Save time and money with our free #CRM Template, FM Quickstart!

Customize it yourself, or have our certified developers do it for you. ... read more and download FM Quickstart.

You may have heard the term “Customer Relationship Management” system or CRM.

Maybe you have one already?

Maybe you need one?

Let’s look at a fully unlocked and FREE CRM that you can run from within FileMaker.

How Connecting FileMaker and Zoom API Worked Out

In January, I posted about connecting FileMaker and Zoom – a fairly detailed view of the process necessary in a fairly long post. What I didn't do was show you how it all works with in the (almost) final product for my client.

The app is server based, with both Filemaker and FileMaker Go clients.

The first app we are developing for them is a very customized CRM working in conjunction with a professionally designed sales funnel based on Kartra, a sales funnel company.

The basic components of the CRM were designed by one of the founders, one with a serious background in running a sales call center.

I know, I know...a call center?

Seriously?

Still, this company helps business with larger buildings save a lot of money (between five and twenty two percent) on their monthly gas and electric bills.

While also keeping the people inside the buildings just as comfortable as before.

When your electric bill runs up to several hundred thousand a month, a 5% savings is substantial. 22% is awesome.

So for that, I say let's use the most effective means available to get the word out. Thus, a sale call based CRM custom built to manage the custom sales process.

Why Use FileMaker® Instead of an Out-of-the-Box CRM Solution

If you’re looking for a CRM solution to improve your company’s processes and productivity, you’re spoiled for choice.

Capterra, a site that reviews software, lists over 400 products under the CRM category.

And Gartner reported that in 2017, worldwide customer relationship management (CRM) software revenue overtook the previous leader, database management systems (DBMSs), making CRM the largest of all software markets.

So many choices can lead to frustration.

Not all CRMs will have all the features you need, many are expensive to maintain, and most are not fully customizable without a hefty investment in custom programming.

How do you know which one is right for your business?

Rather than trying to find the needle in the haystack only to discover that it lacks an essential feature that you need down the road, consider using FileMaker to create a custom CRM solution that’s specifically designed for your company and its operations. Here’s why the FileMaker platform is ideal for CRMs for many organizations.

fmIgnite Starter is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and business solution that you can use to begin building a complete custom solution using FileMaker, the #1 rapid application development platform in the world. LuminFire provides fmIgnite Starter unlocked and editable for FREE.

FM Quickstart is a free FileMaker template built by our team of certified developers to allow you to quickly create a custom application for your organization.

It’s designed to use the latest version of FileMaker and has 8 main modules to work with:

• Dashboard
• Companies
• Locations
• Contacts
• Quotes
• Invoices
• Reports
• Setup

What’s great about FM Quickstart is that it can be used immediately out-of-the-box, or can be easily modified to fit your business needs.

Make the most of your FileMaker CRM by automatically importing your Gmail emails directly into your solution for better collaboration for your team.

In 2016, Google announced that Gmail has over 1 billion monthly active users.

Many companies even leverage Gmail to set up accounts using their company domain name.

If you have a FileMaker CRM, or are wanting to have one, adding your email correspondence will help improve the visibility you have over communications with contacts.

In this article we will demonstrate how you can import your HTML emails from Gmail directly into your FileMaker system.

Read more on  db Services' blog post and video

...

The software world is not simple.

You can’t just buy one software package and expect to run your entire business with it and be as effective, productive, and profitable as possible.

With FileMaker in your toolbox operating as a digital information hub at the center of your software solution you get the advantages of owning all your data, being able to connect to nearly any other software tool, customizing your workflow however you want, and doing so cost effectively across platforms including macOS, Windows, web, and mobile.

Située près de Rouen, la société Maxim’s SAPP, dirigée par Christophe Brohart, développe et commercialise la marque de produits gastronomiques Maxim’s de Paris.

Le rôle de Maxim’s SAPP est de faire fabriquer les produits, de les stocker et de les distribuer en France et à l’étranger.

La société travaille avec un panel de fournisseurs pour la fabrication des produits et avec un réseau de points de vente pour la commercialisation, tels que des boutiques Duty-Free, des grands magasins, des épiceries fines, etc.

Problématique

Il y a 10 ans, le besoin de mettre en place une solution de gestion intégrée est né de la nécessité d’assurer un meilleur suivi de leurs clients et de gérer la logistique liée à la fabrication des produits.

...

Solution mise en place

« En cherchant un système de base de données, il y a eu une ouverture naturelle vers FileMaker Pro », explique M. Brohart.

« Tout d’abord car nous utilisons des Macs et parce que FileMaker n’est pas un système spécialiste nécessitant un langage de développement complexe ».

La solution mise en place répond parfaitement aux deux principaux besoins de l’entreprise :

• Le suivi des clients et des prospects : sorte de CRM (Customer Relationship Management : gestion de la relation client) adapté à leurs besoins centralisant l’intégralité des informations de leur portefeuille de clients ainsi que l’historique du suivi des clients.
• La gestion des produits : pour gérer la commercialisation des produits ainsi que tous les aspects d’assemblage, de fabrication et de réalisation des produits.

...

There are some common kinds of business applications that almost everyone uses: Invoicing and billing software of some sort, customer databases/CRMs, project management software, just to name a few.

But what’s an organization to do if they have needs that go beyond these “typical” applications?

The truth is that just about every business has some unique workflows that make it different from all the other businesses out there.

Those are often best addressed by creating custom business applicationsuniquely tailored to the business’ requirements.

Over the years, we’ve created a wide range of these custom business applications for clients using the Claris FileMaker platform.

We’ve found that it’s perfect for businesses that occupy an unusual niche or that have very specific needs.

And by using Claris FileMaker, we often can develop those applications in less time, and at a lower cost, than other development firms out there.

Here, then, are some great examples of our doing just that: ...

There are five common habits that we repeatedly see in successful small businesses.

We’d love to share these with you.

HubSpot is a popular online sales and marketing tool that tracks leads, deals, clients, and more.

Hubspot has a strong CRM (Customer Relationship Management) component, and much of its functionality often overlaps with custom FileMaker solutions.

Much of what Hubspot does could also be done in FileMaker, but it would be a lot of work to recreate it all.

Most of the time, it doesn’t make financial sense to reinvent the wheel.

Here are some of the helpful features in Hubspot for sales and marketing that might not make sense to build into a custom FileMaker solution:

• Tracking leads as they view pages on your website
• Tracking emails and consolidating under contacts
• Setting up meetings when your calendar is open
• Tracking web analytics
• Getting company marketing information such as annual revenue, owner, number of employees, etc.
(most of these functions require customer interaction with a web site)

FileMaker, on the other hand, has the advantage of creating a completely custom workflow that may be more of a challenge to recreate in HubSpot.

FileMaker can more easily track a lot of other related information that is not possible in HubSpot since HubSpot’s primary focus is on sales and marketing.

Creating custom reports is also easier with FileMaker.

So it often makes sense to use FileMaker AND HubSpot to help get your work done.

A CRM is an important tool that can help you streamline your processes and boost profitability.

A good CRM is flexible enough to adapt to whatever you need it to do: track which leads are converting to customers, automate tasks, learn which activities are driving sales, deliver better customer service, etc.

All in an intuitive way that makes the most of automation.

Deciding which CRM to choose can be daunting, because each platform has a variety of capabilities and a spectrum of usability.

In this post, we’ll look at three of the most popular CRM platforms: Salesforce, Hubspot, and FileMaker-based, to help you decide which is best for your business.

FileMaker is an easy-to-use and flexible platform for creating a CRM solution that’s customizable and cost effective for small businesses.

It allows you to bring the many different components of the sales and customer service processes together under one roof. FileMaker gives businesses improved access to data and a more efficient workflow.

Business owners and their staff can spend less time on administrative tasks, freeing up additional resources for business development, sales growth, and keeping clients happy.

For small businesses, effectively managing the sales cycle can be a challenge.

Small businesses are typically operating with limited staff and resources.

They don’t have the luxury of full sales and customer service departments.

But because sales and client relationships are the lifeblood of small businesses, it’s essential to manage these relationships effectively.

FileMaker as a CRM gives your company an edge over competitors and ensures the long-term health of your business.

When it comes to choosing a CRM solution for your business, FileMaker is a platform that offers some unique advantages that set it apart from out-of-the-box CRMs.

Today we’ll take a look at eight ways FileMaker provides the strongest value for small businesses looking to upgrade their CRM software or launch one for the first time.

Read more on the blog post ...

KiBiz will Transform your Business by Connecting all your Key Work Processes in one Program

In this video, we (Productive Computing) explore the new, free CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) file that FileMaker is now offering in their FileMaker Custom App Academy.

We then compare FileMaker's free app and its functionality to some of the paid CRMs that we offer (Core4 and Core5).

The free CRM from FileMaker includes four modules:

• Dashboard,
• Clients,
• Contacts
• and Opportunities.

We explore the functionality of these modules for the end user and go under the hood to look at the different tables, relationships and table occurrences.

Core5 Starter Edition CRM was created to give developers (and end users) the ability to jump-start a FileMaker QuickBooks integration because this starter solution comes preconfigured to connect to both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online.

Core4 CRM is a robust CRM created to manage all aspects of a business.

This CRM can be integrated with QuickBooks Desktop, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Contacts, and Apple Calendar.

Two software important industry buzzwords today are CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource planning).

Both CRM and ERP software help you to run a business better by managing a business’s operations, customer relations, and financials.

They provide access to data, analysis, and reports that can help you make smarter business decisions.

FileMaker is the #1 Rapid Application Development platform in the world.

It allows you to create custom software solutions that provide your business with a competitive advantage.

A FileMaker solution can provide the functions of a CRM and ERP together and manage your business…but since FileMaker is a platform for building software (vs. off-the-shelf) you need to purchase or build the application that actually does the work for you.

Read more on the post ...