“With more than 5,000 people potentially participating in this year’s parade, our new FileMaker Pro 9 databases will bring together all the required functions for the parade into one manageable, networked solution,” said Robin Hall, senior vice president, Macy’s Parade & Entertainment Group, in the press release.
Before FileMaker Pro was deployed, the database for the parade was originally built in Microsoft Access and its operation required programming knowledge beyond the basic consumer level. This caused delays and resulted in the need to export all work from Microsoft Access queries into Microsoft Excel documents to find specific information in a user-friendly manner.
MacDailyNews Take: Dumping Microsoft’s Access for FIleMaker Pro 9 is the equivalent of dumping Bea Arthur for Evangeline Lilly. Congrats, Macy’s! Niiice upgrade!
“With our new FileMaker database system, time-consuming tasks such as assigning volunteers parade responsibilities have been reduced from about 10 days to just one or two days, and more important, we can better meet the needs and specifications of each individual, group and staff member,” said Hall in the press release.
Future expansion of the Macy’s Parade database will involve Web-published content, including online registration for volunteer participation in the parade.
FileMaker Inc. develops award-winning database software. Its products include the legendary FileMaker Pro product line for Mac, Windows, and the Web, as well as the new Bento personal database for Mac. FileMaker Pro won 49 awards, more than its next eight competitors combined, in the past five years in the U.S. and a total of 130 awards worldwide during this time. Millions of customers, from individuals to large organizations, rely on FileMaker Inc. software to manage, analyze and share information. FileMaker Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple Inc.
Apple makes Filemaker…..
Bartender! No more Kool Aid for MDN!
And since Steve Jobs is the single largest Disney’s shareholder, next thing you know is Apple’s FileMaker Pro 9 to manage the Mickey Mouse’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Four-time Academy Award nominated film editor Walter Murch has used FileMaker for the past 20 years to organize his edit. See video of his process here:
” . . . the equivalent of dumping Bea Arthur for Evangeline Lilly. O.K., but Betty White is still pretty hot.
Are they using Macs or PCs for this?
@MDN That’s a pretty mean shot at Bea Arthur especially considering she bedded Leslie Nielsen in the series Golden Girls series finale.
Did I just reveal waaaaay to much information about my 80s TV viewing habits?
@ HMCIV
Yes! Stop the horror..
Here’s the press release:
http://www.filemaker.com/company/newsroom/news/press_releases.html
From the website
Ownership: FileMaker, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).
“That’s a pretty mean shot at Bea Arthur . . .”
There’s no need to get maude-lin.
Wow! I bet that’s some big mission critical application there.
I can see it now.
Record:
Last Name
First Name
Position in Parade
Size of Baloon
@ Ampar
Rue McClanahan! Such a MILF…or is that GMILF?
Damn. I need therapy.
MDN’s analogy transcends everything that has come before, bar none!
To CheekyGit:
Probably a GGILF, by now. Remember, the teeth come out.
I decided to register after posting under another name for years. I’m glad I finally did, and no, I am most definately not a troll.
“Record:
Last Name
First Name
Position in Parade
Size of Baloon”
That’s probably real similar to the database for the Gay Pride parade with just a few, minor adjustments.
LOL! NO ONE uses Access for ANYTHING other than two-bit applications used by ONE user. It isn’t designed to handle multi-users…
FileMaker Pro isn’t much of an enterprise-level database either.
fastmemory,
Who were you before?
“FileMaker Pro isn’t much of an enterprise-level database either.”
Are you sure?
@Ampar
In that case someone should give California a heads up. They’re going to be having a lot of parades unless the legislature makes an amendment or two. As for my DB entry:
CIV
HM
Missionary [insert inappropriate ChrissyOne reference here]
Floated Away with French Daredevil (article here)
Did parades exist before computers?
“FileMaker Pro isn’t much of an enterprise-level database either.”
Are you sure?
—
Thx Ampar,
That’ll shut ’em up.
Where I work, Access seems to have found its way into mission-critical space. This is typical in poorly engineered and controlled IT infrastructure. Some lowly semi-IT person (a clerk with some computer-tinkering experience) puts together a single-table database for his boss, using MS Office on his desktop PC. It works well, others begin to use it, he learns a bit more about MS Access along the way, next thing you know, this little Access database is deployed on the departmental intranet web site. So now, I am responsible for providing infrastructure (servers, networking, permissions, etc) for several of these Access-based databases that are in fact accessible by the entire world! Some of them contain a dozen tables, 12,000+ records, etc! Luckily, at least they are lot that high-profile, so there is never more than one single user on them.
Access has become fairly unintuitive to use for people with little experience. Long ago, it was simple – as simple as perhaps Bento. You create your form, add fields, choose data types, all using decent GUI, and then build reports. Now it has become this ‘serious’ RDBMS, with tables, queries, even SQL.
Filemaker has evolved dramatically over the years. However, it continued to stay on course with its main purpose – make database easy and simple for an ordinary person to create and work with.
Apple did right when they acquired FileMaker (much like when they acquired Logic). Filemaker epitomises Apple’s philosophy and strategy.
Nice going!
Hey Macy’s Need a hand!!! Here is a sample of 27,000 Real Estate Listings using IWP and PHP, Pictures, maps and an iPhone version also!
http://www.fm22.888.net/fmi/iwp/cgi?-db=eMLS&-loadframes