Mar 09, 2009 Could any one please suggest me for the below solution How to create a folder from a filemaker application.? I dont know is this possible with filemaker. If its possible! Please provide me a soluion Many thanks. The VAT/sales tax rate for Electronic Software Downloads and other FileMaker products classified as services under local law will be at the rate applicable to the country where the customer belongs. Change Country Preference.
Last update: 2017-09-29
Creating a users directory in FileMaker from Active DirectoryIntroduction![]()
In this quick tutorial, I will show you one method to take an Active Directory users list, export it out and create a directory that can be browsed through for the entire organization or enterprise that the network covers. To do this, we'll use a bit of PowerShell to export the data, and then FileMaker Pro to create the directory. The reason for FileMaker is that this is an application that makes it easy to handle data in a local database and present it in a convenient layout. It also has powerful scripting and exporting facilities that you can use to improve your directory.
In order to follow along, you will need an Active Directory server. It could be on a Windows Server 2008, 2012, or any similar release. You will also need FileMaker Pro in order to create the directory. You can get a free trial at http://www.filemaker.com/. You don't need to have any coding experience in order to accomplish the various steps we will cover. If you would like to get more familiar with PowerShell, feel free to check out my PowerShell tutorial.
Exporting data
Before we can start building the directory, we will need to export data from your Active Directory Domain Controller. Log into your Windows Server where your users are, and start a PowerShell session. You can do that by clicking on Start and entering
powershell in the Search bar.
Once you're in PowerShell, you will first need to import the Active Directory module:
Now, we need to get a list of users with the
Get-ADUser cmdlet, and export them to CSV with Export-Csv . Before doing so however, you need to determine which users you want to export. Usually, your users are typically all within a central OU or domain. In this example, we will export all of the users of the Sith Empire in my Domain Controller:
As you can see, here we export a single OU called Empire from the SithEmpire.local domain. Replace this with your own setup. We use a star for the filter since we want everything, but you may replace it with a specific query, such as
'ObjectClass -eq 'user' to restrict the listing to users only.
The
Export-Csv command simply specifies the file name to export, and also tells PowerShell not to add type information because that uses an extra line in the file which other applications won't be able to deal with. If you want to make sure that your information was exported correctly before you go ahead and work on the import, you can use the following command:
This will tell PowerShell to show you a table of the file's content. Now that all of our user information has been exported, it's time to build the directory.
Creating the form
Open up FileMaker Pro and start a new database from a starter solution. You can create the form yourself by starting a new blank file, but you will need to manually create fields and map out the layout. FileMaker comes with a predefined solution called Personnel Records that we will use.
Once you make your file, you should see the template on your screen, along with the Field Picker. We won't cover customization too much, but you can add or remove fields, change the layout, and more. As you will see in the next section, the fields in Active Directory are not exactly the same as the ones in the FileMaker template. Your own organization may also not be using all these fields.
You can use the Field Picker to add or remove fields as you need. For the layout, you can click on the Edit Layout button at the top right of the toolbar to edit it. Here you can drag fields from the Field Picker onto your form, then use the Inspector in order to change things like text color, font size, and more.
For now, let's work on importing the data.
![]() Importing data
If you go to File and then Import Records, you can select the CSV file you made in the previous section. This will give you the import window where you will map Active Directory names onto the field names of your directory. This is where you need to carefully map entries so that the values go to the right fields.
This is how I mapped them, from a default Active Directory schema to the default FileMaker template:
You can drag the fields up or down to configure your mapping. Once done, make sure you put a check mark near Don't import first record then click the Import button. This should fill your database up, and each user should now have a record inside of your directory.
You can now browse through the records using the album icon on the left of the toolbar, and search for users using the search functions. Here is an example of what a user looks like:
Conclusion
From here, you can edit any user you want, add entries, profile photos, and so on from within FileMaker. If you share the database file, others can also view the directory. With a FileMaker Server, you could also use this platform to publish your directory to a web page, for example as an intranet directory in your organization.
From the File menu, you can also do things like exporting to PDF or HTML files, or even publish on a network. From here, you may want to run your PowerShell script with the Task Scheduler and import users on a regular basis to keep the directory up to date, and if you feel adventurous, you could even write a script in FileMaker to export that data back into Active Directory using the Import-Csv cmdlet. Possibilities are endless!
Errors, problems and troubles - Oh my! It seems as if more than half the coding done is for solving problems created by writing the code in the first place. Don't worry though, it happens to all of us. It's part of the coding process. You simply can't know all the variables.
You see, you're working in a known environment. The issues you fix are related to the problems which exist in your own computing environment. However, if you're putting something out there, you simply can't account for all possible issues. Not from the start.
Hopefully, at least on this issue, if you can learn from my lessons, I'll save you a ton of time. In my situation, with my Theme Studio product, it turns out that a good number of people using FileMaker do not use AutoUpdate, or at least have never had a reason to.
In FileMaker 9, FileMaker Inc. added a new shared extensions path for plugins. This shared extensions folder is where you can install a plugin and have it running for versions 9, 10 and 11. Here are the paths.
Windows XP:
C:Documents and SettingsUser NameLocal SettingsApplication DataFileMakerExtensions
Windows Vista/7:
C:UsersUser NameAppDataLocalFileMakerExtensions
Mac OS X:
Macintosh HD/Users/User Name/Library/Application Support/FileMaker/Extensions
When trying to install a plugin, from a container, into this location, I was getting reports of errors and not being able to install the plugin. Silly OS messages would appear like 'You don't have enough disk space.', etc.
There is where the topic of this video came in. Typically, I'm using a plugin to manipulate files and folders. I opt to use 360Work's ScriptMaster (of which there is a free version). The problem, however, if you haven't already figured it out, is that I can't us a plugin if it's not already installed yet. And I needed a folder in order to install the plugin - otherwise FileMaker was throwing an error.
So the question was, 'How can I create a folder in order to install a plugin via AutoUpdate?'
The answer was to use the OS to create the folder. So here you have a video about using the OS in order to do all kinds of things. The example shown is that of working with folders, but it doesn't stop there.
If you understand the topic taught in this video then the limits to what you can do with FileMaker alone will expand SIGNIFICANTLY!
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