FileMaker and Zoom Integration

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Like most of the world I have spent large chunks of the past 18 month living in lockdown and working remotely from home. I’m currently in week 7 of another lockdown here in Sydney, Australia with no firm end date in sight for when we will get of lockdown. As we’ve moved to remote working our meetings have moved online and the Zoom video conferencing platform in particular has boomed during the pandemic as many businesses scrambled to move to virtual meetings.

In an average week I’ll have at least one meeting on Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Databuzz, like hundreds of thousands of other companies around the world, has become a Zoom customer so we can host virtual meetings with our clients all around the world. In the last 12 months Zoom posted a massive 326% increase in revenue – in their most recent fiscal quarter the number of customers with more than 10 employees was up 87% from the same quarter last fiscal year.

As well as the standard video meetings Zoom also has a number of other products including Zoom Webinars where you can host online webinars/presentations to much larger audiences. This means you will also be generating a lot of new data, including:

  • Webinar Details
  • Lists of People who Registered
  • Lists of People who Attended

At some point you are going to want to get some of that Zoom data into your FileMaker business app so you can then follow up with registrants/attendees or update existing records with the details of the webinars they have attended. Luckily Zoom has an API that we can integrate the FileMaker Platform with, allowing us to automate the process of downloading Webinar lists, registrant lists and attendee lists. We’ve helped a number of customers over the past 12 months connect their FileMaker business apps with Zoom to automate this process so they are no longer dealing with export/import files and manually updating records.

Here’s a screenshot showing an example of the data you can download with the click of a button to get the Webinar Registrants into FileMaker:

List of Zoom Webinar Registrants

From here we can create or update records in your existing FileMaker solution, or simply create a link between the two so you can see at a glance which Webinars a contact in your FileMaker solution has registered for or attended. If you would like to discuss integrating Zoom with your FileMaker business app please get in touch for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements.

fmSMS Now Supports TextTeam SMS Gateway

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fmSMS, our FileMaker solution for sending and receiving SMS messages from the Claris FileMaker Platform, has been updated to support the TextTeam SMS Gateway based in Australia.

The TextTeam platform is designed with the business user in mind – there are no lock in contracts or subscriptions with TextTeam, you simply buy SMS credits as you need them.

You can download a trial version of fmSMS to test with the TextTeam SMS Gateway from the fmSMS website.

How Small Businesses are Taking Advantage of eSignature

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When we first released fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition), our FileMaker solution for integrating with the DocuSign eSignature platform, back in 2019 we had already been helping customers automate the management of electronic document signing for a number of years. Our focus was mainly on workflow automation and leveraging the power of the the DocuSign platform, one of the most popular electronic signature platforms. DocuSign has one million customers in over 180 countries and has processed more than one billion eSignature transactions.

When you have a lot of agreements that need to be signed by customers or employees, for example as part of an onboarding process, you can quickly become overwhelmed when trying to manage this manually or using paper based forms. Combining your FileMaker custom business app with DocuSign allows you to bring order to this process: you can generate and send agreements to be signed electronically using your familiar FileMaker interface and download the completed agreements without requiring users to even login to DocuSign.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the associated move to remote working along with changes to social distancing forced many small businesses to quickly adopt solutions to workflows that previously were designed for in-person events, such as signing documents by hand. Many governments around the world introduced either temporary or permanent laws to allow companies and individuals to electronically sign documents which allowed them to continue issuing agreements with staff and customers working from home.

We were kept busy during 2020 helping customers integrate their existing FileMaker business apps with DocuSign using our fmESignature Link solution. We now have customers all around the world using fmESignature Link to send a variety of agreements to their customers and staff, including in the USA, UK, Australia and Europe. They are spread across a wide variety of industries including:

  • accounting firms sending agreements to clients
  • property management firms sending real estate tenancy agreements to landlords/tenants
  • pool service companies sending proposals to potential customers
  • law firms sending case agreements to the relevant parties
  • healthcare organisations sending privacy consent forms to patients
  • servicing firms sending annual renewal agreements with associated payment requests

DocuSign have a list of the Top 10 eSignature Use Cases for Small Businesses which show some of the common ways small businesses use DocuSign eSignature, including for sales contracts, purchase orders, vendor/supplier agreements, new customer forms and non-disclosure agreements. In Australia DocuSign’s research has found that Australians made more agreements than ever before in 2020, and now prefer to sign for a new job electronically (with 28% doing so in bed!). These agreements now look completely different from the old school pen-and-paper and can be signed anywhere on any device, including your mobile phone.

It’s been over two years since we first released fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) v1.0 and we’ve added a number of features since including support for DocuSign Payments, SMS Notifications and Auto Place to make the management of electronic document signing even easier. We’ve had some great feedback from customers over the past 5 years who have been sending agreements electronically which we’ve incorporated into subsequent updates to fmESignature Link to make the product even better.

If your small business is still sending paper based agreements and you would like to streamline and digitise these business processes implementing eSignature will save your business time and money and let you ‘Automate What You Hate’. If you would like to discuss integrating DocuSign with your FileMaker business app please get in touch for a free initial consultation to discuss your requirements or to request a free 14 day trial of fmESignature Link.

Databuzz releases updates to fmAccounting Link for MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials

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Sydney, Australia – June 22, 2021 – Databuzz today announced updates to their fmAccounting Link solutions for integrating the Claris FileMaker Platform with MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials (Australia and New Zealand versions).

fmAccounting Link (MYOB Essentials Edition) v2 works with the new upgraded version of MYOB Essentials. MYOB Essentials is an online accounting solution for small and medium sized businesses and an upgraded version was released last year powered by the AccountRight platform. Existing customers are being progressively upgraded to the new Essentials.

fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) v2 runs natively on the FileMaker 16 or higher platforms, including FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go and FileMaker Server without requiring a FileMaker plug-in. The Cloud authentication has been streamlined to make authenticating with the MYOB Cloud API easier and native FileMaker features are now being used for navigation, script parameters and Card windows.

fmAccounting Link for MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials allows you to upload and download data between your Claris FileMaker solution and MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials. fmAccounting Link removes double data entry and human errors saving your company significant time, money and hassle by automating the exchange of data between FileMaker and MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials.

fmAccounting Link for MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials are completely unlocked allowing you to integrate them into your existing FileMaker solution. You can copy and paste examples showing you how to authenticate with the MYOB AccountRight API and upload Contacts, Invoices, Payments and more at the click of a button.

fmAccounting Link for MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials features include:

  • works with FileMaker v16 or later
  • completely unlocked for you to integrate into your own FileMaker solution
  • can be hosted by FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Server or FileMaker Cloud
  • works with Macintosh and Windows
  • MYOB AccountRight: supports AccountRight running in the Cloud or on the Desktop (onlineand offline)
  • MYOB Essentials: supports the new Essentials

“We’re excited to release updates to our MYOB accounting integration solutions for both AccountRight and the new Essentials in time for the start of a new financial year,” said Andrew Duncan, CEO of Databuzz. “We’ve incorporated a lot of the feedback we’ve received since we first released v1 back in 2016. Authenticating with the MYOB API is now simpler and can be refreshed automatically, and we can now handle duplicated MYOB numbers for Invoices, Bills, Purchase Orders and Payments when downloading from MYOB.”

Availability, Pricing, and Compatibility

fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) is available in a number of licenses: Company, Vertical Solution and Developer. It is available now from the Databuzz website at https://www.databuzz.com.au. Company Licenses start at AUD $695.00 and include 12 months of updates. fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) requires FileMaker Pro v16 or later.

fmAccounting Link (MYOB Essentials Edition) is available in a number of licenses: Company, Vertical Solution and Developer. It is available now from the Databuzz website at https://www.databuzz.com.au. Company Licenses start at AUD $795.00 and include 12 months of updates. fmAccounting Link (MYOB Essentials Edition) requires FileMaker Pro v16 or later.

Upgrade Information

fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) v2 is a free upgrade for owners of fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) v1 who purchased a license on or after January 01, 2020. All other owners of fmAccounting Link (MYOB AccountRight Edition) v1 can upgrade for 40% off the current price. Please contact Databuzz to obtain your discount coupon.

fmAccounting Link (MYOB EssentialsEdition) v2 is a free upgrade for owners of fmAccounting Link (MYOB EssentialsEdition) v1 who purchased a license on or after January 01, 2020. All other owners of fmAccounting Link (MYOB EssentialsEdition) v1 can upgrade for 40% off the current price. Please contact Databuzz to obtain your discount coupon.

Media/Customer Contact:

Andrew Duncan
Phone: +61 418 468 103
sales@databuzz.com.au
https://www.databuzz.com.au

About Databuzz: Databuzz is a long-standing member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. We have been developing and deploying FileMaker solutions for clients in Australia and internationally since 1999. Our clients are individuals, small-medium businesses, government agencies and multi-national corporations. Databuzz was founded by Andrew Duncan, a Certified FileMaker 18 Developer. For more information please visit our website at https://www.databuzz.com.au.

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Claris and FileMaker are trademarks of Claris International Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Claris FileMaker WebDirect is a trademark of Claris International Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) Now Supports SMS Delivery

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When DocuSign recently announced the availability of SMS Delivery we knew this would definitely be a feature we would be supporting in fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition), our Claris FileMaker Solution for integrating with the DocuSign eSignature Platform. Databuzz pioneered the sending of SMS messages directly from the FileMaker Platform 20 years ago and fmSMS, our FileMaker solution for sending/receiving SMS messages, has been used since then to send millions of SMS messages by organisations all around the world.

SMS is perfect for personalised notifications that you need the recipient to read and respond to quickly. Research shows that SMS open rates are as high as 98%, compared to just 20% of all emails. And, on average, it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text and 90 minutes to respond to an email.

With DocuSign’s SMS delivery you can reach signers wherever they are, in the way they prefer, through real-time notifications sent directly to their mobile device – enabling them to quickly open and electronically sign documents. Some key benefits of SMS delivery:

  • Reduce completion time for agreements
  • Reach signers who don’t have or don’t want to use email
  • Increase successful transaction rates

fmESignature Link 1.41 includes support for sending requests with SMS Delivery. SMS Delivery allows you to notify signers via SMS in addition to the standard email notifications. Recipients will receive an SMS notification on their mobile phone like the following:


and can click the link and sign the document directly on their mobile device. Combined with DocuSign’s Responsive Signing functionality you can present documents for review and signing that are mobile friendly based on the signer’s device:

We have a new article on our support site that covers all the details for sending requests with SMS Delivery from fmESignature Link.

The full list of changes are listed in the version history notes here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc).

fmMMS Now Supports RingCentral MMS Gateway

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fmMMS, our FileMaker solution that lets you send and receive MMS messages from the FileMaker Platform, has just been updated to include support for the RingCentral MMS Gateway based in the USA. You can send and receive MMS messages internationally with fmMMS and RingCentral.

You can download a trial version of fmMMS to test with the RingCentral MMS Gateway from here. You can also sign up for a trial account with RingCentral. More information on using the RingCentral Gateway with fmMMS is available on our support site.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) Update April 2021

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We’ve just released an update to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition), our FileMaker solution for integrating with the Xero Cloud Accounting Platform. This update is all about adding new features that our existing customers have requested with a focus on Purchase Orders, Credit Notes and Manual Journals.

Purchase Orders Changes

We’ve updated the Get All PurchaseOrders script to support downloading Purchase Orders from Xero using the modifiedSince parameter (download purchase orders created or modified since the specified timestamp). This will create new records in the fmAccounting Link file if they don’t already exist and update any existing records that have changed since the specified timestamp.

We’ve also added examples for downloading Notes/History from Xero for a Purchase Order and creating a new Purchase Order Note in Xero.

Credit Notes Changes

We’ve added examples for downloading Notes/History from Xero for a Credit Note and creating a new Credit Note Note in Xero, as well as working with Attachments for a Credit Note (downloading attachments from Xero and uploading attachments from FileMaker).

Manual Journals Changes

We’ve added support for downloading Manual Journals from Xero (either all Manual Journals or by date range).

We’ve also added examples for downloading Notes/History from Xero for a Manual Journal and creating a new Manual Journal Note in Xero, as well as working with Attachments for a Manual Journal (downloading attachments from Xero and uploading attachments from FileMaker).

The full list of changes are listed in the version history notes here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc). If there’s any examples that we don’t currently have that you would like to see please get in touch and let us know.

fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) and Custom Connections

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If you’re a Xero Customer and you’re using our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 for integrating with the Xero Cloud Accounting platform you should be well aware by now that Xero are moving from OAuth 1.0a to the industry standard OAuth 2.0 for handling authentication with the Xero API. The original deadline to move to OAuth 2.0 for private apps (which is what fmAccounting Link v1 uses for OAuth 1.0a connections) was 31 March 2021 but Xero have recently extended this out until 30 September 2021.

Many of our customers have already made the move to OAuth 2.0, either by upgrading to fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 which runs natively on the FileMaker 16 or higher platforms and doesn’t require a FileMaker plug-in, or updating an existing fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 integration. We contacted all our customers back in April 2020 about the options for moving to OAuth 2.0 – you can read the announcement here if you missed this at the time.

As part of the extension of the deadline for private apps until 30 September 2021 Xero have announced that they are working on a new premium, client credentials grant option for machine-to-machine integrations called Custom Connections. This will only be available to Xero subscribers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The standard OAuth 2.0 flow that fmAccounting Link already uses for authenticating with the Xero API will still be available (and remain free).

Custom Connections offers a number of advantages over the standard OAuth 2.0 flow, including removing the need to authorise the connection between fmAccounting Link and Xero from within the fmAccounting Link and not having to manage refresh tokens. A Custom Connection can only be connected to a single organisation, so overall the experience will be similar to how the OAuth 1.0a private apps worked.

We plan to offer support for Custom Connections in fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v2 once it becomes available in May – we’re currently working out the details about how to incorporate this with as little impact on the existing code as possible. As this is a premium subscription option on top of your existing Xero subscription and only available to Xero subscribers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK we will still support the standard OAuth 2.0 app flow that we currently offer.

Regardless of which option you end up choosing remember that you must update any existing Xero private app integrations that use OAuth 1.0a to OAuth 2.0 by 30 September 2021, otherwise your app will stop working after that. You should have received several notifications from Xero over the past 12 months alerting you to the upcoming deadline so please plan accordingly so your current integration will continue to work after 30 September 2021.

If you have any questions about upgrading your copy of fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) v1 to use OAuth 2.0 please get in touch.

fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) Updated to Use Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow

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When we were originally developing v1.0 of fmESignature Link back in 2018/2019 one of the first decisions we had to make was which of the three OAuth Types we should choose for handling the authentication with the DocuSign API: JWT Grant, Authorization Code Grant or Implicit Grant. Each flow has its pros and cons and we eventually settled on using the JWT Grant OAuth Flow. The main advantage of using the JWT Grant is that it doesn’t require a user to be present after initially gaining consent. The downside to using the JWT Grant is that FileMaker Pro cannot natively generate the JWT (JSON Web Token) required as part of the flow in requesting the access token that you ultimately need.

We found a workaround using a FileMaker Web Viewer and a JavaScript function that we could pass parameters to which would generate the JWT and return that as a parameter to a FileMaker script called via the FMP URL protocol. The downside to using a FileMaker Web Viewer is that this cannot be performed as a FileMaker Server script (either via Perform Script on Server or as part of a script scheduled using the Admin Console). We created some PHP files that used either the Data API or the older PHP API to handle scripts that needed to run under FileMaker Server.

We were never 100% comfortable with using the Web Viewer and as more customers have deployed and integrated fmESignature Link over the past few years we have become aware of some further limitations with using this approach. We’ve had reports that the FMP URL script wasn’t firing all the time, particularly on Windows and iOS. Troubleshooting these is particularly challenging and we often struggled to reproduce them in our own testing. Another downside to the Web Viewer approach concerned when the FMP URL script would run if you had a long running FileMaker script that you wished to incorporate the sending of a request to DocuSign. You couldn’t always control when the FMP URL script would run – at least until FileMaker Pro 19.1.3 was released. As we support all versions of FileMaker Pro from v16 onwards we couldn’t rely on this either. On Windows the script we wanted to run immediately after the Web Viewer loaded was added to the end of the FileMaker script stack and would run when the currently running FileMaker script finished, by which time the context had changed and it was too late for our script!

After implementing a similar version of the Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow for our fmAccounting Link (Xero Edition) solution in 2019 we became convinced that this would ultimately be a much better experience for our fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) solution as well. It would require the user to perform an initial approval inside of the fmESignature Link file but after that we can programatically refresh the tokens without user intervention. This can also be setup a server schedule so that the token is refresh daily/weekly etc so that it will never expire.

We’ve just released v1.4 of fmESignature Link which now uses the Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow instead of the JWT Grant OAuth Flow. If you’re currently using fmESignature Link v1.36 or earlier and everything is working well for you there’s no need to rush out and change anything here. You can continue to use the JWT Grant OAuth Flow if it’s working well for you.

If you have encountered some of the issues described above and would like to simplify the authentication and remove the dependency on the Web Viewer then you can update your existing integration using the latest version of the fmESignature Link file. We’ve put together a number of new and updated support articles to assist you with this process:

fmESignature Link (DocuSign Edition) Getting Started Guide

Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow Setup Video

Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow Details

Converting from the JWT Grant to the Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow

All of the changes can be copied across from the v1.4 file into integrations using earlier versions of fmESignature Link and the process should generally take around 30 minutes to complete. In addition to the new fields, scripts and layout that you can copy across you only need to update two existing FileMaker scripts and one existing FileMaker layout. We’ve tried to keep these changes to a minimum and none of the scripts that send requests to the DocuSign API will need to be updated.

Other Changes in v1.4

In addition to the Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow changes outlined above we’ve also include some new features in this release, including:

  • added support for PDF Form Fields transformation and a new Template Example for this
  • added support for Radio Group Tabs
  • updated Webhooks to use JSON notifications for the the eventNotification webhook (change from XML)

The full list of changes are listed in the version history notes here. Existing customers can download this version from the link on your original order email (contact us if you need the link to be reset etc).

Now that we have the Authorization Code Grant OAuth Flow changes out of the way we are working on adding support for SMS Notifications to fmESignature Link and hope to have this released shortly.

fmSMS Chat View Update

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In a recent update to fmSMS we updated the appearance of the Chat View Web Viewer to a more current iOS iMessage style as it was starting to look a bit dated. We first introduced the Chat View back in July 2015 to show you the sent and received messages for an individual Contact in a much more graphical interface compared to a traditional FileMaker view using portals.

We’ve updated from the original look here:

to the following which represents a more modern style similar to the current iOS Messages app:

We find this a big improvement when viewing a conversation with a single Contact – you can see all the outgoing and incoming messages in a thread as they are sorted by timestamp and quickly send a new message to the Contact from this window. By comparison the traditional view of the SMS History for a Contact with 2 portals for the sent and received messages looks like this:

The fmSMS Chat View works in a similar way to the recently released JavaScript add-ons and with new features in the FileMaker 19 Platform such as the JavaScript integration with web viewers and the Execute FileMaker Data API script step we’re looking into ways that we can have the Chat View update dynamically without having to use OnTimer Scripts that are constantly running in the background attached to a FileMaker window. We’re also looking into WebSockets to see if we can have that push updates to the web viewer.

We are also bringing the Chat View to fmMMS, our FileMaker solution for sending and receiving MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) Messages using the Claris FileMaker Platform. The fmMMS Chat View has a few more challenges as we need to incorporate the display of any images that were sent or received using fmMMS, as well as any text (body and subject). We plan to include this in the next update to fmMMS which will be a free update for all existing customers.