Question

FileMaker Import (from MS Access) - Nulls causing problems

Asked by: careybroph

I have an MS Access database that receives data scanned from forms.  That part is working just fine.  However, we have a researcher who wants his data exported to a FileMaker Server database.  We installed the appropriate ODBC drivers and created the links from MS Access to the tables in FileMaker.  However, when we use queries to try and push new records from MS Access into the FileMaker tables, we often get errors that seem to be related to null values in the MS Access tables.  These are NOT key fields, they are just data fields.  For some reason, FileMaker won't accept them.  Talk about a PITA.  We've found that if we use an IIF to convert nulls to " " it will import into FileMaker.  However, it's impractical to do this for every field and every table.  And we can't stop the presses every time a different field comes through with a null.

There must be a better way.  Looking for some help... or some Advil.
Thanks in advance.

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Asked On
2009-11-03 at 06:47:27ID24867174
Tags

FileMaker

,

Import

,

Null

Topic

FileMaker Pro Database

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: lesouefPosted on 2009-11-03 at 08:34:45ID: 25730710

First, the "not empty" (=null) condition can be removed in the fm db, at the field definition level, in the validation tab.
Second, imports can be done with capture mode on, this way, errors should not be reported, but 1st way is of course better.

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2009-11-04 at 13:29:47ID: 25744151

FileMaker is not a SQL-based database. ODBC drivers for FileMaker attempt to emulate SQL functionality, but there are limitations due to the fundamental differences in how the two platforms handle data. For example, FileMaker has no separate data types for integer versus real numbers.

Instead of pushing the records from Access to FM, I recommend running an import on the FIleMaker side  via an ODBC connection to the Access database. You will have a lot less trouble, because FileMaker will automatically do some conversions for you that you otherwise would have to do on the Access side.
 

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2009-11-04 at 13:32:08ID: 25744165

FileMaker does not have an actual NULL value. It simply considers a field to be "empty" which is equivalent to zero when dealing with numbers, or to a null string when dealing with strings. Again, this is something that would be handled automatically if you were to pull the data from the FileMaker side.

If you really need to push from Access, then you're going to need to be sure Access data types are cast into forms that FileMaker can accept.

 

by: careybrophPosted on 2009-11-04 at 14:58:41ID: 25744999

Thanks.  both comments were helpful.  'Pulling' from FileMaker isn't an option in this situation, so we are looking at a few options (including what you mentioned in the first response).  If it turns out that the FM fields are have the "Not Empty" condition set, it would be a royal pain to revisit them all (it's not my DB and it has hundreds of fields).  I would have thought that the ODBC would graciously play the mediator when a Null was coming from a source like Access or SQL into FileMaker.  But I guess that's not the case.  We are also investigating another option that might work just as well.  Instead of using MS Access, we can use SQL.  My understanding is that FileMaker Server has some built-in SQL connectivity that we might be able to take advantage of.  In this situation, we might even be able to setup scheduled 'pulls' from SQL into FileMaker Server.  Possibly just have it update from the SQL DB each night.  Still sorting it out and trying to find the best solution for our situation.

Thanks again for the feedback (from both of you).

 

by: careybrophPosted on 2009-11-04 at 14:59:38ID: 31649435

THANKS!

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2009-11-05 at 11:42:57ID: 25753112

FileMaker does now allow you to add an external SQL database as a table. This can be done with pretty much any SQL source, including MS Access if you're so inclined. You could read from and write to an external SQL table from within FileMaker. Performance will not match a true SQL database, because there's a lot of translation that has to go on in the background, but it does work. I've even used FileMaker to update an Excel spreadsheet this way.

"If it turns out that the FM fields are have the "Not Empty" condition set, it would be a royal pain to revisit them all (it's not my DB and it has hundreds of fields).  I would have thought that the ODBC would graciously play the mediator when a Null was coming from a source like Access or SQL into FileMaker."

If the FM fields are actually set to not allow empty values, then it would be inappropriate for the other platform to ignore that restriction, because it could cause invalid results in calculations, etc. It might not be the case though, it could be the errors are appearing due to differences in data types. It might be fixable by changing the ODBC driver settings.





 

by: careybrophPosted on 2009-11-05 at 11:50:23ID: 25753197

Thanks for the additional info.  We'll be checking that out.  Just moved to v10, so we haven't had a chance to work with some of the new functionality just yet.  But you've motivated us to try out the SQL connectivity...

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