Hosting databases

Before you can share FileMaker Pro database files, it’s important to prepare the files for hosting. The steps below provide an overview of the process.

1. Edit the accounts and privileges sets that clients will use for shared access. See Editing accounts and privilege sets.

3. Verify the status of your files on the Activity > Databases tab, and verify that the files are available to FileMaker clients. See Verifying databases are available to FileMaker clients.

• FileMaker Server 14 supports these clients: FileMaker Pro 12, FileMaker Go 12, FileMaker Pro 13, FileMaker Go 13, FileMaker Pro 14, and FileMaker Go 14. Clients running FileMaker Pro 12 and 13 and FileMaker Go 12 and 13 can’t use FileMaker Pro 14 features. Because of security improvements in FileMaker Server 14, FileMaker Pro 12 and FileMaker Go 12 clients may not be able to connect to databases hosted by FileMaker Server 14 if the Use secure database connections setting is enabled in Admin Console.

• You must convert files created in FileMaker Pro 11 and earlier to the FileMaker Pro 12 format. See FileMaker Pro Help.

• If a hosted database is designed to access data from an external SQL data source, you must set up the same ODBC data source name (DSN) on the FileMaker Server master machine as was set up on the machine running FileMaker Pro when the database was created. See Accessing external ODBC data sources.

• If a hosted database uses plug-in files or if you want to allow the Install Plug-In File script step to update server-side plug-in files, then you need to set the Server Plug-Ins settings. See Managing plug-ins.

• You cannot use peer-to-peer database hosting in FileMaker Pro on the same computer that FileMaker Server is running on.

• As FileMaker Server opens files that were not closed properly, FileMaker Server performs a consistency check on each file and logs the result of the check in the event log.

• Up to 125 FileMaker Pro database files can be hosted on FileMaker Server and automatically opened when FileMaker Server starts.

• If you are a group administrator, your server administrator must configure your administrator group to allow you to upload databases to your group folder. For more information, contact your server administrator.