Using Web Services
The Internet has definitely changed the world we live in and how people interact with information. Your own FileMaker solution may seem like an island until you throw a web viewer onto the layout.
As soon as you do that, you're thinking about how much easier it would be if you could just "click a button" to interact with the web site being viewed.
Fortunately, in today's Internet world, the interconnection of things is extremely pervasive. There aren't too many solutions which don't provide some type of API where you can connect with and exchange information as desired.
You can even turn your own FileMaker database into a web service which other FileMaker solutions can connect to. Ultimately, the goal is making things happen between various services. In recent versions of FileMaker, new functionality was added. The Insert from URL step allows for POSTing information and interacting with basic web services.
The limitations, however, can be bypassed if you're willing to add a bit more power to your workflow.
In this video, you'll make the best investment you can about getting started and knowing how web services can be used in FileMaker. Whether shortening urls, posting to Twitter or Facebook or connecting to Quickbooks online or Salesforce, you certainly need to know how the connections are made!
Comments
UPS Web Services
Great video. I had known about the limits of FM's implementation of http headers but hit a wall there. This definitely helped me understand how to get around that limitation.
Do you have any experience working with UPS's web services? Would the BaseElements plugin as well as a correctly formatted XML request be sufficient to use it?
Thanks for another great tutorial.
It always depends on the web service docs
The developer documentation from UPS should outline what they expect and how to format their requests. There is typically support for more than one method. (i.e. both xml and json)
-- Matt Petrowsky - ISO FileMaker Magazine Editor
SOAP API
Great video, thank you! How would you be able to use this with a SOAP API that has a WSDL?