ODBC and JDBC Guide
Table Of Contents
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Accessing external SQL data sources
- Chapter 3 Installing FileMaker ODBC client drivers
- Hardware and software requirements
- ODBC client access to FileMaker Cloud for AWS
- ODBC client driver architecture overview (Windows)
- ODBC client driver installation (Windows)
- Configuring client drivers (Windows)
- ODBC client driver installation (macOS)
- Configuring client drivers (macOS)
- Where to go from here
- Chapter 4 Using ODBC to share FileMaker data
- Chapter 5 Installing FileMaker JDBC client drivers
- Chapter 6 Using JDBC to share FileMaker data
- Chapter 7 Reference information
- Index
Chapter 1 | Introduction 8
Important If you disable ODBC/JDBC sharing after it has already been on, a data source hosted
by FileMaker Server, or FileMaker Pro immediately becomes unavailable. The database
administrator doesn’t have the capability to alert ODBC and JDBC client applications about the
data source’s availability (the administrator can communicate only with FileMaker Pro database
file clients). No errors are reported, and the client application should notify users that the data
source is not available and transactions cannot be completed. If a client application attempts to
connect to an unavailable FileMaker Pro database file, a message explains that the connection
failed.
Limitations with third-party tools
Microsoft Access: When using Microsoft Access to view data in a FileMaker data source, do not
use data from a summary field. The summary field’s data should not be edited in Microsoft Access,
and the data value that is displayed in Microsoft Access may not be accurate.
Networking requirements
You need a TCP/IP network when using FileMaker Server to host a FileMaker Pro database file
as a data source over a network. FileMaker Pro supports local access (same computer) only.
FileMaker Cloud for AWS connections may be limited by the Amazon EC2 instance type and app
design.
Updating files from previous versions
If you installed a driver from earlier versions of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server, you must install
the driver for the current version. The driver for the current FileMaker software version is not
compatible with earlier versions.
See chapter 3, “Installing FileMaker ODBC client drivers,” and chapter 5, “Installing FileMaker
JDBC client drivers.”
Notes
1 You have to create a Data Source Name (DSN) for each FileMaker Pro database file you want
to access as a data source. If you have previously set up access through one DSN that allows
tables to be spread among several FileMaker Pro database files, you’ll need to consolidate
those tables into a single database file (or create several DSNs).
1 For information on using ODBC and JDBC with previous versions of FileMaker Pro, see the
Product
Documentation Center.