Access to a new Claris Pro solution or a converted FileMaker Pro solution is governed by Claris ID. The user needs to have a Claris ID to authenticate into your solution. You can no longer add the equivalent of native accounts like you may have been used to in FileMaker.
Adding a new account requires that you know the Claris ID of that user:
The privilege sets that determine what the user can do in your solution remain unchanged from what you were used to in FileMaker Pro.
Also, as the account UI implies: Claris Pro solutions do not support group-based authentication. So there is no account management currently possible in a centralized environment similar to the external identity providers supported by the FileMaker platform and by FileMaker Cloud (which also uses Claris IDs but supports groups).
The requirement of knowing someone’s Claris ID may sound like an obstacle to granting access to your solution. But it does not have to be.
When you create a Claris Pro file or convert a FileMaker Pro file, the single active account will be your Claris ID, with Full Access rights granted to it. A second inactive account named [Default] is also there:
That is new. There is no equivalent in the FileMaker platform. Its closest sibling would be the [Guest] account in FileMaker.
When you enable the Default account in Claris Pro, anyone with a valid Claris ID can open your solution and be granted the rights in the privilege set you attach to the default account. There are no restrictions to what rights you can grant, including [Full Access], any of the built-in privilege sets, or a custom-crafted one.
The Claris ID account does not need to be part of your Claris Studio org. It grants access to anyone with a Claris ID. Keep this in mind before you decide to enable it. In that sense, it does work like the FileMaker Pro [Guest] account.
Unlike the guest account, you can use the available Get() functions to know who the user is. The Get(AccountName) function will return the email address that is the user’s Claris ID. 
Also, note that this works on both a local Claris Pro file and a hosted file.
Oh rats! No multi-herarchical access that we can use? That sucks. So I can no longer do things like create a Developer (Full Access) account, an Owner account (person who bought the solution and have nearly full access), an Admin account (for general internal users using the solution), and Guests account (for external users who can benefit from special layout access to selected data, such as an online order form layout for customers to order products). Now I have to know the specific Claris ID of each person and decide how to manage them within the solution. PITA. And now running a database solution in the read-only method once created requires constant online authentication with Claris to prove we own our own database solution. Together with no free FileMaker Go (equivalent to FileMaker Runtime) to run on all platforms and with ability to run plug-ins without needing a Claris ID means that FileMaker and its future as a Claris Pro product has pretty much ended. Now I see little benefit in moving to the Claris Platform.
Thanks for letting us know what we are up against. It was nice while it lasted, but I guess no good product can ever last forever. Goodbye FileMaker Pro!
As mentioned in the blog post, the privilege sets mechanism does not change so you can still achieve what you are after. With the exception of the Guest account which now becomes the Default account.
You would need to know the Claris ID for the users with non-Default privileges (like the elevated ones that are different than a ‘normal’ user) since there are no groups (yet).
FileMaker Pro is not going away. Our understanding of the Claris vision is that both the Claris Platform and the FileMaker Platform will continue to evolve and at some point the Claris Platform will become so feature rich that we’ll gravitate to it naturally. So we’ll be the ones demising the FileMaker Platform at a certain point, not Claris. It’s not time to say goodbye to FileMaker yet.
So the users have to have a claris ID/account to use our solution? In that case that’s a bye bye and we are moving on.
If you want to use the Claris Pro / Server / Go components of the Claris Platform; then yes. But you can continue to use the FileMaker Platform since that is not going away and doesn’t require authentication through Claris ID.
Claris has already indicated that the Claris Platform itself will get support for different authentication providers. Future versions will not mandate only a Claris ID.
I just closed a file with ONLY the default ID active
Now it says “The provided account name and password cannot be used to access this file.”
I tested this on another file and was locked out of that too!!
Hi Oliver,
Did the priv set attached to the Default account have the fmapp extended priv setting enabled? Can you log into the file with another Claris ID account that is not the one you just disabled?
Here in Canada I have relayed the above information as best as I understand it to some of my clients with general response being, “You mean my business is going to have to login to a foreign country to be accessed?” and “is FileMaker aiming at being US only software?”
Businesses here organized functionally, ie. the accounting machine, subscription machine, logistics machine, etc… with several users rotating in/out on a particular station to perform job functions and, although I have not seen any info on pricing per ClarisID, I think I can say if the cost per user, rather than software cost per station, is the direction here it is not going to be popular.
Regards
Re “is FileMaker aiming at being US only software?”: of course not. The Claris Platform will evolve to include more data centers in more locations for its native Claris ID authentication, plus as Claris mentioned in many of their webinars; Claris ID authentication will NOT be the only identity provider.
Remember that the Claris release paradigm is very different now than it was in the pre-19 days. Releases come quickly and add features quickly.
As to: “I have not seen any info on pricing per ClarisID”, there is no such thing: the Claris ID authentication method is not tied to the platform licensing. The pricing for the Claris Platform is about 25% over the price of the FileMaker Platform but you get both: the full FileMaker Platform AND the Claris Platform. If you want a detailed quote, let us know and we can get one prepared for you.
This link will take you to the published Claris Platform pricing page: https://store.claris.com/platform