FileMaker Server 19.5 includes new functionality that could be very important for your FileMaker deployments. Let’s discuss some updates to the Admin API and other new capabilities. Check out the roundup of all the new features from our team at Soliant Consulting.
Admin API
If you use the Admin API to help manage your FileMaker Server, you now have functionality regarding backups to add to your arsenal:
- Cancel currently running backup
- Get Server Parallel Backup Setting
- Update Server Parallel Backup Setting
You can get an updated copy of the Admin API Tool that provides an open and unlocked FileMaker file that you can enter your own server information and use to manage your own FileMaker Server.
Parallel backups are an interesting new feature in 19.5. However, with our Soliant.cloud FileMaker hosting they’re unnecessary due to Snapbacks, which provide more backups for lower costs. If you are running your own FileMaker Server on-premises, you may want to investigate this feature further.
Perform Script on Server
FileMaker Server can now support authoring a script that includes the “Perform Script on Server” (or PSOS) when running from FileMaker Server. That means it is possible to have a scheduled script or a running server-side script and run a new script on the server asynchronously.
This new feature is restricted by the maximum number of PSOS sessions configured on the server. The default is 100 but can be changed with the Admin API to as high as 500. Take care if you plan on utilizing this functionality since you can potentially call more script sessions than the server can comfortably handle. This leads to another new server update and an increase in the scripting engine cache size.
Scripting Engine Cache Size
This enhancement in FileMaker Server makes a lot of sense, especially considering the added feature above of being able to call PSOS from the server. The FileMaker Server scripting engine has an increased memory cache from 64MB to 256MB. With the ability to run more scripts on the server, having a larger memory cache is important.
Aside from PSOS, it is not uncommon to have scheduled scripts at the server level that are performing all manner of tasks. This is a benefit, especially to those servers that have scheduled scripts that can consume a lot of server-side resources and should benefit from the additional capacity.
Customizing the OAuth Sign-in
This is a very welcome feature and one that I think a lot of clients can utilize. There are a set of html files that you can customize to enhance the WebDirect login experience. This is applicable if you are using an external Identity Provider (IdP) to authenticate users. In theory, these should also work with prior versions of FileMaker Server, but these are now provided with 19.5.
This is for deployments using WebDirect. We are big fans of WebDirect here and have even developed our own WebDirect Auto-Scaling, which makes a lot of sense if you need automated WebDirect scalability for your solution.
Now, by utilizing these new files, it is possible to bypass the WebDirect OAuth login prompt. Users will be routed through IdP for authentication, then get redirected and authorized into a WebDirect session.
It makes for a seamless experience when making your custom FileMaker apps available to users in a web browser. This makes it easier to deploy and integrate into an Enterprise web portal and complies with Claris licensing as intended.
OData for everyone!
Previously available only in the Linux version of FileMaker Server, now OData is also available in FileMaker Server for Windows and macOS.
If you are not familiar with OData, it may be worth your time to investigate. There are similarities to the Data API you might be familiar with, but OData follows some industry standards. This will aid in easing new developers into the Claris platform.
Our team has already developed a Typescript client if you want to leverage that and start using OData. You can find it here.
The tool is great! Thank you
Just FYI – it incorrectly shows last updated as 2020 in the footer