Testing whether a database is available on FileMaker Server

Do you ever need to see if a particular FileMaker database is available? Perhaps you have a FileMaker Go solution that you would like to sync with a master database on a server.  FileMaker’s standard way of doing this is using the open file script step to test for database availability.  This works well if you have a good connection and the database you are trying to connect to is available, but what if that database is not available?  FileMaker Go will attempt to connect to that database for a full minute before throwing an error.  A minute is an awfully long time in a Mobile Application.  There is no equivalent to “go get a cup of coffee” in the mobile world.  Users will not sit and stare at their screen for a minute waiting for an application to do something.  They have stocks to check, Angry Birds to fling, zombies to crush.

There is a faster way.  You can host a very small site and use the fancy new “insert from URL” script step in FileMaker 12 to quickly determine if a database is available.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a web programmer to do this.  There’s no fancy framework to learn, and the set up is minimal.

You will want to set up FileMaker Server for custom web publishing, and here’s a handy link to help you do just that: FileMaker – Custom Web Publishing with PHP – PDF

Once the server is set up for custom web publishing and tested that it is working, follow these 6 easy steps to make your database testable via the web:

1. Create a special privilege set that only custom web publishing will use.  I created a privilege set called web.  You will want to give this privilege set only the privileges that it needs to do it’s job and no more.  So in this case, we just need the solution to have access to a single layout and since we will not be adding or editing any information, we don’t need to give it access to scripts or value lists.  For records, I created custom privileges so there is just read only access to a single field.  For layouts, I created custom privileges with view only access to the special layout I created.
2. In a text editor, paste in the following (adapted from this post):

<?php
require_once ('FileMaker.php');

$fm = new FileMaker();
$fm->setProperty('database', 'test');
$fm->setProperty('hostspec', 'http://localhost');
$fm->setProperty('username', 'web');
$fm->setProperty('password', 'w3b');

$connected = $fm->listLayouts();
If(FileMaker::isError($connected)){
        echo "out of luck";
} else {
        echo 'connected';
}

?>

3. In the line of code $fm->setProperty(‘database’, ‘test’); replace ‘test’ with the name of the database that you will be test the availability of.
4. In the line of code $fm->setProperty(‘hostspec’, ‘http://localhost’); replace the ‘http://localhost’ with the URL of your custom publishing site
5. In the web root folder create a a new folder for this little php snippet and save the text above as test.php (you may have to have whoever is in charge of your site double check the persmission on the folder and file)

Now that wasn’t so hard was it? Now all we have to do is add an Insert from URL script step to insert the contents of this little page into a field (I used a global field). It would look something like this:

Insert from URL [Select:FieldName;"www.yoursitename.com/test/test.php"]

If the contents of the field is anything other than “connected”, the database is not available.  If the webserver is up, and the file is unavailable, the field will contain “out of luck”; if the web server is completely down, the field will contain the error message.

So you can set a field with a message for your users like this

Set Field [MessageFieldName, if(FieldName="connected";"The database is available"; "The database is NOT available")]

Please let me know what you think of this method of testing database availability.