How to Use FileMaker 17 to Connect the Data API and Your WordPress Website

Connecting Your WordPress Website and FileMaker Solution

In this post, we demonstrate how you can submit a form built with a freely available WordPress plugin, Ninja Forms. This makes building web forms easy while staying compliant with a WordPress theme. This process also supports responsiveness of your WordPress deployment.

You do not need access to the backend MySQL database, which is not always easy or available. This makes it very portable and convenient to add as a WordPress administrator. You only need to add a custom action to the Theme Functions (“functions.php”) file in WordPress and specify that custom action in your Ninja Forms configuration.

Previous Strategy: Custom Web Publishing

Previously in FileMaker 16 and prior, you could send data to a CWP (custom web publishing) script that could include the FM API for PHP and use that to insert to your database. This required a web server running PHP, possibly on the same machine where FileMaker Server was running.

Simplified Process with the FileMaker Data API

That changes in FileMaker 17. Now, you can communicate directly with the newly available Data API to insert a new record in your database with no other pieces needed or external APIs to load.

Both methods use a WordPress function, WP_Http(), to make the external requests and submit all form data entered by end users. In WordPress, go to Appearance->Editor, then select the Theme Functions file and insert the following code, with adjustments made to the variables at the top of the function.

add_action( 'fm_WordPress_action', 'fm_data_api_form' );
function fm_data_api_form( $form_data ){
  // set variables
  $myServer = 'https://your_server_name/'; // the url of your server
  $myUser = 'Username'; // your username
  $myPass = 'password'; // your password 
  $myFile = 'Your_File'; // your file name
  $myLayout = 'Your_Layout'; // your layout name
  
  // authenticate and get token
  $myEndpoint = 'fmi/data/v1/databases/' . $myFile . '/sessions';
  $post_url = $myServer . $myEndpoint;
  $headers = array('Authorization' => 'Basic '.base64_encode("$myUser:$myPass") , 'Content-Type' => 'application/json');
  $request = new WP_Http();
  $response = $request->request($post_url, array( 'method' => 'POST', 'body' => $myJSON, 'headers' => $headers ));
  if($response){
    //inspect response
    $responseObj = json_decode($response['body'], false);
    $responseCode = $responseObj->messages[0]->code;
 
    if($responseCode == '0'){
      $responseToken = $responseObj->response->token;
 
      // format json from form data
      $form_array = array('fieldData'=>array());
      foreach( $form_data['fields'] as $field ) {
       // get key/value pairs into an array by themselves
        if($field['key'] != 'submit_button'){
          $form_array['fieldData'][$field['key']] = $field['value'];
        }
      }
      $myJSON_Data = json_encode($form_array);
      
      // insert record
      $myEndpoint = 'fmi/data/v1/databases/' . $myFile . '/layouts/' . $myLayout . '/records';
      $post_url = $myServer . $myEndpoint;
      $headers = array('Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $responseToken , 'Content-Type' => 'application/json');
      $request = new WP_Http();
      $response = $request->post( $post_url, array( 'method' => 'POST', 'body' => $myJSON_Data, 'headers' => $headers ) );
 
      if($response){
        // ok
      } else {
        // insert err
      }
      // log out
      $myEndpoint = 'fmi/data/v1/databases/' . $myFile . '/sessions/' . $responseToken;
      $post_url = $myServer . $myEndpoint;
      $headers = array('Content-Length' => '0');
      $request = new WP_Http();
      $response = $request->post( $post_url, array( 'method' => 'DELETE', 'headers' => $headers ) );      
    } else {
      // authentication err
    }
  }
}

Enabling Ninja Forms

To use with Ninja Forms, we configure the “Emails & Actions” configuration (see Figure 1) for the form we are working on, enable the “Web Hook,” (see Figure 2) and give it a Name and Hook Tag. The Hook Tag here is important, and it needs to match the action name given in the custom action. In the code above, it is the first parameter of the add_action function, where we name it “fm_WordPress_action”.

If we break down the above code, we see the performance of two steps. The first is to authenticate to the database and get a token back. Once we have successfully authenticated and have a token, we use that in the header of our HTTP request to submit JSON to the Data API that completes our record creation.

There are RESTful endpoints used to perform both authenticating and record creation. You can find these in the Data API documentation. First, we send credentials using a HTTP header and receive a token upon successfully authenticating to the database.

Once we have a token, we do a bit of cleanup work to get our data out of the form, where we reference the “Field Key” from the form builder, and correctly format the JSON we will submit as the body of our request to create a new record. We define the Field Key for each field in the form (see Figure 3).

Of course, all field keys need to match with the field names in your database. Also, this assumes that you have correctly set up security in your FileMaker file, and have enabled the “fmrest” privilege set for the account used to perform this action (see Figure 4).

You will see the File and Layout specified in the endpoint we reference, so we only then need to include the JSON containing our record data, in addition to passing our authentication token as a header. All this is simple enough, once you have achieved a cursory understanding of REST architecture and how to work with it.

Licensing and Costs

FileMaker Server includes an amount of data transfer at no additional cost. The good news is that the amount already provided — 2GB of data, per user each month — should be more than enough for most every use case. That does not include container data and only counts toward outbound data transfer. Data is also shared for all users.

For example, if you have a FileMaker Server with five licensed users, that would be 10 GB/month, or 120 GB for the year. That far exceeds the amount that most solutions see in data transfer even with FileMaker Pro pushing user interface and containers. If you go beyond this very high threshold, you would likely want to pay additionally for the support to handle that kind of traffic.

Considering the cost of FileMaker Server effectively includes this licensing, I would not hesitate to recommend using the Data API in any new development.

Building on Your FileMaker-WordPress Integration

This is just an example showing a basic integration of a WordPress form used to create a record in your database. You could build on this example to add more robust error handling or additional functionality.

Integrating with FileMaker is easier than ever! Hopefully this article gives you some insight into how you can extend your FileMaker applications in ways previously not conceived.

If you have any questions or need additional help integrating your FileMaker solution with your website, please contact my team. We’d love to see if we’re a good fit for your next project.

References

• FileMaker Data API Guide
  http://fmhelp.filemaker.com/docs/17/en/dataapi/
• FileMaker Licensing FAQ
  http://www.filemaker.com/purchase/store/faq-teams.html
• Ninja Forms
  https://ninjaforms.com
• Your Guide to Using the FileMaker Data API to Enhance Your Application
  https://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/filemaker-data-api