What’s the best way to integrate this into my existing FileMaker solution?

How you go about integrating the functionality from the fmSMS file is entirely up to you – as the file is completely unlocked you get to go behind the scenes to learn how to send SMS messages and then recreate that in your existing FileMaker solution. Based on feedback from customers there have been three main ways they have approached the integration:

• Linking – this involves using the fmSMS file as a ‘interface’ or front-end file to your existing FileMaker file. This is a relatively quick way to get up and running – you relink the table occurrences to reference the matching tables in your existing FileMaker file (e.g. Contacts) and then update the layouts and add any new fields. You also need to update any field references in scripts and create any new value lists.
• Use the fmSMS file as a Controller File – this involves pushing data to the fmSMS file from your existing FileMaker file and use that to handle the sending of the SMS messages. This is also a relatively quick way to get up and running – you simply write scripts in your FileMaker solution to push Contacts, Messages etc across from your file to the fmSMS file and call scripts in the fmSMS file to send the SMS messages.
• Embedding – this is the most complex and time consuming type of integration as it involves recreating the required functionality from the fmSMS file in your existing FileMaker solution. Our Getting Started guide covers the high level steps that you need to take and the order in which to complete them. Most of the code can be copied and pasted, however you will need to manually create some relationships, table occurrences and value lists.

If you do decide to use the fmSMS file you will have to create and manage any required FileMaker Accounts and Privilege Sets (unless you are using external authentication which we strongly recommend).

You can get more information about integrating fmSMS in our Getting Started guide.