FileMaker and Otto at sea
In 2017, we learned of a FileMaker system used to share real-time data between fields hospitals in remote villages in Papua New Guinea and the base hospital on a ship off the coast. This is a truly great story and we encourage you all to read it.
Published on June 8, 2017, by the Claris Editorial Team: FileMaker-based custom app allows sharing of key real-time data between field hospital and medical ship
Recently, their FileMaker developer shared with us that Otto has had and continues to have a profound impact on how they manage their solution.
Gearbox Solutions chooses Otto
As mentioned in the article, Gearbox Solutions (Atlanta, GA) supports a custom FileMaker solution that helps with medical intake data, stores patient images, and provides information for medical interactions and inventory. They continue to do this today. However, deploying a new version of the system from the development environment to the production environment off the coast of Papua New Guinea was a challenge. Gearbox decided to use Otto to Ottomate the whole process.
Here's what Marty Thomasson, CEO and Founder of Gearbox Solutions, said about the process.
As you know, we continue to support that medical team in Papua New Guinea. Performing a new release was an agonizing affair, requiring someone to remote into no less than 7 devices, download new files, etc —> Australia Cloud <—> PNG Ship Server <—> Clinic Laptop Servers ( 5 of them ). This was super unpleasant with latency > 800ms to the Ship.
Each new release was an arduous, all day affair. This meant we performed releases much less often than we really wanted.
It took a while, but we finally have a combination of ZeroTier, appropriate DNS config, and Otto fully integrated.
Before: 1 release = 8 active hours
After: 1 release = literally 3 active minutes ( with some waiting during which we can do other things ).
For example, I performed 2 releases today alone.
This is not just saving time, but changing the nature of our engagement with the clinical team’s needs.
Otto changes what's possible
In Marty's words, Otto is "changing the nature of our engagement with the clinical team’s needs". It doesn't just automate the deployment from development to production. It changes the scope of what you can accomplish, by removing a long, error-prone process from the FileMaker Development Lifecycle.
What more could you do if you automated your deployment process? How many weekends would you save? How many more features could you ship? How great could your custom FileMaker app be if deployment was just a button away?
More than deployment
While data migrations are an important Otto feature, it's just the beginning of what you can do. An Otto-powered FileMaker Server is supercharged with features like receiving webhooks and application logging, to name a couple. Learn more here.
Built for modern FileMaker
Otto supercharges FileMaker Server and gives developers more time to focus on making great FileMaker apps. It’s a data migration tool that does so much more. It has webhooks, allows for comprehensive application logs, and allows you to write your own REST API endpoints that trigger javascript functions on your server.
Ottomatic, our hosting platform powered by Otto, is foundational for the Modern FileMaker Revolution. You need a server built to integrate with internet tools you use (like Slack) to get the most from your investment in the Claris FileMaker Platform.
Are you managing your own FileMaker servers? Otto is for you.
Looking for someone else to host and manage your servers? Check out Ottomatic for your Claris FileMaker hosting needs.