eBase is just an application that runs on FileMaker. Its only advantage is
that they did almost all the work of developing an application. Raw
FileMaker is just that raw. You develop the application completely.
Importing may be anywhere between easy and hard depending on your data.
Assuming your data is in some form of database, in most cases databases can
export their data into tab or comma delimited files. Dbase .dbf files also
work for import as do a bunch of other formats. Some forms of cleanup are
easier to do on the old database and others are easier to do after you
import it. Generally you are already familiar with your current database so
it is easier to do there.
I did the import work for us which involved a fair amount of changes because
our data differed significantly from what ebase wanted, e.g. we had
expiration dates of memberships but ebase wants date of payment and computes
the expiration date. We have not completed the conversion process yet
because we have a lot of fields that have no natural place to reside and
some of the data we have is in an unstructured comment field but has a
natural place to go in eBase. We chip away at this stuff slowly. None of it
is critical to our operation. Caviat: I have more than 40 years of
experience with computers and databases so what is easy for me may not be so
easy for others. However I had no prior experience with FileMaker and did
not find the transition hard.
