The launch of Claris FileMaker 2024 has our developer community buzzing with enthusiasm. That’s because the new release includes some popular enhancements that have been on FileMaker developers’ wish lists, including Let’s Encrypt, JSONMakeArray function, and the crown jewel – new AI capabilities.

Plus, FileMaker 2024 offers new tools so you can make your apps faster and easier to maintain, and updates make deployment more secure and hassle-free.

Recently, we sat down with Rick Kalman, Claris product management director, and Andrew LeCates, product marketing director at Claris, to walk through the new FileMaker 2024 features and find out what makes this release so special.

Use AI to enable new ways to learn more.

One powerful thing that sets FileMaker 2024 apart from previous releases is support for large language models (LLMs) and semantic search. “It changes the game in many, many ways,” Rick says. You can add semantic search to any existing application – and you can do it quickly and responsibly without disrupting workflows, risking app architecture, or impacting data.

Including AI in your apps has impactful benefits, such as:

• Giving users new ways to explore data based on meaning instead of keyword matching.
• Asking questions using natural language instead of through complex queries.
• Using semantic search to get answers from your data that you couldn’t find previously.

AI needs data to have meaningful impact. Our customers have a critical advantage – their data – in getting real value from AI. Users will get more answers from custom apps more quickly than before.

Andrew LeCates, Claris product marketing director

With this release, there’s a new AI category of script steps in the Script Workplace. These new script steps and related calculation functions provide all the necessary tools to manage your AI account, store vector embeddings, determine semantic similarity, build effective prompts, and even monitor tokens to manage speed and cost.

Model integrations are built to work with public or local models, which give you control over data privacy, security, and cost.

This native support for LLMs in FileMaker 2024 is the next step in an AI journey that started with CoreML support in FileMaker 19, and signals Claris’ vision to help customers get more value from data using AI.

According to Andrew, using AI can be a low-risk, low-cost initiative. “Really, there’s no need to change your data or disrupt your workflows since semantic search works with your data as-is.” You can experiment with small, targeted upgrades to prove its value, such as leveraging semantic search to retrieve meaningful results from traditional keyword searches or reporting on semantic outliers in your data to uncover new insights.

Build faster apps and integrations that are easier to maintain.

FileMaker Pro 2024 has new script steps and functions that better leverage Data API, JSON, and transactions, giving developers quicker ways to build apps and easing maintenance for integrations.

A few of the new enhancements help you better optimize your scripts and apps:

• Execute Data API now supports write operations. You now have direct, faster scripting against data, without extra windows to navigate files or switch relational context.
• Revert transactions in subscripts is more responsive to business logic or error handling, letting you simplify your scripts.
• GetLiveTextAsJSON provides you more visibility into metadata when extracting text from images.

When asked about his favorite enhancement, Rick stated it’s working with JSON arrays. With the enhancement, you can quickly and easily convert a delimited list into a JSON array, append data into an existing JSON array, and easily reference the last element in a JSON array. The enhancement ultimately helps ensure greater accuracy and consistency when you’re dealing with complex script parameters.

The JSONMakeArray function gives developers more flexibility and saves time when working with complex datasets. It’s become an increasingly powerful and integral tool for data integrations across disparate apps and services, including its use with our new AI large language model (LLM) capabilities.

Rick Kalman, Claris product management director

Plus, this release offers better OData 4.01 compliance, which makes integrations easier. You can filter expressions to optimize data transfer, and direct support for navigating entity relations simplifies complex integrations.

Other refinements include local notifications that are now supported by FileMaker Pro – like in FileMaker Go – so you can stay focused and never miss essential alerts. And Import.log now includes themes and value lists, giving you more insight into app updates.

As with most releases, this one includes more than 200 issues fixed to keep your apps running smoothly and delivering on our promise to continuously invest in FileMaker’s performance, stability, and reliability. These fixes are direct results from user testing and developer feedback – thanks to all of you who gave it.

Deploy more securely and with a lot less hassle.

FileMaker Server provides native support for certificates and gives administrators optimized console controls that support more secure and hassle-free deployment.

To enhance data security and simplify SSL certificate setup and management, FileMaker Server now lets you use Let’s Encrypt, a free, easy-to-use certificate service. With Let’s Encrypt, certificate requests and renewals can be automated with system scripts built into FileMaker Server for macOS or Ubuntu.

Developers can now set up Let’s Encrypt in FileMaker against a schedule, so it just runs. This enhancement has been a popular request from the Claris Community, and many businesses are going to benefit from this free certificate service.

Andrew LeCates, Claris product marketing director

With FileMaker Server Admin Console enhancements now in place, administrators have clearer visibility on schedules and better tools to manage teams and users. The updated console pulls schedules together in one view, helping administrators avoid automation conflicts. Plus, administrators can block new user connections to ensure maintenance integrity, and administrator roles allow for more flexibility to support teams and apps within the organization.

Managing application lifecycles is better than ever since:

• FileMaker Server Admin API now supports scriptable file uploads and downloads.
• FileMaker Developer Tool can rename files.
• Hash script steps and layout objects when using Save As XML helps you with app versioning.

Apps on mobile devices are the best way to collect information.

“With this release, FileMaker Go is now closer to the FileMaker Pro experience,” Rick says. That’s because with FileMaker Go, containers and imports now support any kind of data, making apps on an iPhone or iPad the best way to quickly collect information.

Mobile data capture has the flexibility of your workstation. FileMaker Go updates let you capture any binary file type into container fields, and you can import more text data formats like CSV. Plus, GetLiveTextAsJSON provides metadata – app scripts are more accurate at extracting text from images.

Your users will have fast, one-tap access to mobile apps now that new widget support links directly to your company’s favorite apps. Or perhaps you’d like to launch the most important custom app when FileMaker Go launches – you can do that, too. Plus, with a single tap from your custom app, you can launch websites and apps in Safari.

Lots of learning opportunities and resources await.

From Engineering blogs and release notes to Community Live events, AI demos, and Claris Community discussions, you’ll find a wide variety of resources available to help you get up to speed quickly. “The Claris Community is rallying around the new FileMaker 2024 features. There are lots of development experts in the community sharing guidance on how to use AI capabilities and other new enhancements,” Andrew exclaims.

Ready to evaluate FileMaker 2024?

Explore the new toolset yourself with a 45-day trial. Sign up today.

Would you prefer to have an expert walk you through FileMaker 2024? Claris Partners provide consultation and training, and if you want to take it a step further, they can build an app tailored to your organization. Working with a partner opens the door for amazing opportunities. Find a partner now.