navarre.aiClarisTalk AI · the FileMaker AI podcast
EngageU Live: Matt talks with Romein Van Buren and gets fresh perspective
Episode 21 Romein was the youngest developer at the conference. He works with his father (who was also there) and also has his own company. Matt enjoyed getting fresh perspective on what FileMaker looks like in Romein's world, which parts he likes best, and how he integrates with it.
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Transcript
Transcribed by machine (whisper, large model), 807 words. Names and product terms are sometimes misheard; the audio is the record.
Welcome to Clara's Talk AI. I am Matt Navar at the EngageU FileMaker conference in Malmö, Sweden. I recorded several short interviews, and please enjoy this one. All right, I'm here with Romain, the youngest person here at the conference, I believe. Yes, I think so. Yeah, I think so too. Well, if not, you look like it. You're 32? I'm 72. I'm kidding. So, and you're with your dad, who's been a FileMaker developer for how long? I think 10 years from now, so we started in around 2015. Okay. So, yeah, 10 years. And then you mostly do web development, but you have FileMaker stuff at the back end, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, so we are building an insurance startup, and the back office actually is a FileMaker, so the calculation of the premium, claim requests and responses, all are handled by FileMaker.
But they are nicely communicated with clients through a client portal, which is a custom-built Node.js app. Oh, Node.js, okay. Yes, and it makes use of the Data API to communicate, but yesterday I learned that OData is maybe a better alternative. Yes, you know, I've been seeing that as well. I did another brief segment on that earlier today. Yeah, it's very different though, right? Yeah. So, like with the Data API, it's still kind of... You know, call a layout. But with OData, I think it might be faster, data transfer. But also, you're just sending really simple credentials, yeah. Yeah, also the credential handling part, so I now have the logic to request a session token and then keep it in cache.
But when it's running out of time, I need to request a new one, so that's all. Okay. Also, not necessary with OData, I think. Yeah, that's just quite a different thing. Yeah, and we have, for each layout, a duplicate one, so it's called api_covers, api_covers, or in short, interests, because it needs to be stable, because otherwise it needs to have a stable API. Yeah, so more stable and consistent, okay. So, you can just edit the layout and then it stops working. Yeah. So, you can just edit the layout and then it stops working. Yeah. So, you can just edit the layout and then it stops working. Yeah. So, you can just edit the layout and then it stops working.
Yeah. So, you can just edit the layout and then it stops working. Yeah, exactly. That's also not with OData. That's true. Well, the database came off. Let's see. That's what I was just going to say. If you change the name of a table or something. Yeah, no, no, no. You shouldn't do that. Although, the thing is, like with regular FileMaker, that doesn't cause a problem. Yeah. So, yeah, because everything is resolved by invisible internal IDs that aren't really exposed. Is this your first conference? Yes, this is my first conference. I hope it's not your last one. No, no. I may be visiting the Wagtail conference in the Netherlands. Oh, okay. In June. And Wagtail is a CMS which I use.
Oh, okay. Also, in combination with this project. Oh, cool. So, we're actually building a thin layer upon FileMaker in Wagtail for handling the content management part. So, we have, for example, the covers and the insured interest are primarily managed in FileMaker, but you can... You can add more rich content, rich text, images, et cetera. Hmm, okay. In the Wagtail CMS. Oh, yeah. So, I may be giving a little presentation about that if that's possible. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, some of the stuff you're talking about, you can store a lot of that stuff in FileMaker, but it might be more efficient to do some of that, like in a different environment.
Yeah, so I first happened to read container fields with nice pictures, et cetera. Yeah. But it's not efficient. And if you upload a five megabyte picture... So, you don't want it to transfer it each time. Yeah, exactly. So, Wagtail is also capable of scaling it down and more content-driven things like that. So, that's why we choose... With FileMaker, you could actually put it in S3, and then it's out of FileMaker, so... Oh, cool. Yeah. A lot of people would do it that way, probably. Yeah. So, but we don't use FileMaker for pictures. Yeah. It can be managed in container fields, but... Yeah. So, we use a content management system for content and FileMaker for business logic.
Premium calculation. Right, yeah. Scripting in FileMaker is kind of cool. Yeah. I definitely love it a lot, yeah. Yeah, so the calculation script is just a giant script with... Yep, and a bunch of JSON. Yeah. All right. Sweet. Thanks for talking to me. Yeah, my pleasure. No problem.