WordPress to FileMaker Part 2

Integrating with WordPress is a challenge and involves different, sometimes difficult pieces:  ODBC, ESS or SQL queries, data mapping, MySQL familiarity, custom functions, data type conversion (MySQL to FileMaker), and more.

The WordPress MySQL data structure is, in and of itself, an interesting puzzle.   Add to that developers who shoehorn their data into the existing structure (that one gave me headaches), as well as those adding whole new sets of tables, as well as the ability to add custom fields on the fly…you get the picture.  Setting this up and getting it to run smoothly requires quite a bit of knowledge and work.

Fortunately, Agnes Riley of ZeroBlue has taken the sting out it.  In her Part 1 of the series, she focused on getting the data from WordPress MySQL into FileMaker.  In Part 2, she details handling the data, from server side scripts to custom functions:

This time I’ll write about how you get that data into your own FileMaker table.

I recommend “importing” the data from the mySQL database into a temporary table. We called ours APPLICANTI_TEMP.  It contains the same exact fields as the mySQL database and it is there so you can identify records in between the two tables. So in my case the fields are text fields, just like in the mySQL DB (even the timestamp). But then we added a timestamp field that is a regular FileMaker TimeStamp and when we run the scripts we set this with the proper FM TimeStamp….

Before running scripts from the server, always make sure you test the hell out of them locally first. Here’s an article on server-side scripts in general. I always recommend adding a LOG table, and put in error checking in your scripts, especially when you’re running them from the server. You DO NOT have a debugger on server. And who wants to code blindly?!

It’s a good read and illuminates the process of moving data from WordPress to FileMaker for those thinking of giving it a try.

Getting Data From A WordPress Form To A FileMaker Database II – –.

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