Emily,

I was formerly a data conversion specialist with Gallery Systems, and
worked on a number of conversions, including several where the source data
was in FileMaker Pro. FileMaker Pro can be either an amazingly simple or
incredibly complex conversion, depending upon how your tables were setup.

Here are some things that can help you have a successful conversion:

FileMaker is a platform for building custom databases - so your conversion
specialist won't be able to use existing system knowledge. You will need to
bring as much knowledge about the database structure to the table as
possible. Sometimes, that means finding a superb recordset and taking
screenshots of those records in the forms that you use, so that the
conversion specialist can understand how fields are contextualized together.

Pay attention to fields that are free-text in your FileMaker db, but will
become drop-down lists or another authority in TMS (or Embark). For
instance, if you have a free text field for "Artist Name", you may want to
try standardizing the names "Claude Monet", "Claude Oscar Monet",
"Claude-Oscar Monet" into a single form - while all of these are correct,
unaddressed they will result in three constituent records instead of one.

Dates are another area that can cause problems. If someone entered
"11-2-5201" instead of "11-25-2016" for an accession date, these can
prevent your data from being ingested into SQL Server. These are often
typographic errors, and easy to fix.

If you are using repeating fields or diacritics, pay careful attention to
these during the conversion. FileMaker handles these fields differently,
and while they shouldn't be a major problem, they need to be handled
appropriately.

If you have any direct questions, or ever want to chat, feel free to
contact me off list. ~Chad


On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 5:03 PM, Emily McVeigh <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I am interested to know the steps that need to be taken to migrate data
> from FileMaker Pro to TMS (or EmbARK).
>
>
>
> I would very much like to hear from those who have had a successful
> migration.  Your do’s and do not’s.
>
> I am also particularly interested in knowing what additionally needs to be
> done to ready the data for an on-line presence.  For example, a selection
> (or all) of the permanent collection on the Museum’s website that is
> searchable.
>
>
>
> Feel free to contact me off-list, [log in to unmask]
>
> Thank you!
>
>
>
> Emily McVeigh
>
> Exhibitions and Collections Manager
> Tampa Museum of Art / Cornelia Corbett Center
>
> 120 W. Gasparilla Plaza / Tampa, FL  33602
> 813-421-8377 (ph) / 813-274-8732 (fax)
> www.TampaMuseum.org <http://www.tampamuseum.org/>
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
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