Filemaker Pro 13 perform calculations like Excel?

Question

Level 1

9 points

Filemaker Pro 13 perform calculations like Excel?

I recently went to the Genius Bar and they told I should try to migrate what I am doing in Excel into Filemaker Pro because it won't have bottlenecking issues.

Is it possible to use Filemaker Pro like a spreadsheet program? How do I reference cells of records? I need it to iteratively run mathematical calculations. How do I get it to take data and perform mathematical calculations as I would do in Excel?

For instance, something like B1 = X*(A1-B2)+B2 like it would be in Excel.

Mac Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Feb 3, 2017 8:34 PM

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Answer 1

JayB.

Community Specialist

Feb 4, 2017 4:56 PM in response to macuser371

Hi macuser371,

I understand that you would like to create a spreadsheet in the FileMaker Pro app on your Mac Pro. Please have a look at this link for assistance with accomplishing that. FileMaker Support: Working with data in Table View

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities to post your question. Let us know if this helps.

Have a great weekend.

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Answer 2

macuser371 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 4, 2017 6:25 PM in response to Csound1

Why is it that you recommend using Excel over Filemaker?

It is much easier to perform calcs in Excel, but it suffers from feature bloat. It also is a bottleneck, at least on the Mac end. Microsoft purposefully limited the application.

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Feb 4, 2017 6:42 PM in response to macuser371

Because it is a well tested and supported program, it is the best spreadsheet around and has been for a quarter of a century. It is a great calculation engine.

I do tend to agree about the Mac vs Windows version comparison though, a bit.

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Answer 4

macuser371 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 4, 2017 6:49 PM in response to Csound1

I have reached the point where Excel won't calculate fast enough. Activity Monitor says that it is only using a small portion of the CPU and RAM, but it still takes a while. I like the layout of Excel, but I have reached its limits.

To anyone.

I want Filemaker to start with with the last record (record 2,519) and calculate upwards iteratively to record 1.

I created something that looks like this

If (IsEmpty (GetNthRecord ( Field 8 ; 2519 )) ; f5 ; .5 * (Field 8 - f5) + Field 8 ). There is something slightly wrong with this formula.

I want it to do something like this.

If the 2519th record is empty it will put the value from f5 in Field 8, if the 2519th record is a number it will do 0.5 * (2518th record of f5 - 2519th record of Field 8) + 2519th record Field 8

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Answer 5

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Feb 4, 2017 6:56 PM in response to macuser371

The Windows version is the faster, but I never needed more speed than the Mac version provided (deadlines were not tight) I once imported a table in Access, it was faster, but not by much. (long time ago) I doubt that I ever made up the time it took to import and learn do what I wanted in Access.

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Answer 6

macuser371 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 4, 2017 7:03 PM in response to Csound1

I beg to differ. It does not sound like you were using it for math. deadlines? I need the information crunch in seconds continuously, not days or weeks. It is not a presentation. It currently takes minutes.

Thanks for your input.

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Feb 4, 2017 7:11 PM in response to macuser371

It was in use to calculate air pressure, density and speed for calculations pertaining to large scale high output audio delay systems. I too need continuous calculations (the result of which were used to control output devices), the system operates in real time, in front of an audience.

The calculations had to be completed in less time than it took the sound to travel through the air to the listener.

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Answer 8

Tony T1

Level 6

10,247 points

Feb 5, 2017 7:48 AM in response to macuser371

If you don't mind doing bit (a lot) of research, you might consider looking into the R programming language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)

excel worksheets can be used with R (see: r programing and excel)

I've not used R, but it looks like it will do what you need, but if you're not a programmer, there will be a steep learning curve

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Answer 9

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,124 points

Feb 5, 2017 12:52 PM in response to macuser371

Filemaker 15 is a relational database product that can import Excel spreadsheets and data, but not formulas. So that might be the end of your Filemaker quest right there.

If you are not principally statistics oriented, you might take a closer look at Sage, an open-source Mathematical Software system.

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