One of the great things about FileMaker is its accessibility and ease when it comes to getting started. There are lots of tutorials available online and it’s easy to find information about building your own FileMaker applications from scratch, as long as you’re willing to do the research and put in a bit of effort. However, depending on what you want to do, sometimes developing on your own can be a bad idea, especially when you consider the long-term maintenance factor. Particularly if you’re not experienced.
You can implement complex ideas easily
No matter how skilled you are yourself, this will not be a limiting factor when working with a development specialist who is responsible for realizing your ideas. You will just have to make sure that you are concrete on the project requirements, and that you communicate your needs effectively. Other than that, as long as you have hired someone competent enough, they will take care of the rest.
Sometimes the kinds of ideas you have in your head might require years of expertise to properly pull off, in which case it’s clearly not a very good idea to start from the ground up yourself. If you want a challenging learning experience that’s another story, but that’s pretty much the only valid excuse you could have.
No worries about long-term maintenance
Anyone who’s had to deal with custom applications on either side of the equation, whether as a developer or client, can tell you that getting the application done is just one part of the puzzle. You also have to think about maintaining it in the future, and this is often where the really heavy work comes in.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t decide to add any complex features, simply keeping the application clean from bugs and aligned with your use cases can be a pain in itself. Working with someone else and knowing that they are responsible for this can be a huge relief, and if you have multiple applications that have to be maintained, doing it yourself can even be out of the question.
And then, if you run into the dreadful situation of encountering a critical problem with your application that puts a hold on your operations, it’s good to know that you can just call someone and have it taken care of, instead of stressing yourself excessively. The difference can be significant, as you probably already have a lot on your head from your main work itself.
Get in touch with related professionals more easily
Sometimes you’ll need extra work done on the project that may fall outside of your developers area of expertise. It can be difficult to find those people on your own if you don’t know where to look, but thankfully, working with a developer who has been on the market for a while can usually provide you with a valuable chain of connections to other specialists who can service you. Even if the developer doesn’t immediately know who to call, they should at least have an idea of where to start and how much you can roughly expect to pay for the job.
When it comes to finding e.g. a good FileMaker hosting provider that you can count on, an experienced developer should be able to put you in touch with the best companies on the market, and maybe even guide you to some nice discounts.
This alone can save you tremendous amounts of time and effort, and it can make everything much easier when it comes to running the business. You’d be surprised how simple it can be to maintain a complex FileMaker application when you have the assistance of someone who knows what they are doing.
No matter how complex your requirements may be, there will always be someone out there who can pull off a good job, and you just have to search for the right specialist. If you are not sure what your project requires exactly, a good developer should be able to guide you in the right direction for that as well.
All in all, unless you have an active interest in learning FileMaker on your own for some reason, it’s almost always better to get the help of a professional who knows what they are doing, and get the reassurance that the job will be done correctly. In today’s market, getting in touch with the right specialist for the job can be a piece of cake that takes very little time, and can be very rewarding in the long run if you find someone competent.
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