Huge Filemaker File

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  • June 23, 2017 at 6:13 PM #23589

    Jim Parsons
    Participant

    A couple of years ago I purchased a large database with 400k records. With no calculations or imbedded pictures or files the thing is just shy of 1GB. Yep, 923Mb. ANYONE have any idea how big this file would be in TapForms 5.1? That said, could TapForms even handle that large a number of records in one file and would it work for iCloud?

    June 23, 2017 at 7:03 PM #23590

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    I’m going to just say right now, no. The largest number of records I’ve worked with was 125,000 records and it took about 12 seconds to load the form. Searching the form is very fast, but the initial load wasn’t as fast as I would like.

    So importing 400,000 records might just bring your computer to a crawl trying to fetch the records. It would be interesting to see how it does though.

    June 24, 2017 at 9:14 AM #23592

    Jim Parsons
    Participant

    It was fun trying and it made me look at all of the data in a new light, but your first thought was correct. 391k files with 55 fields each was just too much to let search do its thing. I had to convert to .xlsx and then to csv to get the fields correct. Once loaded my TF library file ballooned to 1.5Gb. I eliminated half of the fields but converted one to a location field and it went to 5Gb. Yes, I backed up first and now have restored. Search had a very hard time but the “first letter” option worked flawlessly.

    Bottom line, TF CAN load all of that info but what it can do after that is limited. I’m going to use the Filemaker file as the search engine and TF as the note/followup app. Once the fields are in place it will be a snap to add more records.

    Fun morning on a hot day. Thank you for a great product that keeps getting better.

    June 24, 2017 at 1:05 PM #23594

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    You can also try the Compact Database function on the Maintenance screen in the Preferences window to shrink the database after you deleted those fields.

    June 24, 2017 at 1:30 PM #23595

    Jim Parsons
    Participant

    Thanks Brendan, we really appreciate your attention to detail.

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