Let me correct my post #11806, for me its not an alternative to bento because I am missing copy / paste of records from one form or database to the an other. The most handy thing for us was creating data-records by copy / paste data from excel. I miss as well the possibility to share a database with other users in a local lan.
I am pretty sure, if those 2 things could be done, a lot of people and even small companies would buy this software. Everything else is very nice!
It’s not an alternative to bento. I am missing copy / paste from one form to the other, I am missing as well sharing a database with other users.
Until this will be possible, please don’t call it an alternative for bento!
You can make smart collections in Tap Forms similar to Bento. Click the little gear wheel icon to the left of the search box and set the parameters you want to sort for. Then be sure to click SAVE not search. Now you’ll have the collection you want as a sub-set under your main list.
To print, I think you will have to export the group you want to an Excel file and then open that to print. But before you do that you’ll have to order the fields in the order you want them by clicking the icon in the tool bar for Forms, then click Fields. Order the fields by dragging them into the order you want – Name, address, phone, etc. Now go to export and put a check box next to each field you want in your spread sheet. Choose to export as Excel and you should be good to go. You an then open in either Excel or Numbers and print it.
I agree, it’s definitely not as slick as Bento. There a lot of Bento features I’m missing, but usually I can find a work around. Hopefully the program will continue to develop and we’ll get some of these features in future releases.
I’m coming from Bento, and used it as a customer database. Using Bento, I had a Library of all my accounts, then had Smart Collections based upon a Region field I created. I like this as I can isolate & focus on only those customers in a region that I may be traveling to, and further, could print a list of all of them, one line per account, that showed name, address, phone, etc, that I could have for fast and handy reference in my car.
I can’t figure out a way to get a similar sort/organization of accounts, nor printing a sorted list as described above. Any tips?
OK, thanks. I’ve solved the issue by changing the & to and – and then when I search, I search for “and” in quotes so I don’t get names like Andy and Andrea. Just 100 records to change! LOL. It worked fine in Bento and that’s why I changed them all to ‘&’ in the first place.
I don’t suppose there is a global search and replace feature?? JK
I’ve moved my Bento database over to Tap Forms and have figured out how to recreate my smart collections by using the saved search function which is great by the way. The only challenge I’m finding at the moment is how to create a saved search for records with no photos.
I’ve tried several times but cannot seem to find an option to select by photo as filled or unfilled.
Hi Brendan,
Yes, I tried the 3.0.1 beta demo version and imported as a Bento Template. The default layout does show address info, however no phone or email. The template layout from Bento doesn’t show fields for address, phone or email – just blank space. When I try to drag the fields onto the template layout, they bounce back and don’t stick.
In addition, I brought an excel doc into 3.0. Very strange but addresses appeared in different fields than address fields and it was inconsistent on all entries.
Please let me know a private way I can provide the Bento templates to you – do you have an email? The Bento template includes our clients’ personal address data and I don’t want to post a download link online.
Thanks!!
Can you please try your Bento import with the 3.0.1 beta demo version?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sluvd5csb2aixp6/Tap%20Forms%20Demo%203.0.1%20beta.app.zip?dl=0
Let me know if it’s able to import your address fields. If not, then I would like to get a copy of your Bento template so I can see why it’s not working.
Thanks,
Brendan
Hi Brendan,
Just tried re-importing the address book from Bento into Tap Forms. Unfortunately, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses do not come in.
In Bento, these essential three address book fields are always list types because Bento was created to integrate with the Mac OS Address Book application. I would change the type of field in Bento directly before exporting, but this doesn’t seem possible.
Will you be adding the ability to import list fields in the future version?
Is there a way to bring the addresses, phone numbers, and emails from the Mac OS Address Book application?
Is there a way to combine our Bento template import with fields from an excel document that we bring in?
Please let me know your thoughts on this issue as it is essential for the address book import to work. Thanks!!
Like many, I am moving away from Bento now that it is not working well with Yosemite.
As a Psychologist, my workflow consists of 3 databases/forms: Bookings, Work in Progress, and Completed Work, all with identical fields. Each database has a number of complex searches attached to it.
I’m having 2 problems moving over to Tap Forms from Bento. The first is that Tap Forms 3.0 is unusably slow, particularly with the 12 fields X 5645 records, and growing, Completed Work. I understand that this will be repaired in 3.0.1.
The other issue is being able to move records (remember the fields are carefully identical) from one database to another. In looking at how to do this, I found some 2013 material in the forum that said this was not permitted as it would be a mess with dissimilar fields. Is this still the case, or is there now a way to move records between databases. Like the 2013 user, I am not interested in having one super-database, but really, really want 3 separate databases that I move records among.
Help is appreciated,
John
Hello Brandan,
My compliments for your masterwork. We use TapForms dayly and would not want to miss this super tool for our small business anymore. Also way, way better than Bento in the past. However, we have two macbook pro’s with the same icloud account. Two ipad’s and two iphone’s. We have never managed to get sync to work. Yes we will see devices but the data have never been consistant the same on two devices or more. I get the feeling the sync feature simply does not work properly. There is one thing I do which might cause problems however? Because we use TapForms on two macs and we are not capable of getting sync to work, I copy the database folder from the mac users library containers folder. Because by simply copy pasting this folder to the other mac all data is 100% certain copied and consistent.
So I created empty fresh tapform on one mac, reset icloud sync, then created sync on one mac with all data in database. Then iphone sees sync, says it syncs, but data is not consistend the same. Ipad the same story.
We sinceraly hope that maybe there will be a way to sync in the near future that will work…
I set this up in Bento for my B&W Photography. When I imported the form into Tap Forms, it had a second part – the Image List insert section for recording the individual prints sold. I hope I’m right in posting it here in two parts.
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I set this one up for my wife in Bento, then moved it over to Tap Forms. She has thirty years of work in it.
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3.0.1 hasn’t been submitted to Apple yet. This weekend I’ll do that.
It does not support the Simple List field type. Sorry.
You can certainly try your Bento import again ow.
Thanks,
Brendan
We’re having a similar issues with importing fields in the address book – emails, phone numbers, and addresses are not importing into Tap Forms at all.
Please see attached screen shot to see the type of field in Bento that isn’t coming into Tap Forms and please let us know any suggestions for solving this.
Thanks!
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