In case you didn’t know, Claris International recently held a 2023 Update Webinar to take stock of the advances in the new Claris Platform and provide a blueprint for development to come.
Important figures at Claris, such as Chief Executive Officer Brad Freitag, Chief Product Owner Robert Holsey, Marketing Manager Gianine Campbell, and Vice-President Engineering Peter Nelson, joined the presentation to discuss development for the Claris Platform and its future.
CEO Brad Freitag takes us inside his thinking
Brad Freitag, CEO, spoke about purpose and values, and how Claris’ decision making is driven by a well-established purpose. He highlighted the organization’s dedication to its developer community and acknowledged the massive impact that work done by developers has had on Claris. This developer community has also played a big role in empowering problem solvers to solve real life problems using Claris technology.
Brad insisted that Claris is committed to helping developers master the new tools in the Claris Platform, while concurrently maintaining the current FileMaker environment, which will be updated into the foreseeable future. The decades that developers have put into the FileMaker Platform will be honored as the new Claris Platform is developed and deployed with data accessible in both platforms.
Robert Holsey gives us the latest product update
Robert Holsey, Chief Product Owner, confirmed that the new Claris Platform will allow developers to continue to solve complex problems and overcome any client challenges. He then described what each technology has to offer – Claris Pro, Claris Connect, and Claris Studio.
Robert summarized the progress of their development approach from phase 1 to phase 3, which is the current phase. Here are some key areas of focus, at the moment:
- Cloud with Claris Studio integration
- Easier Linux deployment
- Claris Studio connector
- Free Tier access to the Claris Platform
- Additional object types
- Signature capture in Claris Studio
- Object visibility for dynamic views
- Studio and Pro integration
Robert then showed a few interesting features in Studio, one of which was about automation and calculations. He showed how to customize experience based on user input. Another feature discussed involved data visualization views. Claris is currently constructing a timeline view that will be useful for things like project and event management. Additionally, Claris is working on a new object that will allow developers to display a view created in Studio directly inside of Claris Pro. Lastly, Robert discussed what’s to come on custom connectors in Claris Connect and showed examples.
Gianine Campbell shares about Claris’ developer-first focus
Gianine Campbell, Marketing Manager, spoked about the effort to grow developer numbers and increase their capabilities through three main areas of focus. First, they are recruiting new developers by continuing the success they’ve had through development bootcamp programs such as 42U, Qwasar and Apple Academy programs.
The second area of focus involves enablement and engagement. Claris will change their centric approach when it comes to sharing knowledge, content creation and engagement opportunities. Claris recognizes that their capacity is dwarfed by that of the developer community as a whole. Claris will now work closely with partners to make and share content.
As for events, Claris will continue to participate in events in order to meet their community in-person. Although no announcement was made at the time the webinar came out about Claris Engage, a date has recentrly been set to February 2024. The next Engage event will be held in Austin, Texas. Claris understands and values the connections created during such an event. Gianine highlighted the fact that Claris attended multiple weekly user groups and Meetups since the beginning of the year, and that they will continue to do so.
Finally, Gianine discussed the impact of a free tier for Claris and how it aligns with their developer-first approach.
Q&A
Peter Nelson, Vice-President of Engineering, joined the webinar for the Q&A session.
What does “data everywhere” mean?
The platform is comprised of various pieces that are designed to work tightly together, specifically Claris Studio and Claris Pro. However, you can’t solve any one problem with just any one of those tools. When developers need solve a specific problem, they must be able to use the right tool. To enable that, that tool needs to put its data in a place where all the other parts of the platform can leverage and use that data.
How will Claris be licensed, and are Claris Studio and Pro included in clients’ current FileMaker licenses?
By the end of February 2023, Claris will roll out new pricing that outlines their approach regarding the Claris Platform moving forward.
Why would clients make the jump from FileMaker to the new Claris Platform?
The Claris Platform as a whole offers a set of tools that can be used to solve a wider array of challenges. For example, instead of building custom code or use third-party licensing to solve challenges, developers can now use Studio. Another advantage would be utilizing Claris Connect to integrate with various web services more easily, and having all tools and data in one place.
Conclusion
We will release information about the topics addressed above as soon as possible. In the meantime, we encourage you to sign up to be notified when the free tier of Claris is available publicly.