Looking for simple and efficient ways to work with distributed data?
FYI, FileMaker, Excel, Sheets, and Acrobat all provide native functions that can merge user-supplied variables into URLs that load and trigger PHP scripts.
https://customdataservices.net/customerquery.php?customerNumber=242
Depending on the variables, the PHP script can execute a single SQL query or a transaction, perform a look-up, call a stored procedure, run a series of complex aggregate queries, interact with a REST API, or trigger another script, and then filter, format, and return a response as a single value or a multi-value array.
Ultra low-code 2-way data interactions, executed from document-based interfaces, that can connect to, query, filter, calculate, re-calculate, and merge data from multiple disparate SQL databases or REST APIs in near real-time.
Interfaces can be extended with additional capabilities depending on type. FileMaker, in particular, provides extremely versatile data processing options.
Regardless of type, any interface can interact with unlimited data sources.
PHP is popular open-source technology, available on roughly 80% of web servers. PHP Data Objects (PDO) and cURL code libraries drastically simplify data interactions with SQL databases or APIs. Optional PHPRunner interfaces provide secure Create-Read-Update-Delete controls for MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or DB2 databases and can also create authentication-enabled API endpoints for these database types.
FileMaker interfaces can calculate and execute URLs that use PDO and cURL to interact with SQL databases and APIs. FileMaker additionally provides an advanced multi-user development environment, ideal for building bespoke programmable controls and data processing interfaces that can be securely shared via Apple or Windows desktop application, WebDirect web or mobile forms, or the FileMaker Data API.
Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets spreadsheet interfaces can also utilize PHP scripts to execute SQL and REST API queries, using PDO and cURL to interact with data services and filter results back to active spreadsheet cells and formulas. Excel spreadsheets work best with queries that return scalar or aggregate results in JSON or XML. Sheets provides the ability to insert HTML-formatted query results in to spreadsheets as dynamic arrays. Nice!