Comments on: FileMaker Gets Bento

By: Kay

Kay — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:10:42 +0000

Hi, I was wondering can it be set so that if a contact phones the bento records for this person will automatically open up? If so how do i do this.

Thank you

By: François Gauthier

François Gauthier — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:32:45 +0000

hi, i was wondering if Bento was integrating mail…
i would like to be able to check incoming mail or write mail directly from bento, is it possible?

if not, do you know a similar database software integrating mail, contacts, ical, tasks, lists etc…

thanks a lot

By: Geoff Coffey

Geoff Coffey — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:43:28 +0000

Steve:

Bento cannot import FileMaker files directly. But it can import the imminently standard CSV format, which FileMaker can easily export. So your best bet is to export data from FileMaker as CSV, then import it into Bento.

Going the other way, you can import Bento libaries directly into FileMaker Pro 10 for Mac OS X. If you have an older version you’ll have to export from bento first.

Hope it helps,

Geoff

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:22:08 +0000

I still don’t know if I can import an existing filemaker pro database into bento??? Anyone?

By: Gisela Drayton

Gisela Drayton — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:17:41 +0000

Bento is sooo limited in Printing, it is totally worthless for me. It automaticaly imported my Address Book. When I tried to print from it, I couldn’t. I was on a trial version, and if I recall, I could make mailing labels, but so 1000 ther programs. I wanted to be able to print some labels other than the typical address labels and I couldn’t. I had come up with some other ideas regarding modifying labels, but by that the trial run had run out and I was no longer able do download it. So I quit.

By: DaveMacG

DaveMacG — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:27:03 +0000

I have been banging on FM Pro6 for years and thought that Bento would really be a leap in contact management software … but after some poking around I will stick to my OSX Tiger FM pro 6.

The most valuable function I need in project & contact management is relational email correspondence tracking …ie, with a click of a button
I can see the lists of email correspondences to and from a particular person/company/phone number etc. This I have laboriously coded with my own scripts and 3rd party ‘Mail to Filemaker Importer’ application.

I find it unbelievable that Bento and all other pro-sumer data base applications(AFAIK) don’t knit seamlessly with mail programs.

Am I alone here?

But I do love my local teriyaki bento box

By: Geoff Coffey

Geoff Coffey — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:27:43 +0000

@dave: My understanding is that Bento is designed to process CSV files from Excel. I don’t remember all the details, but the handling of quotes is not “standardized” in CSV (which is not an actual standard at all, but rather a de facto standard, I believe).

Anyway, handling quotes in CSVs is a common problem for anyone who has ever tried to work with both Excel and other applications.

You might try exporting from FileMaker as a tab-delimited file, then opening that in Excel. Finally, save the Excel spread sheet as a CSV. If all goes well, you’ll then be able to import the final CSV into bento.

Geofg

By: Dave Owen

Dave Owen — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:05:22 +0000

Thanks much for your review! I have spent several hours with Bento, and had hoped to bring in my home database. I love the integration with Apple Address Book, etc.

However Bento was not able to import a 1200 record csv file exported from Filemaker Pro 9, apparently due to a problem exporting fields with commas and/or returns in them.

For importing records, Bento turned out to be less capable than the Apple Address Book, which at least was able to import a tab delimited file exported from Filemaker Pro. This was a BIG disappointment.

By: Roman

Roman — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:17:45 +0000

GREAT review! Many thanks. I have ~700+ contacts in my Entourage address book. Can I export them to Bento, and if so, could i do mass mailings and mail merge? Thank you.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:23:18 +0000

I think its brilliant! I’ve been using FM 6 for years to manage my Scout Group membership list in a self built database from FM 3. Its OK (I’m not a power user!) but its difficult for other Scout Leaders to use. I saw Bento and thought I’d give it a go and its fantastic! It does exactly what I want, its very easy to use, I’ve pre-saved a load of collections for other leaders to use. I’ve worked out how to get it to show ages which is brilliant too. 3 minor issues which I’m sure will be sorted in the next release are: 1) No password control. I have kids personal data which I’d rather was password protected, like in FM 2) It can’t import FM documents, only CSV 3) AS of yet, I can’t rearrange the column order in Table View, so printing is a bit poor.

Overall, its great – I think it will appeal to home users, charities, clubs and organisations – the iLife customer as it were, the type of people who use iMovie rather than FCP, iPhoto instead of Aperture etc. 9/10