Filemaker Database for Tracking Service Contracts

Almost every major piece of equipment that you own or sell nowadays seems to have a service contract associated with it. A lot of the service contracts are well worth it–most of the videoconferencing manufacturers offer contacts that include overnight replacement of a defective or broken units, unlimited help desk support and end-user training. And a couple of third parties–for example Goldseal from Westcon–offer the same support without having to go through the scripted first and second tier helpdesks when you have a problem that you need to get resolved. In my opinion, these contracts are usually good insurance on system uptime and help you get the maximum return on your videoconferencing investment.

However, manufacturers and distributers (including Goldseal) are horrible about reminding their dealers or end-users about when the service contracts that they have in place are expiring. And the records that they have are often outdated; a common problem not showing the correct serial numbers for the products that the end-user has (when a unit is swapped, the odds are generally low that the records regarding the serial numbers are updated correctly). Compounding this is the budget cycle of some institutions and companies: some may need to know a year in advance of any renewal so that expense can get in the budget.

So for years, I have tracked the service contracts for my clients in a FileMaker database (designed originally by Del Miller). I update this database whenever a client purchases new equipment, renews an exiting contract, or has an equipment change out. This allows me to simply email a pdf report to all my clients every quarter showing them what contracts they have and when they will expire. Warnings about upcoming expirations are integrated into the report. Below is an example report, click for a larger view.

In hopes that this could be of use to other integrators, dealers and end-users, I have provided the open FileMaker file below. You will need to have Filemaker to open, use and modify. This is distributed under a creative commons license.