Upgrading Studio Manager
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Budget for upgrades
Price varies by version
Upgrade price chart
What does upgrading entail?
Upgrading from SM7 or SM8
Upgrading from SM4 or SM3
Re-doing customizations
Use FileMaker Pro Advanced
Studio Manager upgrade history
How Much Does it Cost to Upgrade?
What to Budget for
A quick word before you look at the numbers. The prices below are for a brand new and empty copy of Studio Manager 10 only. They do not include the cost of upgrading your copy or copies of FileMaker Pro to FileMaker Pro 10. They do not include the cost of extra help you may need to import your data or transfer your customizations into Studio Manager 10. We don’t bundle these optional services because some of our customers have their own in-house or local expertise to handle the importing and customization themselves.
See below the price tables for a lot of good information on upgrading including a description of the upgrader guide that we have written to help you along your way.
Pricing Depends on your Current Version
Upgrade Price Percentages by Version:
If you have purchased within the last year, contact us for an even lower price.
Our thinking is (1) users with earlier versions have gotten more years of value out of the product they purchased and (2) the increase in features and value going from a much earlier version to Studio Manager 10 is greater than it is for someone who has recently purchased Studio Manager 9. Seems fair and is a generous version of industry practices.
Upgrade Pricing for Studio Manager 10
February Sale Pricing: During February 2010, you can take 15% off the prices below:
If you don’t see your user count in this list, drop us an email and/or call 415 789-5219 and we will give you a quote.
What does Upgrading Entail?
We give you a checklist. When you upgrade a customizable product like Studio Manager, you get the full new product and then need to (1) import your data into it and (2) re-do any customizations you may have made in the past that you think are worth adding.
Upgrades from Studio Manager 7, 8 or 9 to 10
Easy Upgrades. When you go from Studio Manager 7, 8 or 9 to 10, the field names match with very few exceptions. Importing itself may only take a couple hours depending how large your files are. There are a few more things to do while you are at it:
Set all the auto-number fields like estimate numbers and invoice numbers so that they start where your old version of Studio Manager leaves off.
Copy and paste your pop-down lists if you have changed the generic versions. There are about 10 that tend to be customized.
Double check and compare various totals to make sure they match your old numbers.
If you’ve made a lot of neat customizations, maybe some special reports, you’ll need to create new layouts and copy and paste from your old file to get them back.
if you’ve done some extra scripting, you will need to copy those scripts over and make sure they tie in with current layout names and such.
We have a 7 page guide to the import process that walks you through the steps.
Feel free to call or email if you have any concerns about this. We are here to help. We do offer importing and conversions services too (see below). Keep reading, the next section applies to you too.
Upgrading from Studio Manager 4 or earlier to 10
When you upgrade, we include two good things: (1) a file by file guide/checklist to walk you through importing and (2) import scripts. You basically run the scripts one at a time for each file and the script sets you up with the fields matching and you just need to make exceptions if you’ve made changes in the fields or you are coming from a really early version of Studio Manager.
You Could be Dancing. This is repetitive work and takes a few hours but is not hard to do. You could watch a DVD while data is importing and pause it while you check the data briefly and then start the next import. Typically an upgrade is done at night or on the weekend, so you’ll probably be all alone. Put on some good iTunes and you’ll be fine. Dancing while data is importing could be fun. Just remember to check off your checklist to keep on track. (Please note: If you are upgrading from SM7 or 8, everything gets much faster and easier.)
We Offer Upgrade Services. If you have less time than money at the moment or you just don’t like this kind of thing, we can do your upgrade for you most efficiently. Our average upgrade charge is about $800. A major advantage of our upgrades is that we check your files and data as we go along and fix what we can or flag it for you to fix. It’s a kind of data quality audit. The cost for upgrading depends on two things (1) how much data you have – bigger firms with years of data take longer than small firms with only a year of data and (2) do you want us to re-do some of your customizing.
Or, you can start from scratch with Studio Manager 10. Enter your new clients, set-up or import your billing codes and enter your current jobs. The advantage here is threefold: (1) You know you haven’t imported in old bad data, (2) your getting a full archive out of it, so you’ve got tiny files that run really fast and (3) you save a bunch of time/hassle/money by not having to import the data.
You still will want to make customizations like the most common — make the generic invoice look sharp. But then, that’s what you are best at and most comfortable with. As usual, you can use us to back you up if you have questions.
If you start over, you can keep your old copy of FileMaker running most likely and use it as needed for reference or analysis purposes.
Re-doing your Customizations is Easier than Ever with Filemaker 10
You can:
Import tables — if you’ve added extra files for custom functionality, you can import them into Studio Manager 9 and then just repoint any relationships.
Copy and Paste fields. You can highlight fields and copy and then go to the new corresponding table and paste them in!
Copy and paste layout objects. Just make sure that the part dimensions are set the way your favorite layout’s parts are set using the Size windoid and then copy and paste the whole set of fields and logos from your old layout to your new one.
Copy and paste scripts. Now you can copy and paste any scripts you’ve created into Studio Manager 9.
We recommend that, when you upgrade, you take the opportunity to review your customizations and only re-implement the good stuff. Then make them better based on your experience using them and based on the latest features in FileMaker 9. Having to re-do software is often the best problem to have because you get to take a fresh start at it based on what you’ve learned in the meantime. Most seemingly good ideas don’t stand up to the test of time or are needed for a single one-time thing. Trim your sails a bit, but don’t forget to tweak and add some conditional formatting at least. You’ll be happy you did.
Use FileMaker Pro Advanced
FileMaker 10 Advanced now constitutes a powerful tool for your shop. It only costs $200 extra to get Advanced. Because you more quickly copy and paste fields, scripts and script steps, it will serve you especially well if you’ve done a fair amount of customizing and now want to reimplement the changes that worked well in Studio Manager 9. You can read more about it at FileMaker’s website.
Because it can do some advanced tricks, buying a copy of FileMaker Pro Advanced gives you a special kind of insurance policy. Even if you don’t use it yourself, you could use it under the telephone or email supervision of Tokerud Consulting or of a local consultant who is not able to come into your office as quick as you need them. It makes our job easier, and you get your needs met faster and more affordably. If you have an in-house FileMaker fan, they’ll love you for it.
Studio Manager Upgrade History
- SM 9.2 – February 2009.Resized all the Studio Manager screens to better take advantage of FileMaker 10’s new customizable toolbar at the top of the screen and added table views to over 15 tables including all the main ones. FileMaker Pro 10 introduced subheads and subtotaling on-the-fly without having to preview. So Studio Manager table views (a spreadsheet-like list view) have colorized headings and subtotals so you can browse and experiment with different views interactively. Very valuable new capability.
- SM 9.1 – December 2008. More than a point 1 release but FileMaker 10 hadn’t come out yet, so we didn’t want to call it Studio Manager 10. Added Google Maps in contacts to see where people are and get directions. Four new time and expense reports. Introduced Taxable Estimates as an option. Beefed up summary and flat fee estimate capabilities. Added a report that shows security information settings. In January when FileMaker 10 came out unexpectedly (they had never done a release in January), we added FileMaker 10 compatibility and used the new script triggers feature to make clicking on Contacts tabs also filter by type of Contact.
- SM 9.0 – November 2007. You need FileMaker Pro 9 or 10 to run Studio Manager 9. SM9 takes advantage of FileMaker Pro 9’s great new Conditional Formatting and adds a range of other features to Studio Manager 8. We now have 4 views of an employees tasks (today, overdue, 3-day and all) plus color coding the tasks via FileMaker 9’s conditional formatting. We have a built in clean-up facility for new contacts or editing contacts which will take data copied in from the web or other stylized text and clear the styles, size and color so that FileMaker formatting will apply correctly. You can now click a button to save contacts to the Mac Address Book and create vCards. Check out what is new SM9 with lots of screenshots and more detail on what is included in this upgrade.
- SM 8.0 – November 2006. The biggest improvement by far is the new user interface makeover throughout and the simplification and streamlining that went along with it. There are a great many refinements. We are especially proud of the fuller-featured 4-Week Schedule Reporting capability which will help your scheduling immensely.
- SM 7.5 thru 7.7 – Nov 2005 to July 2006. See our special pages on new features for 7.5, 7.6 and 7.7. You can link to these pages from the SM News Archives.
- SM 7.0 March 2005. Mega upgrade! We’ve updated our whole set of screenshots and descriptions so that they describe our Studio Manager 7.0 product. When we did so, most of what was said was still valid. We’ve added a report here and there but the bigest improvement is that Studio Manager 7.0 is a single file. It still holds all the different data inside that file as separate tables but the feeling and file management changes much for the better. We increased the screen sizes by 69% across the board. In fact the screen footprint stays constant which is another one of those feeling things that makes a lot of difference. Try the free demo to get the new feeling.
- SM 4.6 March 2004. You heard it here first. Besides smoothing out a couple rough edges in SM 4.5, we’ve added new features to the sales and marketing functions in SM 4.5. Also, we added a feature to invoicing – when you make a new invoice for all your unbilled actuals, you have a new choice of expenses only.
- SM 4.5 December 03. We made a major upgrade to the marketing and sales support in the contact management portion of Studio Manager. There’s a real sales to do list built into this upgrade. More Info.
- SM 4.4 – September 03 Practice makes perfect. We added more features and capabilities to the security capabilities of Studio Manager based on customer feedback and our own new ideas. More Info.
- SM 4.3 – June 03. Practice makes perfect. We added more features and capabilities to the security capabilities of Studio Manager based on customer feedback and our own new ideas. More Info.
- SM 4.2 – March 03. We got into the password and security business with this upgrade. We created three tracking files to help you keep track of who could do what where in Studio Manager. We installed four levels of passwords and groups from the lowliest staff person to the owner and master programmer. More Info.
- SM 4.1 – August 02. Converted master version to FMP 5 (up till 4.1, we created parallel versions of Studio Manager – one for FM 3/4 and one for FM 5-6. Expanded the billing and markup rates in Studio Manager. We went from 4 hourly rates to 8 and from 2 markup rates to 4. This increase the number of rates gave more flexibility to larger firms and firms that do lots of different things.Used object emboss tool available in FMP5 on objects and eliminated a second offset box graphic to create the effect the hard way – making layout work much easier..
