Quick start

This page gets you underway: sign in, look around the demo, upload your own solution, and take the first sounding. Budget about 20 minutes, most of it FileMaker Pro's export and the upload.

1. Sign in

FM Fathom is invitation-only during the beta. Your invite arrives by email; sign in with the exact email address it was sent to. There's no password to create, sign-in goes through your existing account with the provider shown on the sign-in page.

2. Poke the demo

Every new user lands with access to a shared demo client, a small FileMaker inventory solution, so you can click around before uploading anything. Open a script, a table, a layout; get a feel for how detail pages link to each other.

3. Export your solution as XML

In FileMaker Pro (2024 or later), with a Full Access account, choose Tools then Save a Copy as XML. One .xml per file. This is the Save as XML export, not the DDR; FM Fathom never reads a Database Design Report. Full steps, the server-side (PSOS) option for hosted files, and what's in the export: Export your solution as XML.

4. Create a home for it

Open Workspace (bottom of the sidebar). Create a client (your customer or project), then a file under it. If you don't see a create button, your account doesn't have that capability yet; ask the person who invited you. See Accounts for how capabilities work.

5. Upload

On the client's card in Workspace, drop your .xml onto the XML export target (or browse to it). You'll see Parsing while FM Fathom ingests, then the catalog is live. Large exports are fine; multi-hundred-megabyte files are normal.

For a multi-file solution, create a file entry per FileMaker file and upload each export. FM Fathom links them into one system.

Done it by hand once? Your FileMaker Server can take it from here, on a schedule: see Automate uploads.

6. Take the first sounding

Three good first moves:

• Open Dashboard and skim what the solution contains.
• Open Search and look for something you know is in there, by name or by what's inside the logic.
• Open a script you know well and check its call chain against your mental model.

7. Optional, but worth it

• Upload server logs to light up Performance, Schedules, Incidents, and Server Logs: what actually happens in production.
• Connect Claude and ask your first question in plain English.

Related

• Export your solution as XML
• Portal tour: what all the nav sections are