For text fields used in relationships, set the index to “Minimal”. For fields with longer strings of words, like “Street Address”, choose “All”. For fields used to categorize, such as a type field with a value list of “Individual” and “Group”, choose “Minimal”. Then turn on indexing only for fields that need to be searched, and key fields.įor text fields, there is a choice of “Minimal” and “All”. Instead of leaving the defaults on all fields, consider setting all fields to “None” and unchecking “Automatically create indexes”. However, a database that has many fields or many records will benefit from optimization.īy default, field indexing is set to “None” and “Automatically create indexes as needed.” With these settings, indexes will be created as soon as a Find is performed on that field. Index optimization may not be necessary at all on a small database.

If a user or a script performs a replace on a large set of records, the time spent updating indexes can be noticeable. In addition, when editing a record, FileMaker Pro has to update the indexes. In some cases this can add noticeable lag to accessing a layout, or scrolling through records. When connecting to a hosted FileMaker file, the indexes must be downloaded to FileMaker Pro and stored in its local cache where they can then be called on as needed. While indexes are beneficial, it is possible to have too many indexes. In addition, relationships in FileMaker are based on indexed fields. When performing a Find on an indexed field, FileMaker will search the index instead of the actual field.

You may have heard these complaints before: “This was working great when I opened the file locally, but now that it’s hosted by a FileMaker Server, it’s kind of slow.” Or, “This works acceptably for my LAN users, but I have some users connecting from outside the office, and it’s slow for them.” If your database is exhibiting these symptoms, it could be Indexes slowing your database down.įileMaker Pro creates indexes of the data in fields that have indexing turned on.

Filemaker pro 12 relationships