selling my base?

[Rae_Crothers]

I've developed an AT base for managing orders in my small business. What makes it stand out is how I use Calendar view to create a very elastic and robust calendaring solution that has no competitor. I've done lots of demos for folks in my industry and they want a copy of my base just for the calendar. Doing what I've accomplished is not intuitive in AT -- I asked so many questions in the community forums and never got anywhere. It was only through hours exploring the various features that I finally built a digital version of my analog calendaring solution.

It seems like the best way to share/sell my base to my colleagues is to duplicate it to a blank version (essentially a template) that I could share and they could then duplicate into their own AT accounts. Am I correct? If I go that route, I'm assuming that I'm going to have extra fees on the AT side beyond my current annual subscription. How do I go about determining what those fees might be so that I can price my base access correctly so that I don't have any out-of-pocket expense and maybe even make a little profit?

Thank you!

Rae

[kuovonne]

You can share your template as "read-only". Read-only users are free. After gaining read-only access, your colleagues could duplicate the template into their own workspaces. Thus, there is no expense to you. If you do not want to manually share the base with each sale, you can provide colleagues with a base share link.

Keep in mind that once a colleague has his own copy of your template, there is no way to prevent him from re-sharing it to anyone else without compensating you. If you use a base share link, you cannot prevent someone from passing that share link around.

[Rae_Crothers]

Thanks for your reply. I don't think sharing as read-only would work as I want them to be able to make modifications and personalise the template to their own needs. I don't mind giving a cut to AT -- they're doing a lot of the work! -- but I want to make sure I don't lose money doing this.

Thanks for the heads-up about re-sharing, not really a concern in this case.

[Micki_O_Neil]

I would do as kuovonne suggested but then have them share you on their base as long as needed for you to customize. That way they are paying the AT fee for your access as long as necessary. 

Is there a reason why that doesn't work for you?

[Rae_Crothers]

Is there a reason? Well, let me back up.

I have background in databases, started with Access and other databases as far back as the early '90s. When I started my business and outgrew spreadsheets, I moved to Filemaker Pro, which was way too advanced for me. I bought a "solution" (base in the AT world) that I could then customise. Starting from scratch was way too overwhelming, but modifying that solution, to a point, was very doable. When I got to the point where I needed modifications beyond my knowledge, I moved to AT. I was able to built my dream order management and calendaring solution from scratch because I had general database background and a model with which to start.

My colleagues are mostly using paper planners and Excel spreadsheets. They don't want to have to learn about database basics and to start from scratch. They want to be able to buy a ready-made template that kinda sorta does what they want that they can then tweak. It's the same idea as my downloading an Excel workbook or template and then changing or adding some columns but not messing with complicated calculations, or buying that Filemaker Pro solution and figuring out how to add a second page to my invoices without having to figure out how to get the dang thing to create the invoice in the first place.

I hope that this makes it clear what I'm trying to achieve. Thank you.

[Micki_O_Neil]

That's helpful. I think they should make a copy of the base under their own email, however, so that the data is theirs. They then share it with you and they pay for both themselves and you.  If they are very new to this, you could even do this for them. You could actually create an account that you turn over to them after the base is ready for their use. That way, they wouldn't be paying for an extra license for the initial development. If you create an account initially and pay for it, you could charge them to reimburse the expense. (You'll also get a two weeks free Pro Plan in this case.)

Does that make sense?

[Rae_Crothers]

So what I want to do is not possible. I have a cleaned up, empty version of my base all ready to be shared with people for them to modify it for their needs, but I want the relationship to end there and for them to come to the knowledge base or community forums with questions. I don't want to be involved with their base after the handover and I certainly don't want to get into base development. I'm disappointed that selling templates isn't something that can be done with AT the way it can with Excel or Filemaker Pro.

[Micki_O_Neil]

Oh, I thought you did want to be involved. Based on what you're saying, I'm not sure why kuovonne's solution doesn't work for you. But good luck!

[Rae_Crothers]

That solution was to share it read only, so then the buyer can't modify it.

[Micki_O_Neil]

If they then copy the base, they can then modify it. It's just one simple step.