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About

Bob Shockey

Bob Shockey is the founder and lead architect at Alchemy Group, a full-service software design and development company based in Southern California. With over 30 years of experience in visual design and database development, Bob leads a team dedicated to building simple, useful, and beautiful software solutions tailored to your needs - especially for businesses facing operational complexity. After earning his degree from Otis Art Institute in 1986, Bob built a long and successful career in publishing and visual effects, blending design and technology to solve creative challenges. His interest in workflow optimization led him to FileMaker, where he discovered a platform that combined structure with creative freedom. That discovery became the foundation for The Alchemy Group, which he founded in 1999 to help businesses simplify complex operations through custom software. Bob specializes in solving difficult business problems like field service coordination, scheduling, estimating, inventory control, and workflow automation. His solutions are used daily across industries to improve accuracy, reduce waste, and streamline operations - including a recent mobile job-routing and payment system that helped a field service company go paperless and more profitable. As a FileMaker Certified Developer, Bob has spoken at FileMaker DevCon (San Diego, San Antonio, Miami Beach), Pause on Error, and FMDiSC events on topics including customer support, interface design, and business process optimization. He’s also been featured on the Fireside FileMaker podcast and serves on the FMDiSC Advisory Board, helping mentor the next generation of developers. His early innovations earned him the top prize in the FileMaker DevCon Solution Contest (2004). Outside of work, Bob is a professionally trained artist and lifelong student of music, martial arts, and creativity. He lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter.
14 Points for Glyphindor!

14 Points for Glyphindor!

FileMaker Pro 14 offers us an exciting new database design feature: the ability to use SVG glyphs. As described below, this is a great advancement, equal in weight to the new Script Workspace and mobile browser support, IMO. But with a measly 147 default glyphs in the...

Upward Mobility

Upward Mobility

Mobile Computing has become a commonly used term among software developers and consumers, business owners and their customers. But what, exactly, does it mean for you? If you have a business to run, chances are it does not all happen inside the walls of your office....

Bug Logic: we all have issues

Bug Logic: we all have issues

Whenever we roll out a new system to a client, there are two kinds of training we need to perform to get them up to speed. The first is what you would expect, the basics of how to operate their brand new software; but the second kind might not seem so obvious: how to...

Ruggedized iPad Case with Swiper

Ruggedized iPad Case with Swiper

I thought I would share a quick note on an interesting project for a client. We are deploying a FileMaker solution on some iPad Air 2s, using FileMaker Go. This is an invoicing/POS system for plumbers to accept on-site payment from customers at the close of a job. We...

Getting Started with Design 2: Type

Getting Started with Design 2: Type

Many developer types are confused about the entire topic of typography. What's the big deal? If you can read it, it's working, right? Not necessarily. In part 2 of the "Getting Started with Design" series, we will explore what makes type so important to a design, and...

Double-keying: We Have Penicillin

Double-keying: We Have Penicillin

If you were to ask me what's the most common source of pain for new, first-time clients, I can say unequivocally that it's double-keying – the practice of entering the same piece of information in more than one location (e.g. two different Excel documents). Sometimes...

New Skin: A Case Study

New Skin: A Case Study

What happens when your client does not like the look and feel you have created in your FileMaker database? You have little choice but to give them something better suited to their sensibilities. When faced with just such a problem, here's how we solved it. The Issue:...