I’m a technology journalist, focusing on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. I write for a number of IDG publications, including CIO magazine.

I am also a long-time user (and, once, developer) of relational databases. These days, I use Filemaker for my entire editorial workflow, and have been, for about 20 years. I much prefer it to Microsoft Access for scripting, design, and general usability. For a while I migrated some of my processes to an online relational database, DabbleDB, which was excellent. But it was acquihired by Twitter and the database was shut down.

I’m extremely anxious to migrate off of Filemaker. I want something cloud-based, mobile-friendly, and easy to use, especially when I have to collaborate with business partners or freelance contributors.

I currently use Filemaker for invoicing, workflow management, for my editorial content CMS, for statistical analysis, for wikis, and a lot more. I also have Google docs and spreadsheets in use for other projects, and would like to be able to fold those into one platform.

As new cloud-based relational databases hit the market, I try them out. I made a good-faith effort with Zoho Creator, with the Salesforce development platform, and, most recently with AirTable. They’ve all left a lot to be desired in either functionality or usability.

So far, Coda seems to be meeting my needs when it comes to functionality. It is not organized in an intuitive way, so there’s a bit of a learning curve, but not as much as for Access, Salesforce, or Zoho Creator. But it’s less intuitive than Airtable or the old DabbleDB.

I’m testing it out for a small project, and, if I can get it working, I’ll expand it to other workflows and other team members.