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MarkShnier__You's avatar
MarkShnier__You
Icon for Qrew Legend rankQrew Legend
6 years ago

Re: QR Codes

Typically bar codes are ugly to human enter due to their length.  So the purpose of scanning a bar code, indeed, is simply to get an ugly long number into a data entry field, error free.

If you have a business purpose to uploading an image of the asset or for some reason an image of the bar code tag (i can't understand why, but that's up to you), then sure you can also upload pictures either into a child table of pix for that asset or to dedicated fields on the asset record.  If are gong to have a variable number of pics for an asset record, a child table is a better way to go.  There are ways to display thumbnails of the images even if they are child records, and even to float up the images to to the Parent record if you need to.

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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.com
markshnier2@gmail.com
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  • MichaelTamoush's avatar
    MichaelTamoush
    Qrew Captain
    6 years ago
    It just clicked. I've been thinking that I would have to associate my own number with the barcode (QB record ID or something). So when I had a tech put the sticker on, I was picturing needing to re-associate that sticker with a new data field. Which I think could only be done by getting dynamic bar codes, and having some cumbersome data entry. 

    Instead, I'm thinking I just need to buy a roll of pre-determined bar codes. Those will all be coded with long ugly numbers. Scan that number in and done. Maybe I even set that bar code field as my key field. 

    I could probably make a form that is visible by 'Everyone on the Internet' that was just a search, and some data fields. Then anyone could take a picture of that barcode and access QB app, and see the product details and pictures. Or, if the person on site (not associated with our company) needed us to come out for the asset, they could just snap a picture of the bar code and send it to us. We could search for it in any number of ways (with the QR reader, or just enter the number if we want to be cumbersome).

    Am I getting it?

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    Mike Tamoush
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    • MarkShnier__You's avatar
      MarkShnier__You
      Icon for Qrew Legend rankQrew Legend
      6 years ago
      Yes, I think that you are getting it.  The asset # can just be a sequential number.​  
      It is a different challenge to have a QR code that will call up the asset record, as to do that, you would need to also encode and print in the QR code for the complete the access path to view the record.

      The simple for URL formula field to display a record in Quick Base would be 

      URLRoot() & "db/' & dbid() & "?a=dr&key=" & [asset#]

      So before we go off an generate a spool of sequential Bar Codes we need to think through the strategy if the goal is to be able to read a QR code to go to a website (ie your app).

      If you hold a smart phone camera up to a QR formatted to go to a website https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-scan-a-qr-code/ then it will easily guide the user there, but that is a different content in the code than the pure bar coded numbers.

      As you might infer from the formula above, the actual asset# is just the past part of the full
      https:// mycomany.quickbase.com/db/xxxxxx?a=dr&key=123456789

      web path to display the record.

      So we would need a simple linear bar code to do the data entry and another QR Code to have a user scan to display the record.

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      Mark Shnier (YQC)
      Quick Base Solution Provider
      Your Quick Base Coach
      http://QuickBaseCoach.com
      markshnier2@gmail.com
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