Introduction to Barcoding

What is Barcoding? Barcoding involves reading (scanning) barcode labels attached to your assets. You scan your assets with a barcode portable. Portables are terminal data input devices that allow for scanning by way of a laser interface. Some barcode readers fit in-between the keyboard and the computer. These are known as keyboard wedge devices. Other readers are batch devices and require a download to an intermediate data file before conversion to a software program. Finally there are some scanners that operate in RF mode. This is a wireless method of reading barcodes into a software program in real time. Asset Traker at this time supports the keyboard wedge and the batch method of barcode scanning. How Traker Handles Barcoding Traker currently can interface with Percon, Symbol and Intermec type portable scanners. Traker has direct support plus program interface software for Percon type scanners PT-2000 Falcon After the user scans a number of assets, the portable is brought to the computer and connected by way of a serial cable. This can be done using a docking station or a direct connection. The software interface then reads the data from the scanner and sends it to an ASCII file. The file is then read into a temporary Traker preview table. Once the user has previewed and made any necessary changes to the data, it is then sent to the actual asset table to be integrated with the rest of the asset data. How Traker Handles the Scanned Asset Data When the data is integrated into Asset Traker, a number of decisions are made to determine how the records will be written. If the asset is new meaning the asset is not currently located in the Asset Traker database, it will be added using the available data from the scan plus any default data set up by Asset Traker. If the asset currently exists in Asset Traker, a decision must be made whether to skip the entry, overwrite the existing database record, or prompt the user to make a real-time decision of whether to accept or reject the entry.