Zebra T26 barcode scanner

[Surdusvacca]

Hi,

At my work we recently changed to use these devices Zebra T26 in our terminals.
They have a build-in scanner (Red light?), I dont know the correct name of this scan-type.

An old colleague of mine created powerapps long time ago. He is not interrested in updating the apps anymore, so I am starting to look deeper into this with Appsheet.  I have a lot of apps to build, but this one here will be most important for me to handle.

One of the important things I would like to get working, is scanning with the build-in scanner.
Before I bring one of the T26 scanners with me home, I would like to ask if some of you already know if it is possible to scan barcodes with the build-in scanner into appsheet?

Right now with the Power apps, we open the 'camera' on the T26 device, but it is super slow.
We are handling crazy much cargo through security and need to verify each cargo we handle, so we dont have time to 'wait' for the camera to open, focus on the barcode and bla bla.
Will appsheet be able to handle the scanned barcode and insert it into a field?

The barcode will be an AWB number like: 235-10022875
That number just has to be inserted into a field in appsheet called AWB#: 235-10022875

All the best

[SkrOYC]

Awb from Air shipments? Just curious as I work on a similar area...

Anyways, it depends on how the device handles the sensor. If it's tied to something like a Keyboard, it should work with AppSheet as with any other software. If it's instead a camera app... nope. If worst than that, it needs some plugin to be able to use the scanner, no way.
Now, is it necessary to use that particular sensor? I guess it's because of it's reliability but just to make sure since AppSheet has a built-in scanner and also can integrate with the Scandit SDK

[Surdusvacca]

Yep, AWB as in Air Waybill 🙂

Maybe my answers to you is not correct.
If I do not misundertand, then no the build-in scanner is not using a camera app.
When we push the psysical button on the right side, the red light turns on until we release the button. The moment we hit a barcode with the redlight, it takes this information into our Cargospot system. I actually need kind of the same to happend with Appsheet?

No, it is not necessary 100% to use the particular sensor, all I know is that it is working super fast and yes, very reliable.

When we are very busy, we have several men going with a T26 right now to scan all cargo into the security app made with Powerapps for documentation of which method has been used to security check the cargo. It is REALLY a time killer using Powerapps with the 'camera' to read the barcode.

What I was hoping for,  was that we could just click the psysical button, scan the barcode and bum, the number is in Appsheet.

What do you mean by 'Appsheet has a built-in scanner'?
How would that work? How would we 'start' the scan of a barcode? 🙂
Will it be the camera the opens up to scan the barcode?

[SkrOYC]

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@Surdusvacca wrote:

What I was hoping for,  was that we could just click the psysical button, scan the barcode and bum, the number is in Appsheet.

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This won't be possible without actually opening the AppSheet app and a form view to add a row that's going to have the scanned code.

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@Surdusvacca wrote:

What do you mean by 'Appsheet has a built-in scanner'?

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Use a barcode scanner - AppSheet Help

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@Surdusvacca wrote:

How would that work? How would we 'start' the scan of a barcode?

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Enable barcode scanning using the camera on a mobile device

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@Surdusvacca wrote:

Will it be the camera the opens up to scan the barcode?

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Basically, check previous link

Can you confirm what hapens if you open any app with text input and you then scan a code using the built-in method? It pastes the scanned text?

[Surdusvacca]

Hi @SkrOYC 

Thank you.

I finally managed to bring a device with me.

It actually works pretty good with the build-in scanner of the device.
It inserts the AWB number in the 'text' field.

Maybe you know this, otherwise I will start searching this forum or google.

Let' say an AWB number looks like this:
235-10027841

The barcode may in many scenarios look like this: 
235100278410000001

So when I scan the barcode, this is what is inserted into the text field: 235100278410000001

Is there any way if I can set a rule saying that if the AWB number is longer than 23510027841 - Cut, remove or hide the last xxxxxxx digits?

Also, if the above is possible, I would like to make sure that this is also possible.
Depending how the barcode is made, sometimes the AWB barcode is like this:
235100278410000001 and sometimes it is like this; 235-100278410000001

Will it be possible to always have the scanned barcode look the same in the input field?
I mean, always have the '235-' or '235' (Not necessarily 235, but just the PREfix)

Because, if it is possible to remove the last 7 'unsuable' digits, I am afraid it can go wrong if the barcodes sometimes have the ' - ' after the airline prefix and sometimes not, it will make the barcode be different length depending on if the ' - ' is there or not. 🙂

I hope it makes sense 😄

[SkrOYC]

From my experience, we tend to remove the "-" because of that, but for sure you can do the opposite.

Let me check a couple of hours from now since I'm busy right now

[SkrOYC · Accepted solution]

Okay, thanks for waiting.

Use your current field to just scan and add another one (can be a real column -suggested- or virtual) with the following:

CONCATENATE(
    LEFT(
    [ScannedAWB],
    3
  ),
  "-",
  MID(
    SUBSTITUTE(
      [ScannedAWB],
      "-",
      ""
    ),
    4,
    8
  )
)

This is an explanation of how it works by ChatGPT:

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ChatGPT wrote:

This AppSheet expression takes a value from the column [ScannedAWB] and performs the following actions:

1. The LEFT function extracts the leftmost three characters from the [ScannedAWB] value.
2. The "-" character is appended to the extracted three characters.
3. The SUBSTITUTE function replaces all occurrences of "-" with an empty string in the [ScannedAWB] value.
4. The MID function extracts a substring starting from the fourth character (excluding the "-" character) and with a length of eight characters from the modified [ScannedAWB] value.
5. The extracted three characters from step 1 and the extracted eight characters from step 4 are concatenated together using the CONCATENATE function.

In summary, this expression takes the first three characters of [ScannedAWB], appends a hyphen ("-"), removes any existing hyphens, and then takes the next eight characters. The resulting string is the concatenation of the three initial characters, hyphen, and the next eight characters.

---

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ChatGPT wrote:

If the value of [ScannedAWB] is "235100278410000001", the expression will generate the following output:

"235-10027841"

Explanation:
- The LEFT function extracts the leftmost three characters from [ScannedAWB], resulting in "235".
- The "-" character is appended to the extracted three characters, resulting in "235-".
- The SUBSTITUTE function removes the hyphen "-" from [ScannedAWB], resulting in "235100278410000001".
- The MID function extracts a substring starting from the fourth character and with a length of eight characters from the modified [ScannedAWB], resulting in "10027841".
- Finally, the CONCATENATE function combines the string "235-", obtained in step 2, with the string "10027841", obtained in step 4, resulting in the final output "235-10027841".

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Quite usefull BTW

[SkrOYC]

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@Surdusvacca wrote:

It actually works pretty good with the build-in scanner of the device.
It inserts the AWB number in the 'text' field

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This is what I expected btw. Happy to hear it since the built-in sensor should be way more accurate than just the camera app

[Simon_Bailey]

Something else that may be useful, if you haven't already found it.

You can make the scanner press enter after scanning so it closes the keyboard and can move onto the next field or form

https://supportcommunity.zebra.com/s/article/DataWedge-for-Android-Send-Enter-or-Tab-after-scanning?...

[Surdusvacca]

Very useful information. Thanks a lot Simon_Bailey