About the author
As VP of Product at Fulcrum, Coleman leads strategy and development on all product development activities – from concept and engineering through marketing and growth.
Fulcrum update – In-App Barcode and QR Code Scanning
Fulcrum is already flush with data types that you can build into your own custom data collection apps for field surveying. Many Fulcrum users have deployed Fulcrum for asset inventory and evaluation projects, with service technicians or inspectors tracking asset locations and conducting quality inspections.
Today we’ve just released a major additional capability for these types of use cases: barcode and QR code scanning. Now you can add a barcode field to your data collection survey, and mobile users can scan barcodes and QR codes using their iPhone or Android device camera.
Our mobile barcode scanner even works on the record search feature on mobile. If you load Fulcrum with your asset list, including the barcode asset tag data, you can scan a barcode value to retrieve that asset’s associated record on your smartphone. This capability is great for sign inventories and other asset tracking applications where you may have many assets in close proximity. Searching by ID can pull up the right asset immediately, allowing you to complete an inspection, show the location on the map, and even route to the location.
Check out this example from our App Gallery for collecting hardware inventory using barcode capture. Do you have applications and projects requiring barcode or QR code lookup? We’d love to hear more about interesting applications for new features.
Update 2022:
In August of 2022, Fulcrum expanded the use of QR code functionality by opening up the use of QR codes to report issues to anyone – no license, log in information, downloading, or even reporter name, required! With a mobile device, a reporting person can simply scan a QR code on site, and report conditions. Once these reports are received, managers can order follow-on activities including assigning downstream issue remediation tasks, ensuring inspection follow-up, and tracking progress and resolution through one convenient dashboard. So, from one scan of one QR code, a full process of issue remediation is put into motion.
Making reporting easier, and available to be performed by more people, teams, departments, and even site visitors. Widening the net of possible reporters to everyone who happens to see something worth mentioning not only has the potential to discover problems early for easier remediation, but also results in a shared sense of responsibility in the work that’s done and team safety, for a community-level of involvement that simply can’t be duplicated if reporting issues is only done by those with “inspectors” in their job titles.
To find out more about community reporting by QR code and its place within the Fulcrum closed loop platform, please check out our in-demand webinar, Closing the Loop from Inspection to Action.