Auto Add / Select Record from Search Bar

[Michael Asperger]

There are a number of barcode inventory applications for ios that I have looked at and have always thought that Tapforms would do a much better job at it if…

1) scan a barcode that exists in my inventory database and an auto-incrementing field type would auto-increment. It would be ok to pop-up the actual record if need be, but less interaction with the interface the better in an inventory application. A calculated field type ‘# times record accessed’ or something like that would be required OR a counter type field with big plus and minus buttons would do to.

2) scan a barcode that does not exist in my inventory database and a new record would be created with the barcode copied from the search box into a specified field in my database. At that point refer to item 1 for course of action.

Thanks for taking a moment to consider the suggestion.
Michael.

[Brendan]

Hello Michael,

Thanks for the feature requests.

1. The tricky part for this is associating this barcode action with the workflow that you’re interested in. And for making it generic enough that it’s useful for every Tap Forms customer.

2. Again, thinking of the interface to configure the workflow for this. I can understand this feature in a dedicated inventory app, but think of the person who’s keeping track of their timesheet work hours or their passport information. How is this going to be useful to them? What would the interface look like for configuring this so that it doesn’t get in the way of customers who use Tap Forms for different purposes.

The point I’m trying to make is that when I add features to Tap Forms I like to add those features that will be useful for the widest possible use cases. Granted, even though not a whole bunch of people would be using barcode scanning, there’s really no user interface for configuring that in Tap Forms. It’s just there in the search fields and edit text and number fields. People can use it or not. And even though it’s fairly innocuous, I’ve still received emails from customers asking why they’re there and can they be removed.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Michael Asperger]

I was thinking it would be a flag in the database itself that would activate if a new record would be created on a failed search, therefore my inventory and dvd databases would act this way, but my password database would not.

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