Kurt,
Well, it wouldn't be the first time, nor the last, I've done some late
night howling!
Not letting them enter by hand is the goal, for sure, but I'm out of
ideas as to how other than taking away all keyboards. The problem is
that, from the Foxpro applications perspective, there's no difference
between a keystroke coming from a pressed key on a keyboard and the same
keystroke being stuffed into the keyboard buffer by the USB scanner input.
And, sadly, I found out that while there are scanners that will allow
characters to be pre- and post-pended to a scan, they are more expensive.
In hindsight, I probably should have gone with a scan-capture system
where the gun collects the order # (barcode scanned) then the skus
(barcode scanned) finishing with an upload dump that would sort the data
and apply it to the appropriate places to produce the paper output...the
packing slip. But, human ingenuity being what it is, they would probably
have figured out a way around that.
Thanks!
Mike
Kurt @ VR-FX wrote:
U may B barking at the Moon!
I can NOT Believe what the Video revealed! WTF???
Now - am on iPhone - so only read Ur post & not the replies - so maybe some
suggested this - but - and this may b crazy 2 suggest...
Do Not let them enter by hand - block entry by hand & force 2 scan - w/a
complicated Bypasss if They MUST enter by hand!
It's a thought...
-K-
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 1, 2014, at 5:52 PM, Mike Copeland <[email protected]> wrote:
All,
I have a problem with end users hand-keying information that should be scanned
with a barcode scanner to improve accuracy.
Here's the gist of the issue...
Every piece of inventory has a barcode sticker on it representing a unique
serial #, always 8 characters long.
(My application offers a way to reprint the barcode label in case this label
gets torn, damaged.)
What I need to force, somehow, is that the # represented on the barcode label
MUST be scanned by a simple barcode scan gun connected to the computer.
As ya'll know, all the scanner does is convert the barcode data into standard
keyboard keystrokes and stuff the data into the keyboard buffer...really fast.
In other words, a very fast, very accurate typist. But most importantly, the
CORRECT # is input (so that the correct inventory item is recorded as
'processed.')
The problem is that the users hand-key the number at the prompt...and
frequently hand-key it wrong.
So, to try to stop the hand-keying I removed the human-readable text under the
barcode on the label. So now, you either scan it or you learn to read barcode
by eye. One would hope/think that this would have solved the problem...but no.
Now (by watching security video footage) we find that they are
1. opening Notepad
2. scanning the barcodes, which enters the barcode data in human readable form,
obviously
3. then hand keying the data into my application when they should use the
scanner.
And...errors are being made regularly. And, yes, training, threats, etc. have
been tried.
From the application's viewpoint, the only difference between a barcode
scanner providing input and a human typing on a keyboard is the speed with
which the data is input.
So, my last-ditch idea to force scanning and negate hand-keying is to, somehow,
use a timer on the input. Set the timer to a short time, like 1 second, which
is faster than 99% of humankind can type 8 characters. Start the timer on the
first keystroke and when the timer fires again if the length of the input is
less than 8, clear the input...because they're not scanning.
My question, is this nuts? Is there a better way? Am I barking at the moon?
Begging for problems? Any other Ideas?
Thanks for feedback.
Mike Copeland
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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