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Barcodes and scanners
Scanning saves typing at the three busiest places in an auction: the door, the auctioneer's table, and checkout. You can scan with a phone's camera, a USB barcode scanner, or both.
What you can scan
| The code | Where it comes from | Scanning it |
|---|---|---|
| Lot QR code | Every lot label | Opens the lot's page on any phone. On the lot queue, adds the lot to the queue. |
| Membership card | The club's member barcodes, on phones, in Wallet, or printed | Adds the member to the auction and checks them in. At checkout, pulls up their invoice. |
| Bidder paddle | Print paddles, or a sticker from Print Barcodes | Gives the next person you scan that bidder number. |
| Item for sale, or discount | Print Barcodes | Adds the charge or discount to the next person you scan. |
Membership cards, paddles and items are for club auctions, where the club has member barcodes turned on. Lot QR codes work everywhere.
With a phone camera
These pages have an Activate camera button:
- Checkin: scan membership cards at the door.
- Checkout: scan a card to pull up that person's invoice.
- Lot queue: scan each bag's label as it comes to the table.
A lot's QR code needs no page at all: any phone camera opens the lot, with its seller, winner and price.
With a USB scanner
A USB scanner is faster than a camera at a busy door. It types the barcode into the computer like a keyboard, and every admin page of a club auction listens for it. Nothing needs to be clicked first.
Any cheap "keyboard wedge" scanner works, if you can set it to send F9 before each scan and Enter after. The F9 is how the site tells a scan from somebody typing. The scanner's manual has setup barcodes for both.
- Open Print Barcodes in your club's menu.
- Click Test scanner and scan the test barcode. It says whether the F9 and Enter are set up right.
Every scan beeps, with a message on screen: two high beeps when it worked, one when it's waiting for the next scan (a paddle, say, waiting for its person), and a low one when it didn't work.
Printing barcodes
Print Barcodes makes a sheet of barcodes on your label printer. Add a row for each:
| Paddle sticker | A bidder number, for a paddle you already have. Scan the paddle, then the person, and that's their number. |
|---|---|
| Item for sale | An amount and a name: "$20 Shirt". Scan it, then the person, and it's on their invoice. |
| Discount | The same, taken off. |
| User | A member's card, for someone without a phone. |
No paddles to stick them on? Print paddles prints a whole paddle for each person, barcode included.
The page doesn't save anything. Check the sheet printed correctly before you leave it.
A self check-in kiosk
Self-checkin, under More, turns a laptop with a scanner into a kiosk. Members scan their own card and get a welcome on the screen. It only takes membership cards, so nobody can scan a T-shirt onto their own invoice.
With the phone app
- Scan lots reads a whole table of labels at once: what each bag is, and which one somebody's after.
- As people scan, the site builds a Lot map of where each unsold lot is sitting.
- People can check themselves in as they arrive.
See The phone app.
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