cellphon barcode readers for inventory and PSO

[Ted Byers]

I have been doing some checking, and I can see that OFBiz has support
for barcode readers for POS, and I assume for inventory control.  I
have not, yet, figured out what I'd need to do in porder to configure
any of that.  However, I have just learned something today that
changes my views of what is needed for what I want to do, but seems to
add a wrinkle to the process of configuring barcode reading in OFBiz.

I just learned that for any cell phone brand, there is a wide range of
barcode reading apps (though some fo these are targetted toward
consumers' interest in comparison shopping, looking for the best price
for their purchases).

Thus, my question is two part:

1) Where will I find instructions for the general task of configuring
OFBiz and generic barcode readers to work both with the task of
inventory control on the one hand and handling sales through POS on
the other?

2) In what way(s) does the use of a cell phone along with one of those
barcode reading apps change what needs to be done in order to use them
to take inventory and hanlde sales through POS?  Presumably, in the
realm of ecommerce, the bar code reading would be involved in the
vendors shipping departmnt as they gathr product to ship and then ship
to the customer, and of course that would need to be configured.

I imagine the user will have a browser open to his account in a n
OFBiz site, and the barcode reading app installed, on his cellphone.
So, how would one have the result of the barcode reading process sent
to the browser, which in turn sends that data (if correct) along with
a user entered number representing the number of products
counted/bought to the server?

I would expect that this would significantly reduce the cost of
equipment the business would need to use as well as allowing, e.g.
general contractors and subcontractors to take inventory on their
jobsites (i.e. well away from their warehouses and the technologies
found there) - with obvious advantages that would result from that.


Thanks

Ted

[Jacques Le Roux]

From: "Ted Byers" <[hidden email]>
>I have been doing some checking, and I can see that OFBiz has support
> for barcode readers for POS, and I assume for inventory control.  

Actually any field can be filled with a bar code reader, I mean in webapps or text editor  as well.
It's just a way to translate a bar code in characters

> I have not, yet, figured out what I'd need to do in porder to configure
> any of that.  

Nothing as explained above, just read the bar code representation, et voilà.
http://www.labnol.org/software/create-barcode-image-from-text/10451/
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Read_a_Barcode

>However, I have just learned something today that
> changes my views of what is needed for what I want to do, but seems to
> add a wrinkle to the process of configuring barcode reading in OFBiz.
>
> I just learned that for any cell phone brand, there is a wide range of
> barcode reading apps (though some fo these are targetted toward
> consumers' interest in comparison shopping, looking for the best price
> for their purchases).
>
> Thus, my question is two part:
>
> 1) Where will I find instructions for the general task of configuring
> OFBiz and generic barcode readers to work both with the task of
> inventory control on the one hand and handling sales through POS on
> the other?
> 2) In what way(s) does the use of a cell phone along with one of those
> barcode reading apps change what needs to be done in order to use them
> to take inventory and hanlde sales through POS?  Presumably, in the
> realm of ecommerce, the bar code reading would be involved in the
> vendors shipping departmnt as they gathr product to ship and then ship
> to the customer, and of course that would need to be configured.
>
> I imagine the user will have a browser open to his account in a n
> OFBiz site, and the barcode reading app installed, on his cellphone.
> So, how would one have the result of the barcode reading process sent
> to the browser, which in turn sends that data (if correct) along with
> a user entered number representing the number of products
> counted/bought to the server?

Yes, that's it

Jacques

> I would expect that this would significantly reduce the cost of
> equipment the business would need to use as well as allowing, e.g.
> general contractors and subcontractors to take inventory on their
> jobsites (i.e. well away from their warehouses and the technologies
> found there) - with obvious advantages that would result from that.
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Ted