Handheld Scanning (beta)

OpenBoxes Lift Mobile is our handheld scanning app, and it is in beta. It runs in the browser on a phone or a handheld scanner, at your own instance address followed by /handheld/. Once you add it to your home screen it appears as Lift Mobile.

Who has it: every Shared, Dedicated and Enterprise instance, with Look up, Receive, and Pick and ship all on. The handheld beta works the same on every plan. There is nothing to buy and nothing to turn on: it is on by default, and your account owner or an Admin can turn parts of it off for your site (see Turning it on and off).
What it costs: it is included on every plan at no extra charge during the beta. On Shared, on Dedicated, and on Enterprise, which runs on Dedicated, Look up, receiving, picking and shipping are all in beta.
Dedicated and Enterprise: scan or type a code to look up a product and its stock by bin and lot, look up offline once the app has synced, receive shipments line by line, pick and send requests the same way as on Shared, and sign in with your OpenBoxes password or through the portal. If you move from Shared to Dedicated, Look up, receiving, picking and shipping all keep working after the move. Finish or save every open receipt and pick before the move, because lines not yet saved on a device cannot be sent afterwards.

What it does#

The app's home screen shows up to three tiles, depending on your role:

Look up: scan a barcode to see what it is and where the stock is.
Receive: receive an inbound shipment that is already in OpenBoxes, line by line. Each line is saved to OpenBoxes when you tap Save line, and the stock is added when you complete the receipt with Complete.
Pick and ship: pick a request bin by bin, then send it with Send. Stock leaves your location only at Send. Make the request's pick list on the desktop first. If your location uses packing, packing and sending stay on the desktop, and the app does not offer Send there.

Everything happens in your own OpenBoxes. A line saved on the handheld is a line saved in OpenBoxes.

What it does not do: it is not in an app store, it does not save offline (saving needs a connection; Look up does work offline), it does not print labels, and it does not do cycle counts or putaway. It is not validated or certified by Zebra or any other device maker.

Devices#

The app is built for Chrome on Android phones and handhelds, including Zebra mobile computers.

Scanners that type like a keyboard (USB or Bluetooth scanners in keyboard mode): set the scanner to send Enter after each scan.
Camera scanning needs a browser that can read barcodes from the camera, and it never works on an iPhone. The app's Diagnostics page shows whether your browser can do it.
iPhone: camera scanning does not work there, so scan with a Bluetooth scanner that types like a keyboard.

If something does not work on your device, tell us (see When something goes wrong). That is what the beta is for.

Setting it up#

1. Open the app#

On the device, open Chrome and go to:

https://<your-subdomain>.openboxes.cloud/handheld/

Use the same subdomain as your OpenBoxes instance. For example, if your instance is acme.openboxes.cloud, the app is at https://acme.openboxes.cloud/handheld/.

2. Add it to the home screen (Android)#

Use Chrome's menu to add the app to your home screen (the wording varies by phone). The app appears on the home screen as Lift Mobile. Open it from there from now on.

If you are a teammate in the OpenBoxes Lift portal and have no OpenBoxes password, tap Sign in through the portal and sign in with your portal email and password. If you only ever sign in to the portal with Google, Microsoft or GitHub, ask your OpenBoxes administrator for an OpenBoxes password instead. This signs you out of the portal on that device, so the next person starts fresh.

If the app asks for your location, choose it. If it sends you to OpenBoxes to choose, choose your location there, then come back to the app with your browser's Back button.

4. Set up your scanner#

A scanner that types like a keyboard (a USB or Bluetooth scanner in keyboard mode): set it to send Enter after each scan. Enter is how the app knows a scan has finished. Your scanner's manual shows how to set its suffix.

A Zebra device: Zebra's scanning service, DataWedge, needs a profile for Chrome. In short:

Create a profile and associate it with Chrome.
Turn on the barcode types you use, and set Code ID type to AIM, so each scan starts with a code that names the barcode type.
Turn on Keystroke output with Send Characters as Events, and turn Intent output off.
Send Enter after each scan.
Add a rule that replaces the GS1 group separator with ~, so lot and expiry fields in GS1 barcodes are read correctly.

These settings come from Zebra's own documentation. If a setting on your device does not match, tell us what your device shows.

5. Check it with the Scanner test#

Open Diagnostics (the link at the bottom of every screen in the app). The Scanner test on that page shows what your scanner sends, and it changes nothing in OpenBoxes. Scan one of each barcode you use. Then tap Look up on the home screen and scan a product or a bin to check everything works.

Roles#

What each worker sees depends on their OpenBoxes role at that location. Your OpenBoxes administrator sets roles in OpenBoxes.

Browser: Look up only.
Assistant, Manager, Admin or Superuser: Look up, Receive, and Pick and ship, on every plan.
No role, or a role below Browser: none of them. The app says so, and the Scanner test still works.

Shared devices#

Tap Switch worker at every hand-over and at the end of a shift. Closing the app does not sign you out.
The app signs a worker out after 15 minutes without use.
Do not sign Chrome in to anyone's personal Google account on a shared device, and turn off Chrome's password saving there, so the next person cannot use a saved password.

Working rules for receiving#

One person saves the first line of a shipment before anyone else starts on it.
One person works on each line.
One person completes the receipt.
Nobody keeps the same shipment open on the desktop receiving screen while it is being received on a handheld.
To change a quantity that was already saved, use the desktop.

For your desktop team: lines saved from a handheld carry a short code starting hh: in their Comment in OpenBoxes. Leave it as it is.

If two people start the same shipment at the same moment, OpenBoxes can open two receipts on it, and the shipment cannot be received until that is fixed. Contact us and we will work through it with you.

Turning it on and off#

In the OpenBoxes Lift portal, open Devices & sensors (under Resources in the menu) and choose the Handheld tab. The What workers can do card has three switches for your site: Look up, Receive and Pick and ship. All three are on by default, on every plan.

Who can change them: your account owner and Admins. Everyone else on your team sees the switches and their status, but cannot change them.
They depend on each other. Receive needs Look up, and Pick and ship needs Receive. Turning Look up off also turns off Receive and Pick and ship; turning Receive off also turns off Pick and ship.
Turning off Look up turns off the whole app for your site. You type your site's subdomain to confirm. The next time a phone opens Lift Mobile while online, the app is removed from it, including anything not yet saved on that phone. Everything already saved stays in OpenBoxes, and OpenBoxes on the desktop keeps working.
Turning off Receive or Pick and ship asks you to confirm, and you can add a short note for the change history. Lines and picks already saved stay in OpenBoxes; finish an open receipt or pick on the desktop.
How long it takes: saves and picks usually follow within 2 minutes. Each switch shows Applied once every server that serves Lift Mobile has your change, Applying while it is on its way, and Status unknown if we cannot confirm what phones see just now. Your setting is saved either way.
At most 30 changes an hour per site.
Change history: your account owner and Admins can see the most recent 200 changes from the last 90 days, including any pause by OpenBoxes Lift support.
If we pause it for your site, the tab says what is paused and why. You can still change your choices, and they take effect when we resume it. We email your account owner and Admins when we pause Lift Mobile for your site, when we change the pause, and when it is back on. A pause we lift again within a few minutes may not be emailed.

The switches decide what Lift Mobile offers on your site. They do not stop anyone using OpenBoxes on the desktop, and what each worker can do still comes from their OpenBoxes role.

The beta terms#

These are the terms of the beta:

Corrections are made by your own team, on the desktop. If something is saved wrong, your team corrects it in OpenBoxes on the desktop.
A send moves stock. On every plan, sending a request from the handheld moves that stock out of your location, and the shipment.shipped webhook fires. On every plan, completing a receipt adds the stock. If the shipment is for a purchase order, the order.received webhook fires once the order is fully received. Your stock alerts see either change at the next daily check.
Worker names appear in your Platform Log. Each sign-in to Lift Mobile is recorded in the Platform Log on your Instance page as "Handheld app sign-in" with the worker's name and username. On Dedicated, sign-ins through the portal are recorded by username.
We may turn it off while we fix a problem. During the beta we may turn picking, saving or the whole app off if we find a problem, and turn it back on once it is fixed. OpenBoxes on the desktop keeps working as usual. If we pause it for your site, we email your account owner and Admins when we do and when it is back on.

When something goes wrong#

On the device, open Diagnostics and tap Copy for support.
Send it to your supervisor or IT person.
They paste it into the support chat in the OpenBoxes Lift portal.

The report leaves out your name, the location name, every id and the contents of any barcode you scanned, so it is safe to forward.

What some messages mean:

"Nothing was saved." or "Nothing was sent." Nothing reached OpenBoxes, so you can try again.
Check now: the app lost the answer to a save and does not know yet whether it went through. Tapping it reads OpenBoxes before anything is sent again.
"Lift Mobile isn't available at this address right now." The app is not on at this address, for example on the demo, because your account owner or an Admin turned Look up off for your site, or because we have paused it for a while during the beta. The Handheld tab under Devices & sensors in the portal shows which.