Equipment inventory/control solution

[Charlie]

Greetings. New to FM Forums, but not new to Filemaker.

I'm the director of an overseas development project and would like to investigate the possibilities of labelling my equipment with barcodes and be able to take inventory of this equipment regularly. Are there any (fairly) easy and cheap solutions for using palm pilots or some such and a barcode wand to do this?

In very simple terms I would want to print out barcodes for everything. Then a clerk could go around with a barcode reader, swipe the code and pull up a limited set of info on the item: name, short description, last location, last condition, last time inspected, etc. Said clerk could then make modifications to condition, location, etc., and the last inspection date/time would be updated. This info would then be moved from the palm/whatever back to a Mac with the equipment database and updated.

My knowledge about barcode readers, etc., is basically nil, but I'm a quick study.

Thanks for any help you can give.

C

[Kurt Knippel]

LiveOak can give you a more detailed rundown on this, but yes all of what you want to do is possible, and easier than one might think.

We have a client were we did just such a thing. We created a set of barcode labels (simple serial IDs) and stuck them on all the equipment. Then we created a database with a bunch of fields for describing the equipment.

We then used JFile/FMSync to sync between a Mac and a Symbol Palm which has a barcode scanner built in. Then LiveOak went around and scanned the label, filled in a few more details about the item and went on to the next one.

As I recall this all happened in a matter of days, from start to finish.

Now of course our needs were simple, but the time it took was so short that really we could have done anything with little additional effort.

[Charlie]

Kurt -

Thanks for your speedy reply to my question.

I'm looking at the Handspring Visor Deluxe and the Symbol reader attachment for same. (This appears to be the low-cost solution; we're a low-cost sort of NGO.)

I'm new to all this PDA stuff, and certainly to Jfile. Is Jfile easily programmed? Can it be programmed in simulation on a Mac and transferred? On a PC? What are the methods for transferring data between Jfile and Filemaker? (Text file? SYLK or other?)

Sorry to be a pest, but one feels a bit disconnected when trying to plan from West Africa. We have to plan things months in advance hardware-wise, and I don't want to make any mistakes. Fedex just doesn't deliver to Freetown these days.

Many thanks.

Charlie Ellmaker

CVT Sierra Leone

[LiveOak]

We used the Symbol Palm SPT 1500 with a copy of JFile Enterprise, which is an enhanced version of JFile which recognizes the barcode scanner. The big question is whether the Visor with the Symbol reader is supported. The JFile web site (www.land-j.com) indicates "Symbol Barcode" support in JFile 5, but what does this mean? I would give them a call or email and see if this "support" includes the Symbol reader for the Visor. You can purchase a bundle from FMSync which gives a discount over JFile and FMSync purchased separately (explained on the Land-J Technologies web site.

Just an editorial comment, the JFile product seems to be staying handily ahead of the FileMaker Mobile feature set. Kind of like the difference between a stone tablet and a word processor!

-bd

[Charlie]

bd -

Many thanks to you and to Kurt for the valuable information. I will follow up with J-File to see if the software supports the hardware from Symbol.

And thanks for the tip about FM Mobile.

Regards,

Charlie Ellmaker

Center for Victims of Torture - Sierra Leone