Spelunking in the Barcode Cavern

My new client would like to use a Barcode scanner for a whole variety of Field Service applications:
Shipping Label to Lookup and RMA Order and update some fields
Asset Label to Lookup or Create an RMA Order Line Items and update some fields
Asset Label to Lookup a Repair record and update some fields

Siebel Bookshelf and Supported Platforms provides some basic information. There are a couple of approaches to using a Barcode scanner

• Treat it like any data entry device. In other words, you prepare your record (click new, Clear to Query, etc.), click into a field, scan your barcode, the scanner copies the translated barcode value to the field, then you do what you want (save the record, execute query, etc).
• Use the Barcode ToolBar. This has some basic modes (New, Update, Find), an administration area that ties a View to one or more modes and a field. So when you navigate to a view, Siebel (when the barcode toolbar is turned on through an object manager parameter), checks to see of any barcode admin records exist for that view and the currently selected mode. If so these appear in a dropdown in the toolbar that a user can select a value from. If the User then scans something, the Application "Processes" the barcode depending on the mode, either doing a query based on a specified field, updating a field on the current record, or creating a new record and populating a specified field.

This sounds groovy until you hear about some of the limitations and start thinking about a more realistic process. So here are the limitations as I understand them:

• Only some Barcode Types (think fonts) are supported.
• The processing can only occur in the primary BC of the BO, or the Parent BC in a master detail view.
• Serial Numbers cannot be looked up (I am still investigating why this is but I am guessing it has to do with them possibly not being unique).
• Only barcode scanners that support using customizable control character before and after the scanned input will work
• A single input value is taken (so no splitting of a concatenated value)
• You basically have to tell the toolbar what value to expect (again, no intelligent parsing)
  

Prototyping:

• Insure you have the Field Service, and Barcode license keys
• In the Field Service cfg file (if using a thick client), set the ShowBarcodeToolbar parameter to TRUE. Intuitively enough, this will make the Barcode toolbar appear in your app upon restart.
• Click the enable button (far right hand button) on the toolbar
• As you navigate to a view, the application will perform a query of the 'FS Barcode Mappings' BC, or S_BC_ENTRY_TRGT table for admin records corresponding to the current view and the currently selected processing mode (the three buttons to the left of the dropdown in the toolbar each correspond to a different mode). If you think about it, this is sort of similar to how Actuate reports are tied, except you can actually administer this a bit in the GUI.
• We can mimic a barcode scan by using <ctrl-\>, followed by the translated value we are trying to scan (SR number for instance), followed by another <ctrl-\>
• If you want to use different control character than <ctrl-\> (because maybe that one is already taken or something), these are set on the 'HTML FS Barcoding Tool Bar' business service as User Properties. I will leave them be.
  

So in my real life example, I will:

1. Navigate to All Service Requests
2. Click Enable on toolbar
3. Click the right most left side button on the toolbar, 'Find'
4. Leave the dropdown as 'Serial Number'
5. Hit <ctrl-\>
6. Type in an SR # I can see in the list
7. Hit <ctrl-\> again
8. The Application should query for the SR # I entered

I am now going to dive figuring out a better way to customize this behavior. I'll be back.