After Scan Settings and Their Uses

In this article we will be covering the After Scan field options, what they are and how they can be used to improve your applications. You can open up an application and navigate to any session, and then the After Scan tab in Field Settings to follow along with this article. 

Pictured at the bottom of this article is the appearance of the After Scan field settings in case you are having trouble locating it.

What are After Scan settings?

After Scan settings are a series of settings that allow a user to automate certain repetitive steps in data collection, and can be found in the "After Scan" tab in the field settings of any application. These settings primarily serve as a way to save your time and effort, and also reduce errors from repetitive data collection by stopping human error from occurring. 

Now lets take a look at all of the after scan settings that are available in TracerPlus Desktop:

Auto submit: When enabled, a record is automatically submitted after an After Scan event for this field. 

Clear on submit: When enabled, the field is cleared or returned to its default state after a record is submitted. Disabling Clear on submit is useful if the same field value is required for multiple record entries. 

Refresh field before submit: When enabled, field data is refreshed when the record is submitted. This setting is relevant for Date/Time, Calculated, Lookup and Variable Field types. 

Auto find on scan: Check this option to automatically perform a search of existing records for the data entered into the field. The existing record will be opened in edit mode if the data is found. 

PromptUser: A prompt is displayed indicating the record is not found allowing the user to choose an action to take.

 NoPrompt_Add: This setting automatically adds a new record when the record is not found. No prompt is displayed.

 NoPrompt_Discard: No new record is added when the record is not found and no prompt is displayed.

Play sound on data change: When enabled, a chime will be played when the selected field value changes. 

Disable Data Changed trigger on blank (NULL) data: If this option is enabled, the data changed trigger for this field will not fire when the data for the selected field is empty/blank. This trigger is used to refresh any lookups or calculated fields that depend on the data in this field. 

Goto Control ID on data change: Specifies a control on the form by Control ID, which receives focus after the current field value changes. If the control specified is a button it will perform the button action. 

Goto field: This option allows the user to control the ‘tab order’ for the selected field. When a successful After Scan event occurs on this field, focus is set to the specified Goto field. 

Disable go to field: When enabled, overrides the Go to field set enabling you to utilize settings such as Conditional Logic to control the flow of your form.

To narrow this list down to some of the more popular features, you can look specifically at the "Goto field / Goto Control ID on data change" and "Auto submit / Clear on Submit". The goto field / goto control ID on data change will make directing your information to the correct field much easier, as you can tell the device to focus on a specific field after something happens. For example, with goto field you can direct your focus to a specific field after scanning. With goto Control ID on data change you can direct your focus to a specific control ID, which can even be a button. This allows your app to press a button automatically after the conditions are met. 

For the Auto Submit setting, you can designate if you want the application to automatically submit the current record after completing the designated field. A common use for this is enabling auto submit for the last field on your form, so that after you have filled out all the fields, filling out the final field will automatically submit your record. In the case of Clear on Submit, enabling that setting will cause the application to clear all of the fields in the form after submitting a record. This will return all the fields to a blank state with no information in them, so you don't have to worry about clearing any information manually.

This is what the after scan field settings tab looks like, in case you are having trouble locating it.