Introduction

Composite barcodes can be used to represent a specific quantity of a specific product. They contain both the unique identifier of a product, as in normal barcodes, plus a unit of measure. This means that, from a single scan, PVX will know both what product item it has scanned and the quantity of that item, such as a single item, an inner case, an outer case, etc.

This can be used to speed up the process of performing many functions in the mobile app (receive, register, put away, move, return, stock take or pick) where you want to regularly apply the action to multiples of an item. A composite barcode can also be used during despatch on the web app. This can be useful if you are despatching large quantities of an item and you want to avoid breaking down a container to access the individual product barcodes within.

A composite barcode scanned anywhere else in PVX will be treated as though the user had only scanned the item (depending on how the barcodes are configured).

Composite barcodes are typically used on the outside of packaging to quickly identify the item and the quantity to help with bulk movement of inventory. Standard barcodes remain more appropriate for labelling individual items which don’t require this additional information.

Prerequisites

Paid Feature: Composite barcodes is a chargeable feature. You need to raise a ticket with the PVX helpdesk to have this option enabled on your account.

Before you can set up and use composite barcodes, you must set up units of measure for your inventory items.

Setting up rules for interpreting composite barcodes

Each part of a composite barcode is called a barcode segment. Each segment describes a single piece of data. The whole barcode is described by a format, which contains a specified set of segments that make up the barcode.

When PVX is provided with a composite barcode, it must also be given the format. PVX uses this format to interpret the barcode when scanned and identify the data that each segment represents: the unique item code and the unit of measure.

The instructions for interpreting composite barcodes must be uploaded to PVX via a CSV template in the Integration Templates tab of the web app's Integration module. These template options are only available when the composite barcodes option is enabled on your account.

You must import these templates in the sequence described below, otherwise an error will occur; for example, if an imported segment references a format that has not yet been imported, the import operation fails.

1. Prepare and import the Composite barcode formats template. This file should contain two columns:
   

   Reference

   This column should contain a name of the “Rule” you will be using for barcode recognition (see step 2).

   UseSegmentSequence

   This tells PVX how it should interpret the segments. It must be set to TRUE or FALSE. If TRUE, PVX assumes that the sequence provided on the segments is fixed and that every barcode using this format will express the segments in the same order. The bounds of each segment must be defined separately using either the segment length or a trailing delimiter to mark the end of the field on the barcode segment (see step 2). If FALSE, PVX assumes that the segments can be expressed in any order. Here PVX is dependent on each segment defining a fixed PrefixCode.

   
   Example:
   
   

2. Prepare and import the Composite barcode segments template. As mentioned in step 1, the composite barcode may be constructed either via segments or prefixes. Segments are chunks of data of defined length, while prefixes are single pieces of information put in front of the item barcode. Both can be configured using the composite barcode segments template which contains the following columns:

   • Reference: The unique reference for the segment. This is user-defined, but must be unique across segments with the same FormatReference. When updating a segment, this is used in conjunction with the FormatReference to uniquely identify the segment.

   • FormatReference: The unique reference that tells PVX the barcode format rule in which the segment is included.

   • Type: The type of data stored in the segment. Possible values are ItemCode, ItemBarcode, and ItemUnitCode (the code for the unit of measure).

   • IsDefaultSegment: Can be TRUE or FALSE. If the composite barcode is scanned in a part of PVX that does not recognise composite barcodes, PVX will use the default segment of the composite barcode only, i.e. PVX will behave as though the user had only scanned the product. A single segment must be set to TRUE for each barcode format to allow this to happen. You can choose whether this is the product barcode or the unit of measure.

   • Sequence: The order in which the segments appear in the barcode.

   • PrefixCode: Needed for barcode formats with UseSegmentSequence set to FALSE. Insert the identifier to be used to identify the left bound of the segment. The segment will be terminated by either another PrefixCode for a different segment or the end of the barcode. The PrefixCode must be unique within a barcode format. Leave blank for barcode formats with UseSegmentSequence set to TRUE.

   • BarcodeSegmentLength and TrailingDelimiter: One of these must be provided for barcode formats with UseSegmentSequence set to TRUE. They tell PVX how to identify the boundaries of the segment.

   • BarcodeSegmentLength: defines the length of the segment in number of characters.

   • TrailingDelimiter: Tells PVX to keep reading characters as a part of this segment until the specified character (or sequence of characters) is found. This means that the TrailingDelimiter must be a character (or sequence of characters) that does not appear in the barcode for any other purpose. Semi-colons are not supported for delimiters, we recommend using another character such as a dash or an underscore.
     
     The segments/prefixes defined in the previous file will make the system able to read data coded within a barcode.
     
     Example:
     
     
     

   • Prepare and import the Composite barcodes template. This file tells PVX which rule should be used to read each composite barcode, and should contain two columns:
     
     

     Barcode	Your product barcode
     FormatReference	The reference for the rule used to decipher the barcode

     
     Example:
     
     
     
     In the example shown, the rule 'Pack1' is used to interpret the composite barcode '35031470028764' as follows:

     • UseSegmentSequence = TRUE, therefore use segments in the defined sequence.

     • Segment 1 (Length=1) = ‘3’ (the code for the unit of measure).

     • Segment 2 (Length=12) = '503147002876' (item barcode).

     • The final digit ('4') is a check digit ignored in the barcode interpretation.
       

3. Test that the barcode formatting is correct. Once all the uploads are completed, export the Composite barcodes template that you uploaded in step 3, and look for a new column which states whether each barcode is TRUE (correct) or FALSE (incorrect). This extra column is generated by the system which checks whether each FormatReference exists and whether all the details match the setup for each barcode. Once you have successfully set up the composite barcodes, you can use them on your packages.

Note: PVX doesn’t support printing composite barcodes so they must be printed using an external software tool.

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