Scanning with the camera
Reading barcodes with a phone, tablet or laptop camera on Scan & Post, on any browser — and what is and is not read.
The scan box on Supply Chain → Scan & Post takes a barcode three ways, and all three land in the same place: a scanner gun (which types the code and presses Enter), the keyboard, and the device camera. Everything after the scan — the line it books against, the quantity, the session — is the same whichever you used.
Using the camera
- Press Camera beside the scan box. The first time, the console asks your consent — the camera is on only while the scanner is open, and no picture is kept or sent anywhere; only the code it reads is used. Then the browser asks its own permission.
- Hold the label inside the frame. When it is read, "Read:" and the code appear under the picture and the scan is taken.
- Each barcode is taken once. Holding a label in view does not book it again and again; to scan the same item a second time, take the label out of the frame and show it again.
- Close camera turns it off, and so does leaving the screen. Pressing Close is never refused, even while a scan is being booked.
Which browsers, which labels
| Browser | What it reads |
|---|---|
| Chrome and Edge on Android, ChromeOS and macOS | The browser’s own decoder: Code 128, GS1-128, EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A, UPC-E, Code 39, ITF, Codabar, QR, Data Matrix and PDF417. |
| Chrome and Edge on Windows, Firefox, Safari | The console’s own reader: Code 128 and GS1-128 (with its batch, expiry and serial read out as usual), EAN-13, UPC-A, EAN-8 and Code 39. For QR codes, use a scanner or type the code — the screen says so while the camera is open. |
The camera needs a secure (https) connection, which every TRANXACT deployment has. On a plain http address the browser never offers the camera, so the button is not drawn.
The camera opens but nothing is ever read
Almost always there is nothing readable to point it at. A material has a barcode in the database whether or not anybody has ever printed one, and a camera cannot read a number that exists only on a screen. Print the label first: post a goods receipt and the Information box that follows offers Labels, which prints a barcode and a QR for every line, in whatever number of copies the posting screen asked for. Stick one on and scan it.
- A thirteen-digit code beginning with a zero is a UPC-A, and both decoders report the twelve digits printed under it. That is correct, and the console resolves either form to the same material — you have not scanned the wrong thing.
- Hold the label still and let it fill about half the frame. The console’s own reader needs two lines of one frame to agree before it accepts a code, which is what stops a line of printed text being read as a barcode.
- Nothing is uploaded. Every frame is read on the device, and only the decoded code leaves the page.
If the browser says the camera was not allowed, it was refused in the browser rather than in TRANXACT: allow it for this site from the padlock in the address bar and press Camera again. Your consent in the console can be withdrawn under Personalize → Camera, microphone and tag reader.
If instead it says the site does not permit the camera, whatever the browser allows, no setting on your device will help: the deployment’s own security headers are refusing it, and only whoever runs the deployment can change that. Every TRANXACT release since September 2026 permits the camera and microphone for the console itself (and for nothing embedded in it), so this message on a current deployment is a fault — raise a ticket.