QR codes and portal requests

Every machine, or a whole site, can have its own QR code. Anyone who scans it can report a problem from their phone, with no account and no password. The report goes into a queue, and an Admin or Manager turns it into a real ticket or turns it down. This page covers the three parts: making and printing the QR codes, what the person reporting sees, and how the reports are reviewed. It ends with the Production Requests screen, which is how an Operator who does have an account sends a request.

Admins

Make, print and revoke the QR codes, and review the requests from every site.

Managers

Review the requests from the sites they are assigned to. They do not see the QR codes screen.

Anyone with the code

Reports a problem with no account. They hear nothing back.

Operators

Sign in and send a request on their own screen. It becomes a ticket straight away, with no review.

1. Make a QR code

A QR code is a portal link. A link can cover the whole company, one site, or one machine. A machine link is the most useful: the report arrives already naming the machine, its location and its site, and nobody has to say which machine is broken.

1. 1

   Open Manage Portal Links

   From the home screen open the Portal Requests tile, then press Manage Portal Links. Only Admins see that button. The screen it opens is called Portal Links.

   

2. 2

   Pick a link to see its QR code

   Each link in the list has its own code. The sticker under the code names the company, the site, the location and the machine it is for, so a printed sticker says where it belongs.

   

3. 3

   Copy it or download it

   Copy Link copies the plain web address, which can also be a shortcut on a computer at a station. Download saves the sticker as a picture.

   

4. 4

   Press New Link

   New Link opens the New Portal Link window. Leave Site (optional) empty for a company-wide link. Pick a site, and then a machine, to make a code for one machine.

   

5. 5

   Fill it in

   Type a Label (optional) that tells people where the sticker goes. Choose the Site (optional). Equipment (optional) stays switched off until a site is picked, and then lists that site's machines.

   

6. 6

   Press Create Link

   The new link appears at the top of the list. The screen keeps showing the link you had open before, so click the new one to see its code.

   

7. 7

   Download the sticker sheet

   Sticker sheet makes one PDF with a sticker for every active link in the list. The number in brackets is how many it will hold. If you search the list first, the sheet holds only the links that match.

   

8. 8

   Print it and cut along the dashed lines

   The sheet is US Letter with six stickers to a page, two across and three down, and a dashed line around each one. The file is named lockledger-qr-stickers with the date.

   

Turn a link off

If a sticker is lost, copied or being misused, select its link and press Revoke Link. The list marks it REVOKED, it is left off the sticker sheet, and its QR code stops working at once. Revoking keeps every report it ever received. A revoked link has a Reactivate Link button in place of Revoke Link, which turns the same code back on.

2. Report a problem

This is what the person at the machine does. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign in to.

0:50

1. 1

   Scan the QR code

   The phone's camera opens the report page in its browser. The page shows the company's name, Report a Problem, and, for a machine link, the machine, here CNC Mill 1.

   

2. 2

   Type your name

   Your Name is required. Phone or Email (optional) is only for the person who reviews the report. LockLedger never contacts anyone with it.

   

3. 3

   Describe the problem

   What's the problem? is required. A sentence or two is enough.

   

4. 4

   Say how it affects production

   Affect on Production (optional) offers No Affect, Running Slow and Line Down. Leave it on Not sure if you do not know.

   

5. 5

   Wait for the check, then press Send Report

   A short check, from Cloudflare, runs in the page to keep automated senders out. Send Report switches on when the name, the description and the check are done.

   

6. 6

   See the thank-you

   The page says the report was received and that the maintenance team will review it. Submit another report clears the form for a second one.

   

• There is no photo. The form has no way to attach a picture.
• Each code takes only a few reports at a time. To keep out abuse, one QR code accepts no more than 5 reports in 15 minutes and 20 in a day, and the same phone is held to fewer. Past that, the page says to try again later.
• A revoked or unknown link opens a plain page. It says the link is not valid and to check with a supervisor for a current one. Nothing is sent.

3. Review the requests

2:11

Reports wait in a queue until an Admin or Manager deals with them. Three things tell people one has arrived:

• The home screen. The Portal Requests tile shows the number of reports that are Pending.
• An email. When a report comes in, an email goes to the Managers assigned to that site who have the Portal Requests switch on. If the site has no active Manager, or the code is company-wide, it goes to the Admins who have it on instead. If every Manager at the site has switched it off, nobody is emailed, and the count on the home screen still shows the report.
• A notification on a device, for people who have turned device notifications on. See Notifications on your device.

1. 1

   Open Portal Requests

   The tile shows how many reports are Pending.

   

2. 2

   Read the queue

   The screen is called Requests to Review. It lists the waiting reports, oldest first, each with the sender, the time, the start of what they wrote, and the machine or site. You can search by sender or description.

   

3. 3

   Pick a report

   The right-hand side shows who sent it, when, the machine or site it came from, the Contact they gave, the Affect on Production they chose, and what they wrote. Approve and Reject are at the top.

   

4. 4

   Press Approve

   Approve makes a real ticket. The window says so, and that the report's description becomes the ticket's task details.

   

5. 5

   Set the priority, who gets the job, and a due date

   Priority starts on Medium. Assign To (optional) lists your active users. Due Date (optional) can stay empty. A report from a company-wide code has no site, so the window also asks you to pick a Site. The machine always comes from the QR code, and you cannot change it here.

   

6. 6

   Press Approve again

   The report leaves the queue and the ticket takes its place. If you chose someone in Assign To (optional), they get the usual email that a ticket was assigned to them.

   

7. 7

   Find the ticket

   It is in Tickets, status New, at the machine's site and location. Task Details holds what the person wrote.

   

8. 8

   See who sent it

   The Notes field reads Submitted via public portal by the person's name, and the contact they gave in brackets.

   

9. 9

   Press Reject for a report that is not a real job

   Reject opens a window with Reason (optional, internal only). Nobody outside the company ever sees the reason. The window says the request drops out of the queue and is not deleted.

   

10. 10

    Press Reject again

    The report leaves the queue. The queue only ever shows reports that are still waiting, so approved and rejected ones are not listed on this screen.

    

What a Manager sees

A Manager has the same Portal Requests tile and the same Requests to Review screen, with the same Approve and Reject, for the sites they are assigned to. A report from a company-wide code has no site, so only Admins see it. A Manager has no Manage Portal Links button, and if they open the Portal Links address by hand they are taken to Open Tickets.

Choose who gets the email

Each person decides for themselves in Settings, under Notifications. Portal Requests there has four choices, the same as the other notification switches. An Admin can also set it for someone else on the Users screen, where it is called Email: Portal Requests and is Yes or No. It is only shown for Admins and Managers.

4. Operators send a request on their own screen

An Operator has an account, and signing in takes them to Production Requests instead of the home screen. This is not the same as a QR report. An Operator's request is a ticket the moment they press Submit. Nobody reviews it first.

1. 1

   Sign in

   The list on the left holds the Operator's own requests, and is empty at first.

   

2. 2

   Press New Request

   A blank form opens on the right.

   

3. 3

   Fill it in

   Site, Location and Equipment are required, and Submit stays off until all three are picked. Affect on Production and Request Details say what is wrong. Priority, Due Date and Production WO# are optional.

   

4. 4

   Press Submit

   The request is saved as a ticket with a number and the status New, and it stays in the Operator's list. They can add files to it afterwards with Add Attachment.

   

An Admin finds the ticket in Tickets like any other, unassigned and in the status New. What the Operator typed in Request Details is in the ticket's Notes, and Task Details is empty, which is the other way round from an approved QR report.

Good to know

• A report is not a ticket until someone approves it. Until then it only appears on Requests to Review, so check the queue, or switch the emails on.
• The machine comes from the QR code, not from what the person types. Put a machine's code on that machine, and put a site code where several machines share a space.
• Nothing is deleted when you reject. The report stays in the company's records, only out of the queue.
• Two ways in, two places for the words. An approved QR report puts the text in Task Details and the sender in Notes. An Operator's request puts the text in Notes only.

To see what happens to a ticket once it exists, read Tickets from start to finish.