Orca Scan - Getting Started Guide

Orca Scan - Getting Started Guide

Orca scan is a tool that can be used for inventory management.  It's low cost, and does the job.  This guide is designed to guide you through the basics of Orca Scan (dated 05-10-23) but they have a massive guides and documentation section as well if you really want to get deep into it:


Before You Skip Ahead and Smash Your Computer

What you'll need before we get moving:
  1. A computer with a web browser
  2. The Orca Scan app downloaded and signed into on your smart phone. 
To install the Orca Scan app, just go to the Apple App Store and search for "Orca Scan" then download and install that.  If you have any troubles with that process reach out to TechPeer support by calling 365-800-6991 or emailing support@techpeer.ca,  If you're not sure what your Orca Scan login is, reach out to TechPeer and they can help with that too!

Getting Started

The basic premise of how this works is that Orca Scan sets up sheets with lists of parts on them.  Each sheet represents a specific location.  So you'll have a sheet you setup for a parts room, or a truck.  The process of getting a sheet setup is really this:
  1. Setup the sheet's columns the way you like so you're capturing the data you want for each part
  2. Add your parts to the sheet
  3. Setup triggers to let you know when parts get low

Column Setup

First login to the Orca Scan page here:

From there you want to select the sheet  to edit by clicking on the sheet name at the bottom:


You'll see the column names appear along the top.  Right clicking on a column brings up some options.  This allows you to add a new column beside the column you're working with, or edit an existing column:


I'm going to edit the "Price" column so you can see what that looks like:


You can see Price has the data type "number" which makes sense.  But if you're making a new column you'll want to decide what type of data your capturing.  Normally it'll be "text" or "number".  You can also make columns required which force people to enter the information when they're updating the part.  Make sure you have all the columns setup the way you want and then you can start adding parts! 

Adding Parts

To add parts the easiest thing to do is use the mobile app so you can also add the barcode at the same time.  But you also add parts to the sheet manually if you want to, and Orca Scan will generate it's own barcode if there isn't one already.  To add a part from the mobile app follow these steps:
  1. First open the Orca Scan app on your phone.  Make sure to select "Cloud" at the top and then choose the right sheet from the drop down.  Once you've done this you can press the "Scan" button at the bottom to start scanning a bar code:

  2. After you click on Scan a bar code window will show up, simply hold that over the bar code of the part you're trying to add:

  3. Once you scan the code a new screen will show up allowing you to edit part you just scanned.  You'll then see the part show up on your computer. 

Adding Triggers:

Triggers let you setup alerts when a parts get low among other things.  To setup a new trigger click on the robot head at the top of the screen:


From there you'll tap on the "Add" button to create a new trigger.  A new window will pop-up allowing you to setup the conditions and actions of your trigger:


In the example above we're telling Orca Scan that if the field "QTY" for any part drops below 2, we should email info@sewersquad.ca so they know.   Keep in mind that triggers only apply to the sheet you're working on, so you need to setup triggers for each sheet.

I'm a Pro, Show Me More!

Here are some other useful tips you may need to know:

Adding Users

If you'd like to add user to edit a specific sheet you can do so by first selecting the sheet you want to add the user to, and then clicking on the "Users" button at the top:


Simply add the person's email and click on "Add", they'll get an email invitation to setup an Orca Scan account.  Once they're added, you can edit their permissions by selecting the appropriate sliders shown above.  Techs should really only need the "Can Update" permission.

How Do Techs Adjust Quantities?

  1. Add the tech as a user as shown above.  They'll get a welcome email to allow them to setup their account.
  2. Get them to download and install the Orca App.  Call/email TechPeer if it's a company owned device so they can help with that.  Once they install the app they can sign in with the credentials they setup.
  3. Once they're signed in, they need to make sure they tap on cloud (1), then make sure they have the right sheet selected (2).  From there they can just tap on "Scan" (3) to begin scanning.

  4. Once they scan an item they can adjust the quantity up and down and add the job number for instance:

Locations

You can add a location column to a sheet that will track the GPS location the part was last scanned at.  When you're adding a new column just choose the following data type:


History

If you want to view when a part was changed and what it was changed to you can use the History reports.  First click on the History icon at the top:


By default the history screen will show the history of the selected parr number from the sheet:


You can use the "Download" button to download a copy of the history in an Excel file.  If you scroll the right you can even see who made the adjustment, what it was, and even the location where the adjustment was made (if you added a location column to the part).

How do print Barcodes?

Select "Barcode Labels" section on the side:


From there choose the type of label you want and hit "Print".  You can also highlight multiple parts at once if you want to print more than one label:

I Hate This Stupid Program and I Hate You TechPeer

Not to worry!  We're here to help. 

P - 365-800-6991
Text - 365-800-6991





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