I’ve been investigating the barcode scanning field/tool for inventory/asset management and have determined that you cannot currently scan a chunk of individual items with unique barcodes back to back and then update their location in a ‘mass/bulk edit’ type of action. We sell relatively expensive musical instruments that all have unique serial numbers so keeping track of their location at any given time is very important (for example, on trial with a client, at a tradeshow, in shipping, in repair, in the showroom, etc). With additional fields and data set up in a base we can plan when that instrument might be available for any new buyers that would like to get in line to try that instrument (which happens daily). Since we travel with so many of the instruments at one time it is great to just point and scan (via a handheld scanner for desktop, or via the camera in the AirTable app) all the barcodes of the instruments coming back from a tradeshow and change the status/location to ‘showroom’ in one action as opposed to having to scan and update each item one at a time. We are currently using an inventory system that is kind of clumsy and has very basic inflexible fields (which limits the type of reporting we can do with that data) but it DOES allow the bulk scanning and so that is the one we must use until AirTable or a similar service can come up with a way to make the bulk scanning/updating possible. Thinking this one feature in AirTable could revolutionize the inventory/asset management industry and would bridge the gap that we currently have in our operations. Surely a lot of other businesses would be keen on this feature as well.
... View more
