Using a Mobile Device to Confirm Deliveries Version

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Overview

Hospital staff can be required to "sign for" deliveries that are brought to their departments. The Delivery Confirmation Application (on an iPad) and ProTrack (a hand-held computer application) track deliveries within a hospital by capturing signatures and associating the signatures with delivery information. You can use the applications to acknowledge delivery of requisitioned items, documents such as checks, direct delivery packages, and anything that needs delivery confirmation.

Instructions for using an iPad for delivery confirmations are on the iPad itself, in the Quick Start guide. The instructions below are for ProTrack on a hand-held computer.

For both the iPad application and ProTrack, you can display delivery confirmation records in table format in PCSC Materials Management. See Viewing Confirmation Data in Materials Management.

Security

For you to access any of Supply Chain's hand-held applications (such as ProTrack), a system administrator must install applications, configure the hand-held computer, and establish your user settings. Security settings include user Role and login/password.

Before you can collect digital signatures, you must synchronize the hand-held computer with Supply Chain. Synchronization downloads information to the hand-held computer. When you are finished entering package information and collecting signatures, you run the synchronization again. ProTrack uploads the signatures and the data associated with them. Supply Chain creates a record of the digital signatures and the associated delivery information. You can view the delivery records in Supply Chain, if you wish.

Using ProTrack

  1. Turn on the hand-held computer.
  2. Using the stylus, press Start in the upper left corner.
    The Start Menu appears.
  3. Click Aperek Mobile on the menu. A login screen appears (Figure 1)

Figure 1 - Mobile Login Screen

  1. Log in to the mobile application.

  2. The Mobile Applications screen appears (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - The Mobile Applications Window

  1. Select ProTrack by pressing its icon -- -- with the stylus. The ProTrack Main screen appears (Figure 3).
    The Main screen shows a blank form for delivery information.

Figure 3 - ProTrack Screen

  1. Connect to Supply Chain and download data to the hand-held computer.

To record packages and delivery signatures:

  1. Open the ProTrack application on the hand-held computer.
    The Main panel appears with empty fields for entering delivery information (Figure 3).

  2. Synchronize the hand-held computer with Supply Chain.

  3. Scan the barcode on the first package for delivery.
    ProTrack enters the barcode number in the Package ID field (Figure 4).

Figure 4 - ProTrack Screen with a Scanned Package ID

  1. In the Piece Count field, unless you are scanning multiple packages for one signature, enter the number of individual pieces (e.g., "3" for two boxes and an envelope) for the delivery.
  1. Optional: Enter the department number (Dept), if you wish.
    - You can enter a Name (for the department, or for a person) in addition, or instead of a department number.
    - Do not write the value for this field; key it in.
    Suggestion: Since signatures are sometimes not legible, you may wish to enter the signer's name in the Dept/Name field.
  1. Ask the person receiving the delivery to sign in the box underneath the information fields (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - Delivery Information with Signature

  1. Click Add.
    ProTrack saves the delivery record with the signature. The fields on the display are emptied.
  1. Repeat Steps 3 through 7 for other packages.
    Note: You can also create a list of delivery records in advance, and only get signatures when you deliver packages. See To enter and store delivery information before collecting signatures.

  2. When you have finished, synchronize the hand-held computer to send the delivery records to Supply Chain.

Scanning Multiple Package Barcodes for One Signature

You can scan multiple package barcodes for delivery to the same person or department, if you wish.

Figure 6 - Multiple Package Bar Codes for Signature

When you upload the information to Supply Chain, the delivery record is similar to Figure 7. Each package is listed individually, with a Piece Count of 1. See Viewing delivery confirmations in Materials Management.

Figure 7 - Supply Chain Delivery Confirmation for Multiple Packages with a Single Signature

To record delivered items from a pick or from a receipt

  1. Print the appropriate Pick / Delivery document from Supply Chain.

  2. Open the ProTrack application on the hand-held computer.
    The Main panel appears with empty fields for entering delivery information. (Figure 3)

  3. Synchronize the hand-held computer with Supply Chain.

  4. Scan the bar-coded field on the upper right of the document that you printed for the pick or for the receipt.
    The scanned number appears in the Package ID field.

    - Only the barcode from the Receipt or the Pick and Delivery Document appears on ProTrack in the Package ID field.
    - When you upload the ProTrack data to Supply Chain, you can go to the Delivery Confirmation Panel to view all the individual items on the receipt or in the pick and delivery document.

Using Package Association

Package Association lets you associate an external barcode (such as a Fed Ex code) with a Package ID.

To use Package Association in scanning barcodes:
  1. Select Menu > Package Association.
    The Package Association header appears at the top of the ProTrack screen.
  2. Select Package Association.
  3. Scan the barcode first.
  4. Scan the second of the two barcodes.
    ProTrack puts a tilde (~) between the barcodes (Figure 8) .

Figure 8 - Delivery Record Using Package Association

Notes:

  1. Move to the next field - Piece Count and/or Dept/Name - and add more information, if needed.
  2. Solicit a signature.
  3. Click Add.

To enter and store delivery information before collecting signatures:

  1. On the ProTrack Main panel, enter delivery information such as Package ID, Dept, Name, and Piece Count, as relevant. (Package ID is a required field.)

  2. Click Add after entering each delivery record.
    (After you click Add, ProTrack saves each delivery record and displays a blank screen for you to scan another package.)
  3. When you are ready to make deliveries, press List to view the delivery records (Figure 9).

Figure 9 - List of Packages to Be Delivered

  1. Press the position box (the first box) in front of a delivery line to select the line.
    For example, in Figure 9, the line containing Package ID 344554 is selected.

  2. Press Main.
    The information appears on the ProTrack screen.

  3. Solicit the signature in the box below the delivery information.

  4. Click Update.
    ProTrack saves the signature with the information, and clears the Main panel.

When you finish working with ProTrack, be sure to synchronize the hand-held computer to upload the information to Supply Chain.

Tools on the ProTrack Screen

Figure 10 is a diagram of the ProTrack screen. Several tools are on the bottom of the display.

Figure 10 - ProTrack Screen Tools

Using the Applications Window Menu

Pressing Menu on the Applications Window provides access to the features: User Settings, Server Settings, Synchronization Log, Options, and Utilities (Figure 11).

Figure 11 - The Mobile Application Window Menu

Figure 12 - The Server Settings Screen

Figure 13 - ProTrack Synchronization Log

Viewing Delivery Confirmations in Supply Chain

After you collect signatures on the iPad and collect/upload the ProTrack data to Supply Chain, you can view the delivery information and signatures.
(The iPad applications upload data automatically.)

From the Materials Management main Contents, select Warehousing > Delivery Confirmations.
The list of delivery confirmations appears (Figure 14).

Figure 14 - List of Delivery Confirmations in Supply Chain Uploaded from ProTrack

Note: When a range of requisitions appears in the Requisition No column (e.g., as in Figure 14 , red box), you cannot use the inquiry (i). If you click i, a message appears.

Automatic Updates of Supply Chain Mobile Applications

When an update for a mobile application is released, the system automatically applies the update to your hand-held computer when you synchronize the hand-held for the first time after the release. The process is:

  1. After the new release is available, synchronize a hand-held computer as usual.
    The New Updates panel appears (Figure 15)

Figure 15 - The Mobile Application New Updates Panel

  1. Click OK in the top right of the New Updates panel to close it.