8. Adding Items and Containers

There are different methods and strategies to add content to Scanlily. Sometimes your use case will suggest which might be the best approach:

a. Organizing items in boxes and containers

b. Add individual items not in containers
c. Import from a spreadsheet or JSON file

a. Organizing items in boxes and containers

It's often best to start with creating a container before adding items. This helps organize your items in the system - particularly if you will have many. A container should best represent something in the physical world like a box, shelf, or space where your items reside. But it can also be conceptual. Here are the steps:

1a. Scan the QR label
Click on the upper right QR button from any page, or navigate to "My Containers" from the upper left menu and then from the bottom select the "Add a container with QR" button. Then Scan the QR label.

1b. If you are not using a QR label for your container, select the Camera+ image, or navigate to "My Containers" from the upper left menu and then from the bottom, select the "Add a container without QR" button.

2. Select Options for Adding Item(s)

In the popup, keep "AI image Recognition" checked if you would like AI to recognize the container; otherwise, uncheck it. Select "Add Container" to add a container into which you can then add items. Alternatively, if the button appears based on your access and product level, select "Create a container and add items from one image". This latter approach will allow AI to both create the container from an image and based on what it sees inside the container, to also add the individual items.

3. Add items to the container

Once you have created the container, then on the Container page click an option under "Add item to containers":

a. "Without QR" - Creates new items directly inside this container.
Use this when you want to add items that don't exist in your system yet and you want to do it without first scanning a QR code. Depending on access level, it provides the option to add multiple items from one image.

b. "Search" - Finds and adds existing items from your inventory to this container.
Use this when you've already created items elsewhere and want to organize them into containers.

c. "Scan" - Scans a code to add items to this container.
What happens depends on the type of code:

Scanlily QR codes: Creates a new item if the QR hasn't been used, or adds the existing item if it's already in your system
UPC codes (Business customers only): Creates a new item with product information pulled from the UPC database, or adds the existing item if that UPC is already in your system
Proprietary barcodes: Adds an existing item that already has this barcode in its ID field (cannot create new items with proprietary barcodes from this screen)

b. Add individual items not in containers

You can add items without containers. At any point, you can add the item to a container if you need:

1a. Click on the upper right QR button from any page, or navigate to My Items from the upper left menu and then from the bottom select either the "Add an item without QR" or "Add an item by scanning aQR or UPC" button.

1b. If you are not using a QR label for your container, select the Camera+ image, or navigate to My Items from the upper left menu and then from the bottom, select the "Add an item by scanning a QR or UPC" button.

2. In the popup, keep "AI image Recognition" checked if you would like AI to recognize the container; otherwise, uncheck it. Select "Add Item" to add items. Alternatively, if the button appears based on your access and product level, select "Add multiple items from same image". This latter approach will add multiple items at once. However, to aid in organizing items, it is often better to first create a container and then add the items to it (see above).

Follow the steps to add with AI Image Recognition as explained in this section.

You can always change your item to a container. In order to do so, click on the bottom right menu button and select “Change to Container.” You can now store other Item pages linked to your new Container page.

Then proceed to add items as in 4b4 above.

c. Import from a spreadsheet or JSON File.

See the section on Data Import to learn more about this.