16. GPS and Mapping
Table of Contents
b. Adding and Updating Latitude and Longitude for items.
a. Enabling GPS
Enabling GPS for Scanlily unlocks several useful features. With GPS enabled, you will be able to see your items on a map. Also, because Scanlily uses geofencing for security purposes, allowing Scanlily to add GPS coordinates to your items will allow you to share your QR Labels as Public without a passcode to people who are not on your Scanlily account.
You can enable GPS by accepting the prompt from Android or iPhone when you first install the application. By default the “Collect GPS coordinates for items” setting will be enabled in Settings->User Profile:
You can disable GPS coordinate collection by unchecking this box.
b. Adding and Updating Latitude and Longitude for items
If your phone’s location services are turned on, and you allow the app to access them, your items are GPS-tagged as you add them. This is the case whether or not you select to display the GPS attribute for your item’s Type. If you physically move the item to a new location, either click on the GPS attribute to change its latitude and longitude or choose.
Seeing GPS-tagged items on a map.
Selecting View on Google Maps or View on (Apple) Maps will show the current item in a map. If you first navigate to the Dashboard (via the upper menu Home button), you can see all items on a map.
To increase security, it’s not currently possible to manually type in a new latitude and longitude. You’ll need to click on the GPS attribute to update the location in the system.
Clicking on that opens a larger map; you can zoom in and out to see details. You will see pins for your items and numbers designating how many items are at that location. Click on that pin to see a list of item names that you can click on to get to their respective Item Pages. The list is currently limited to the 100 most recently updated items. This limit is to prevent excessive scrolling from the map. If you need to see longer lists of items, then a better way is to define multiple addresses and assign addresses to items. Then search by address and location on the Item List screen.
Changing an item's GPS location
Depending on the circumstances, one or two additional buttons may appear on the GPS popup for "Change to current location" or "Change to item's address". These create the described effect.
Changing an item to the location of the closest address
If you scan an item's QR and it has moved closer to a different address, the system will prompt you whether you want to update its address to that location:
This is a useful feature for moving items from one location to another. Your colleagues can be instructed simply to scan the QR of the item being moved once it arrives at its destination. This will update its location to the new address.