Question

Can we integrate electronic scales with IFS application?

  • 5 April 2022
  • 1 reply
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Mdangelo
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Hello IFS Community,

What functionality exists in IFS which leverages a directly connected electronic scale?" A couple example may be populating a weight field in a screen used for shipping, or for identifying a part but the predetermined standard weight in IFS.

Michelle DAngelo, Caldwell Manufacturing Company

1 reply

bcurtiss
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we interfaced UPS worldship and FEDEX ship manager to IFS to enter weights for small pack freight.

but, each ‘application’ may require a different strategy. 

 

keep in mind my answer is for IFS2004 .. I’m sure there is a ‘better’ answer using the new IFS interface tools, but what we did is..

  1. we created a table in IFS database called ‘freight_interface’
  1. we loaded oracle client, with ODBC on the ‘freight’ computers
  2. UPS worldship, and FEDEX freight manager have an ‘interface’ function that allows ‘reading’ of order address and shipping terms, and ‘pushing back’ the freight charge and freight cost.
  3. the read happened directly through an ODBC connection
  4. we ‘pushed back’ the freight charge an cost (along with order details to our ‘freight interface’ table, which used an oracle insert ‘trigger’ (standard oracle function) to call the IFS API which updated the freight record in IFS. 

not a simple solution, but we processed hundreds of these transactions a day, in all of our small pack shipping lines, at all locations .. so it was worth it for us investing the time to make this work.

 

using the new tools, you might be able to set up an ‘event’ that ‘pushes’ the small pack freight data into an ‘outbound’ freight table, that could be read by an ODBC connection, then use the trigger method to push the data back, and I don’t think you would be violating any IFS interface rules.. reading direct by ODBC today would be frowned upon as a bad practice (although I am told it would work).

 

the same ‘technique’ would apply to other measurements (like product weight), but a simpler way to do that might be to collect the product numbers and weights into excel using a ‘wedge’ interface, so the system thinks you are just typing when you trigger the scale. They make this code for USB and RS232 ports (depending on how old your scale is).. we use that method every day to enter data directly into IFS using USB and bluetooth scanners and wands. Then of course you would update the ifs master record using a normal excel upload process. but this is just my thinking. have not DONE it with IFS10 (yet)..

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