Asset Tracking

ODBC Plugin

Anything's possible.

Overview

The ODBC Interface provides a mechanism for the ATT software to communicate with an Asset Register that supports an ODBC interface mechanism as illustrated in the diagram.

The ODBC interface is most commonly used to interface the ATT software with Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access or a third party management software package that supports ODBC connections.

Diagram

The diagram below displays the components involved in the communication between a generic ODBC host and the ATT software.

ODBC Interface

Details

ODBC Data Source Configuration

On the machine that will run the ATT Translation and Interface software, the ODBC data source must be configured using the control panel called “ODBC Data Sources”. The default data source name to use is “ATT Data Source”.


Custom SQL Technique

The ODBC interface supports custom SQL queries should you wish to perform more complex interfacing with existing tables. This provides a very flexible and advanced technique for interfacing. This is now the preferred technique.

Using custom SQL queries, you avoid the need to create additional tables in your database.

ATT Pre-Built Queries Technique

If you wish, the ATT system has pre-built queries and table structures to use if you find this approach easier.

The customer’s Asset Register must first populate a table in their database, known as “TO_SCANNER”. The ATT software will connect to the ODBC data source and copy the whole contents of the “TO_SCANNER” table onto the local machine.

The ATT software will take data from the device and translate it into a format suitable for the Asset Register. It will then open an ODBC connection to the data source, and deliver the count information to the table “FROM_SCANNER” inside the desired database. Note that the previous contents of the “FROM_SCANNER” table will be deleted as this transfer takes place. The customer may then perform whatever reconciliation reports or data transfers are desired to populate the results of this count back into their management system. It is the customer’s responsibility to write whatever queries or reports are required in performing this step.


Schema

The table below describes the “TO_SCANNER” and “FROM_SCANNER” table schemas for ATT. Note that all fields are character fields, and have fixed length. It is recommended that the field names supplied here be used, however other field names should function correctly.

Field Name Length Fld # Comments
key 30 0 The primary key. This must have the exact contents of the item bar code. Typically this is copied from the “assetnum” field or the “inventorynum” field.
laststocktake 8 1 The counted date in “YYYYMMDD” format. The contents of this field are overwritten with the current date when scanning an item.
time 6 2 The counted time in “hhmmss” format. The contents of this field are overwritten with the current time when scanning an item.
counted 1 3 Flag to indicate if the item was counted.
multi 1 4 Flag to indicate multiple records. Used internally by ATT.
inventorynum 25 5 The inventory number or tag number of the item. Often used as the bar code of the item. Copy this value to the “key” field to use it as the bar code with ATT.
assetnum 12 6 The asset number of the item. Sometimes used as the bar code of the item. Copy this value to the “key” field to use it as the bar code with ATT.
compcode 4 7 Company code
description 50 8 Description
costcentre 10 9 Cost Centre
respcostcentre 10 10 Responsible Cost Centre
location 10 11 Location
detailedloc 40 12 Detailed Location
serialno 18 13 Serial Number
room 8 14 Room
plant 4 15 Plant
class 8 16 Class or type
inventorynote 15 17 Inventory note
validitydte 8 18 Validity date
sublocation 4 19 Sub location
controllertext 30 20 Controller text
assetsubnum 4 21 Asset or item sub-number
equipmentnum 18 22 Equipment number
equipcategory 8 23 Equipment category
functionalloc 30 24 Functional location
workcentre 10 25 Work centre
status 4 26 Status
maintext 50 27 Main text
internalorder 12 28 Internal order
userid 20 29 User ID. If blank, this is automatically populated with the identity of the scanner that performed the scanning. The scanner ID is the PalmOS “user name”.
controlid 5 30 Controller ID
spare2 5 31 Spare field
caretaker 10 32 Caretaker
spare4 10 33 Spare field
spare5 10 34 Spare field
licenseplt 20 35 Licence Plate. This is sometimes used as a serial number if the “serialno” field is not long enough.
spare7 20 36 Spare field
spare8 20 37 Spare field
subloctext 30 38 Sub location text
spare10 49 39 Spare field
scanstatus 1 40 Scanned verses keyed input status. Non blank for scanned input.