Scanning pilots
4Competition and category
The QR Scan tab from top to bottom: choosing what you are scanning for, reading the quick status card, and what each menu action actually does.
The Competition setup card#
The first card on the QR Scan tab is where you say what you are scanning for. Nothing else in the tab works until both a competition and a category are chosen.
Both choices are remembered per competition, so coming back to the app after lunch puts you back on the same category you were scanning before.
Note
No categories available for this competition. means the organizer has not defined any scan categories yet, or you have never been online with this competition selected. Categories are cached per competition once you have loaded them once.
What a category is#
A category is one thing that can be recorded about a pilot on a given day: registration, safety briefing, take off, goal, a shuttle bus, whatever the organizer needs to count. The names, the codes and the number of them come from the competition website, so they differ from event to event.
One category is special everywhere: Register. It carries the full registration record of the pilot and it is the gate for everything else. See Scanning a pilot.
Caution
Scanning the wrong category is the single most common mistake on a busy morning. The category you are on is written under Ready to scan and again on the confirmation screen. Check it after every switch.
In and Out phases#
Some categories record a pilot twice: once on the way in and once on the way out. A shuttle to the take off, a bus back from goal, a gate that people pass in both directions. For those the organizer sets the category to the in and out mode, and the app then shows a Phase chip row with In and Out.
The phase you pick is part of the scan, so the same pilot can be recorded on the same category twice without the second scan looking like a duplicate. Selecting such a category always resets the phase to In, so you cannot inherit an Out from an earlier session by accident.
Categories without that mode carry the phase none, and the row is hidden. On the confirmation screen and in the pilot history you will see none or - in the phase line for them.
The Ready to scan card#
The big button. Its subtitle is your last check before the camera opens:
| Subtitle | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Select a competition and category to begin scanning. | Nothing is selected yet. The button is disabled. |
| Choose a category for ... | The competition is set, the category is not. |
| Competition name, then the category label | Ready. This is what the next scan will be recorded as. |
While a scan is being prepared or submitted the button reads Working... and cannot be tapped again, so an impatient double tap can never produce two scans.
The Quick status card#
Four chips that tell you whether the phone is in a state where you can work.
Under the chips, Last queue sync gives the time of the last successful queue run, and a status line reports the last thing the cache did, for example Offline. Using cached pilots (137) from 2026-08-02 19:40.
Tip
The one number to watch at the end of a shift is Pending. Zero pending and zero failed means everything you scanned is on the server.
Recent activity#
The last five scans this phone made, newest first, in the form 09:41 · Take off · Anna Muller · Confirmed. The status word at the end is the useful part:
This list is local to the phone and to this app. It is a receipt for what you did, not the competition's record. The competition's record is the pilot's scan history on the server, which you can read in the Pilot list.