Scanning pilots

5Scanning a pilot

The complete scan flow, what every field on the confirmation screen means, what happens when you tap Confirm, and how the Register category differs from all the others.

Mixed, see chapter

The flow, end to end#

One scan is always the same four screens, and you can get through them in a couple of seconds once you know them.

  1. Tap Scan QR. The camera opens on the Scan Pilot QR screen.
  2. Point it at the pilot's QR code. It reads by itself, there is no shutter button. The camera icon in the top right switches between the back and the front camera.
  3. Preparing Scan appears while the app looks the pilot up. This is where it talks to the server, or falls back to the phone's cache.
  4. Confirm Scan shows you who you are about to record. Check the face and the name, then tap Confirm or Cancel.
  5. A message at the bottom tells you what happened, and Next pilot offers to reopen the camera straight away.
Fig. 5.1The Scan Pilot QR screen, held over a pilot's phone. There is no shutter button: hold it steady and it reads. The icon top right switches cameras.

Tip

Next in the Next pilot dialog keeps the camera loop going without returning to the tab, which is what you want with a queue of pilots in front of you. Close takes you back.

If the pilot list has never been loaded for this competition, the app fetches it before opening the camera, so the first scan of the day can take a moment longer than the rest.

The confirmation screen#

This screen exists so that nothing is recorded against the wrong person. It is the only place where a mistake is still free.

Photo and name
The pilot's registration photo, cached on the phone so it also appears offline. Compare it with the person in front of you, not with the name on the QR code.
Pilot Comp ID
The competition ID, the number on the glider and on the scoreboard. The fastest thing to read aloud when checking someone in.
Country and status
Two badges. The status is the registration status from the server, for example Confirmed or Pending, and it is highlighted when it reads confirmed.
Glider and Harness
The equipment on record, when the registration has it. Useful at equipment checks.

The card below repeats what the scan will be recorded as: Competition, Category, Phase and Source.

Online preview
The server was asked about this pilot just now. Everything on screen is current, including their scan history.
Offline cache
The server could not be reached, so the pilot was resolved from the list cached on the phone. The identity is trustworthy, the history is not shown, and the scan will be queued.

Caution

Cancel discards the scan completely. Nothing is recorded and nothing is queued. Use it whenever the photo does not match.

The scan history on the confirmation screen#

On an online preview of any category except Register, the screen also lists what has already been recorded for this pilot, newest first. Each row gives the category, the phase where the category has one, and underneath the time, who scanned it and the status.

The summary line reads like Total 6 confirmed scans. Limit 50. and, when there are more than fit, More scans are available on the server.

This is your duplicate check. If the category you are about to scan is already in that list, the pilot has been through this gate before, and you can decide whether that is expected before you tap Confirm.

Note

Scanning the same category twice is not dangerous. The server recognizes it and answers ... already confirmed for ..., which the app treats as a success rather than an error. Nothing is duplicated.

The Register category#

Register is the category you scan at registration, when the pilot arrives at the event. It behaves differently from every other category in three ways.

  • It always needs internet. There is no offline fallback, because the registration record is too important to be guessed from a cache. Offline you get Register requires internet to load full details.
  • It shows the whole registration record, not a scan history. See below.
  • It gates the other categories offline. Until this phone has seen a confirmed Register scan for a pilot, it refuses to queue any other category for them offline.

Instead of the history card, a Register scan shows Register Details, grouped into sections that follow the registration form on the website:

Identity
Name, email, country, status, comp ID, registration and user IDs, glider and harness.
Registration
The registration record itself, as the website holds it.
Custom Signup
Answers to the competition's own sign up questions, resolved to their labels where the website provides them.
Required Documents
What this competition demands, whether documents are enforced before a given point, and the state of each one.
Documents
Every uploaded document with its type, file name and verification status.
Additional Details
Anything else the server sent that does not fit the sections above.

At the bottom, Raw payload JSON can be expanded to see exactly what the server returned. It is there for support cases: if something looks wrong, that text is what the developers need.

Note

If the pilot's Register is already confirmed, the app tells you Register already confirmed for this pilot. and records nothing new. That is a normal answer, not a failure.

What Confirm actually does#

Tapping Confirm gives the scan a unique ID and sends it. Which of four things happens next depends on the connection and on the server's answer.

Message What it means
Take off confirmed for Anna Muller. Recorded on the server. Done.
Take off already confirmed for Anna Muller. The server already had it. Nothing was duplicated, and this counts as success.
Take off queued for Anna Muller. No connection. Stored on the phone and it will upload itself. See Offline scanning and the queue.
Scan submission failed. The server refused it. The scan was not recorded, and it was not queued either. Read the error banner on the tab for the reason.

The unique ID is what makes a retry safe. If the connection drops exactly while a scan is being sent, the same ID is used again later, and the server recognizes the second attempt as the same scan rather than a new one.

Caution

There is no undo. A scan recorded on the wrong pilot or the wrong category can only be removed by the organizer on the website. Note down the pilot and the time and tell them, rather than trying to fix it by scanning again.

QR codes that do not work#

The scanner reads QR codes only, and it expects a SkyTrackPro pilot token. Two failures are common.

Could not read a valid SkyTrack token from this QR code.
It is a QR code, but not a pilot token. Usually a wifi code, a boarding pass, a ticket, or the code of another system entirely.
Pilot not found in local cache. Refresh cache when online and try again.
A valid token, but nobody with it is in the list on this phone. Almost always a pilot who registered after your last sync. Get a connection and use Refresh pilot cache.

Tip

A pilot's token also works from a screenshot or a printout, so a flat phone battery does not stop registration. The pilot app can show the code, and so can the pilot's profile on the website.