threadcount-community/docs/manual/apps/counter-app.md

title, section, order, summary, screen, role, keywords

title	section	order	summary	screen	role	keywords
The counter app	apps	1	The linen room's phone app, on Android and in a phone browser. Choosing a server, signing in, the screens, and what it keeps on the phone.	/m	Admin or Issuer	counter app, android, phone, mobile, play store, install, sign in, server, self-hosted, community, offline, camera, stocktake, count, issue

The counter app is the coordinator's side of ThreadCount on a phone. You sign in with the same Admin or Issuer account as the portal at /app and see the same records, served at /m.

Two ways to open it

• In a phone browser. Go to https://threadcount.tech/m, or https://your-host/m on your own server. You don't need to install anything.
• The Android app. It is called ThreadCount on Google Play. It shows the same /m screens inside the app and adds the phone's own barcode scanner (see Scanning and browsers).

There is no iOS app. On an iPhone or iPad, open /m in the browser.

The first screen and choosing a server

The first time you open the Android app, the welcome screen shows Sign in, Sign up and a line reading Server: threadcount.tech · Change.

Most rooms use the hosted service and leave that line alone. A room running the Community edition on its own server changes it, once, on each phone:

1. Tap Server: threadcount.tech · Change. The Which server? screen opens.
2. Choose Self-hosted and type the server's address, for example uniforms.example.com.
3. Tap Check and use this server. The app checks the server's /api/app-info to confirm it is a ThreadCount server.

The app refuses an address that doesn't answer over https within 8 seconds, or that answers but isn't a ThreadCount server. Once the check passes, the app saves the address on that phone and opens that server from then on. Choosing ThreadCount hosted puts the phone back on threadcount.tech.

Once you have tapped Sign in or Sign up on that phone, the app skips the welcome screen and goes straight to /m.

Signing in and signing up

Sign in asks for your work email and password. If your account has two-factor turned on, it then asks for the six-digit code from your authenticator app. A recovery code also works. Forgot password emails a reset link that works once and expires after an hour. See Two-factor.

Sign up creates a new facility. It doesn't add you to an existing one. The person who signs up becomes the new facility's first Admin. To add someone to an existing facility, an Admin adds them with Add user in Settings › People & sign-in in the portal: see Users.

The screens

The bar at the bottom has five tabs.

Tab	What it does
Today	What is waiting (requests to pick, a shelf due a count, deliveries, late pickups, sizes below par), your day's figures and recent activity. The gear opens Settings.
Work	Picks, In, Pickups and Rounds, each with its count
Scan	The camera. It reads a staff badge, a garment or a shelf label, or you type a code
Stock	Below par, On order and All, with a search box
People	Search the register; people served recently first

What Scan does with a code:

• A staff number opens that person's record.
• A garment's barcode opens that size's stock line.
• A shelf label (a TCL- code) starts a count of that shelf.
• A code nobody has says so; an Admin can bind it to a size from the catalogue.

A person's record

The record has three segments. Issue a garment and Exchanges and returns say what each writes.

• Issue. Their sizes as cards, a meter each for tops and pants against the ceiling, and the lines being issued. Review and sign opens the signature.
• Hand back. Scan or tap what they hand back, pick its condition, and swap a size in the same record.
• History. Issues and hand-backs by day, and their staff app sign-in. An Admin generates a staff app code here.

Where the other screens are

Screen	Where
Receive a delivery	Work › In
Pickup call list	Work › Pickups
Delivery round, with a signature	Work › Rounds
Pick and hand over a staff request	Work › Picks
Count a shelf	Scan its label, Today, or Stock › Count a shelf
Reprint a label	A stock line's Print a label
Draft order	Stock › Draft order, or a stock line's Add to the draft order
Variance over time	Stock › Variance over time
Catalogue, product card and new garment	Stock › Catalogue; an Admin edits there

Settings holds only what the phone controls:

• Beep and buzz on scan, which applies to this device only
• Shelf printer: Ready, Update the app or Browser
• Server, the address the phone is using
• Count gap needing a reason. An Admin can change it; an Issuer can only see it.
• Help, then Delete your account, Privacy policy and Terms of use
• Sign out

Orders, Reports and the facility's settings are in the portal at /app. On a phone, the portal's More sheet has a Counter app link that opens /m.

Printing from the phone

A stock line's Print a label and the Label button on Count a shelf print through Android's print dialog, which lists every print service installed on the phone: the printer maker's Bluetooth service, a network printer, or Save as PDF. Printing needs version 1.5 of the Android app or later; an older version shows Update the app. In a phone browser the label opens in a new tab to print.

What it keeps on the phone

The app keeps only these on the phone:

• your session
• any shelf count you have started but not filed. It is kept under your own account, so the next person on a shared phone never sees it. Filing the count deletes it, and signing out deletes all your open counts.
• the lines you are issuing or taking back but haven't recorded. Signing out deletes them.
• the beep setting, the chosen server, and whether the welcome screen has been seen

Issues, returns, stock, the staff register and every other record stay on the server.

Permissions and connection

The Android app asks for one permission, the camera, and uses it only to read barcodes. No picture from scanning is stored or sent.

The app works online only. With no connection it shows No connection. and a Try again button, and it won't let you issue or count anything. Nothing is queued to send later. A count you hadn't filed stays on the phone until you're back online.

Careful Signing out deletes any shelf count you haven't filed. File it first, or you'll have to count that shelf again.