Reading NFC tags from Zoho Creator mobile apps

Zoho Creator’s mobile apps support reading Near Field Communication (NFC) tags to input data in fields.

About NFC

NFC is a short-range wireless technology that enables communication between two electronic devices when they are touched together, or brought within a few centimeters of one other. As most mobile devices today support NFC, reading NFC tags and stickers is increasingly replacing manual data-entry. This is a step beyond reading barcodes and QR codes, as an NFC tag or sticker supports storing multiple data points.

Prerequisites

• The target NFC tags and stickers must contain data as per the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF)
• The end user's Android device must contain NFC hardware. They can check this availability by searching for "NFC" in their device's  Settings .

Supported field types

NFC tags can be read to input data in the following field types:  single line ,  multi line ,  email ,  URL ,  number ,  percent ,  currency , and  decimal .

Enabling a form to support reading an NFC tag

Since NDEF allows the tag to contain one or more records (data points), you'll need to pair the NDEF records with the fields in your form. In other words, you'll have to map the data stored in the NFC tag with your fields. You can achieve this by adding a querystring.

To enable reading an NFC tag, your form's URL must contain the following querystring:

where,

• 0, 1, and n represent the first, second, and nth NDEF records (data points) in the tag
• fieldLinkName1, fieldLinkName2, and fieldLinkNameN are link names of fields in which you want to input data by reading the NFC tag

Example

Below is an asset management scenario that includes reading an NFC tag. Instead of entering asset details manually, the end user simply reads an NFC tag using their Android device:

To achieve the above:

1. Create a form named  Issue Reporting Form :
   

   Field name	Field link name	Field type
   Asset ID	AssetID	Single line
   Serial Number	SNumber	Single line
   Issue	Issue	Multi line

2. Create a page that contains a panel:
   
   • Its  Display  is configured to show the text "Report Issue"
   • Its  Action  is configured to open the  Issue Reporting Form  with the NFC-enabling querystring, which maps the two NDEF records in the tag to the  AssetID  and  SNumber  fields:

   

Alternate configurations

A few other ways in which you can enable your users to access such NFC-capable forms:

• Define a workflow that contains the  openUrl  Deluge task that points to the required form
• Add an HTML snippet to a page and embed the required form using <div>

Note

• Reading an NFC tag is not supported when users access the form or page from mobile browsers.
• When users access your NFC-enabled forms and NFC is turned off in their Android device, they'll be prompted:
  

  
  Here, "Asset Details" is the name of the NFC-enabled form

• When users access your NFC-enabled forms from an Android device that does not have the NFC hardware, they'll be prompted and allowed to enter data manually: