Assets replaces Scan & Track as the way to track physical items you hand out to visitors and contractors. This article covers what changes when you move across, and how to bring your current setup over without redoing everything at once.
TL;DR: your QR tags and USB readers keep working. What changes is where the record lives and how much it can tell you.
What Scan & Track did
Scan & Track let you tag an item with a QR code and record it against a checked in visitor. When you scanned a tag, the code's ID dropped into the visitor's Notes field, and you kept a separate spreadsheet to remember which code belonged to which item.
It worked, but the record was only ever a line of text in a note, and the register lived outside Sine.
What's improved with Assets
Assets keeps the same scan-a-tag habit but stores everything as a proper record inside Sine. Instead of an ID buried in a note, each item has its own register entry with a type, a name, and a full history of who has held it.
Here is how the two features compare:
| Scan & Track | Assets |
Where the register lives | A spreadsheet you maintain yourself | On the Sine web dashboard under the Assets page |
What's stored | A asset QR code ID in the visitor's Notes | Asset type, nickname, unique identifier, and site scope |
Assignment history | None | Complete chain of custody: who held the item, when it was assigned and returned, and who assigned it |
Categorising assets | None | Asset types (keys, radios, access cards, safety equipment, IT equipment, and so on) |
Moving an asset to another guest | Edit the notes by hand | Transfer with a prompt that returns it from the first guest and assigns it to the next |
Lost or damaged assets | No record | Mark as lost with notes, and mark as returned if it turns up |
Reporting | None | Filtering, CSV export, summary reports, and daily summary emails. |
Access card provisioning | None | Smart assets provision and activate access cards through your access control provider |
Hardware | Sine QR tags and USB QR reader | Sine QR tags and USB QR reader |
Two changes are worth calling out:
History instead of a note: Every assignment is recorded, so you can open any item and see its whole run of custody without cross-referencing a spreadsheet. If something goes missing, the register already knows who had it last.
No new hardware: The QR tags, and the USB QR readers you already own work with as they did before.
Your existing tags and readers
You do not need to reorder anything. With a visitor or contractor's pass open on the dashboard, scanning one of your existing QR tags with the same USB reader assigns that item to the guest. It is the same tag and the same reader you used for Scan & Track, pointed at the new Assign asset flow instead of the Notes field.
To assign an item this way:
Open the checked in guest's pass on the dashboard
Click Assign asset
Scan the QR tag with your USB reader, or search for the item by name
Select the item to assign it
Note: For a scan to find the right item, the asset's Identifier needs to match the value stored on the QR tag.
Moving your assets across
There are two ways to bring items into the register, and you can mix them. There is no need to load everything before you start.
Option 1: create items as you go
The simplest way to migrate is to let the register fill itself. When you hand out a tagged item that is not in Sine yet, create it during check-in:
From a checked in pass, click Assign asset
Type the name you want to give the item, then select Create [your item name]
Fill in the asset details, set the Identifier to match the QR tag's value, and save
The item is created and assigned to the guest in one step. Over a few weeks of normal use, the items you actually circulate end up in the register without a dedicated data entry session.
Option 2: load your existing register up front
If you already keep a Scan & Track spreadsheet and want everything in Sine from day one, recreate each item from that register:
Go to the Assets page and click Add asset
Set the Asset type, an optional Nickname, and the Identifier. Use the QR tag's value as the Identifier so scanning matches the item
Click Add
Repeat for each tagged item. Once they are all in, you can retire the spreadsheet.
For the full walkthrough of the Assets, see Getting started with Assets.