How QR Codes Work

This guide explains how it all fits together. For one job at a time, the short articles in this topic have the exact steps.

QR Codes

Make QR codes for posters, menus, desks and staff cards in the Console, with no ads or watermark, and choose plain or tracked codes.

Console → QR codes makes QR codes for anything your organisation prints or shows: your reception's Wi-Fi, a menu, a feedback form, a staff contact card, a room sign or your website. There are no ads, no watermark and no Agoo pages in the way of the people who scan them, on any plan.

Plain and Tracked Codes

Every code is one of two kinds. You choose when you make it.

Choose plain for things that never change, such as Wi-Fi details or a fixed web address. Choose tracked when you might need to change where the code goes after it's printed, or want to know how often it's scanned. The switch is called Track scans and change it later.

What a Code Can Do

Choose What should it do? when you make a code:

Wi-Fi details have to be in the code itself, because phones read them without going online. Staff cards, check-in, clock-in and drop-off posters, Guest Wi-Fi posters, request posters, booking page codes, feedback, review and form posters, app downloads and PDFs keep their content in Agoo, so they're always tracked. A staff card stops showing someone's details when they leave. Staff cards, check-in, clock-in and Guest Wi-Fi posters and directions to a site can also be made from the person's or site's own page, and drop-off posters from the deliveries settings: see Codes for people and places.

Phone numbers written the Ghanaian way, such as 024 123 4567, get the country code added for you.

Wi-Fi codes

A plain Wi-Fi code joins a network when a phone's camera scans it. Choose its security: WPA or WPA2, WPA3 (written so every phone camera reads it), WEP for old networks, or No password. The password field has an eye, so you can check what you typed.

If your organisation has saved its guest Wi-Fi in Settings → Wi-Fi, choose From a saved network and Agoo puts the network's name and password in for you. Putting a saved password into a printed code is recorded in the audit trail, like revealing it. Only guest networks can be used: staff passwords never go on printed codes. If that network's password changes later, the code's page says when it changed and asks you to reprint the code, because a plain code can't change after it's printed. For a code that never goes out of date, print a Guest Wi-Fi poster instead.

Make a Code

1. 1

   Open QR codes → New QR code

   You see QR codes in the Console if your organisation lets you make codes. Owners and Admins always can. See Who makes codes.

2. 2

   Choose what it does and fill in the details

   For example, Wi-Fi with your reception's network name and password, or Website with your feedback form's address.

3. 3

   Choose plain or tracked

   Turn on Track scans and change it later for a tracked code. Some kinds are always one or the other.

4. 4

   Design it

   Choose its style, colours, logo and frame, or start from one of your organisation's brand templates. The preview is tested to scan as you change it, and a design that doesn't scan can't be saved.

5. 5

   Name it and save

   Give it a name you'll recognise, and tags such as "Reception" or "Posters" to group codes. Choose Save code, then Download it as an image or print file.

A tracked code gets its own short link when you save it; until then the preview shows a sample. If your organisation asks for approval, a tracked code waits until an Owner or Admin approves it, and scanning it says it isn't live yet.

Find and Manage Your Codes

QR codes lists your codes with their status and scans. Filter by Mine, Tracked, Plain, Waiting or Archived, search by name, link or code, or choose a tag. At the top you see how many tracked codes your organisation is using from its allowance and its scans over the last 30 days.

On a code's page, More lets you:

• Pause a tracked code, and resume it later. Scanning a paused code says so.
• Archive a tracked code. Printed copies then say the code has ended, and its place in your allowance is freed. You can restore it later, if there's room.
• Delete a plain code. Printed copies keep working, because a plain code holds its content. Tracked codes are archived instead, never deleted, because they may be printed somewhere.

You can change any code's name, tags and design. You can change a tracked code's content, such as where it goes, at any time. A plain code's content can't change: make a new code instead.

What Each Plan Includes

Scan history follows your plan's visitor history: 3 months on Free, 12 months on Starter, 24 months on Growth, up to 5 years on Pro, and as agreed on Enterprise. Older scans are kept, hidden, and come back when you move to a plan with a longer history.

On Pro and Enterprise, new tracked codes can have a short link on your own domain, such as go.voltabank.example/AbC1234. QR codes in the API, with webhooks for scans, are planned for Pro and Enterprise.

Add-ons

On any plan, Free included, a month each, excluding VAT:

The Owner adds them in Console → Settings → Billing: you pay for the rest of the current period, then they renew with your plan (on an annual plan, for the year at 10 months' price), and ending one takes effect at the period's end. Ending a pack never stops a code you've made.

Your Tracked Codes Never Stop Working

A tracked code you've made keeps working, whatever happens to your plan:

• After a move to a lower plan, including Free, or after you cancel.
• When you have more tracked codes than your plan includes, for example 40 codes after a move from Starter to Free.
• When a QR pack or Advanced QR ends.
• When your own short-link domain is no longer on your plan. Codes made with it keep working on it until you remove it. See Your own short-link domain.

What changes is only that you can't make new tracked codes until you're within your allowance again: archive codes you no longer use, add a QR pack or move up a plan. Plain codes are never limited. Features above your new plan, such as a schedule or a password, keep doing what they did, and you can't change them until you move back up.

• Design and downloads: Styles, logos, frames, print files, templates and spreadsheets.
• Tracked codes: Controls, rules, scans and what's recorded.
• Who makes codes: Let other people make codes, with allowances and approval.

Tracked Codes

Change where a tracked QR code goes, schedule it, limit or protect it, send devices and countries to different places, and see its scans.

A tracked code holds a short link, such as https://agoo.click/7KQ2XP4 (or https://go.voltabank.example/7KQ2XP4 with your own short-link domain on Pro and Enterprise), instead of its content. When someone scans it, Agoo decides where to send them. That's what lets you change it after it's printed and count its scans.

What Scanning Does

Codes that send people somewhere, such as a website, WhatsApp, a phone call or a PDF, go straight there. Contact cards, events and text open a small page with your organisation's name, where people save the contact or add the event to their calendar.

If a code can't open, people see why, never an error:

To change where a code goes, open it and choose Change. Every printed copy follows straight away.

Controls

On Growth and above, or with the Advanced QR add-on, a tracked code's page has Controls. Changes apply to every printed copy straight away.

• When it works: a From and an Until date and time, for an event's poster or a limited offer. Before and after, scanning says the code isn't live yet, or has ended.
• Scan limit: after this many scans, it says it has reached its limit. Useful for a one-off voucher.
• When a code reaches its Until date or its scan limit, its owner is emailed once (the Owners and Admins, for a code whose maker has left), so a code still on a wall doesn't quietly stop working. Changing the date or the limit starts the watch again.
• Password: people enter it before the code opens, 4 to 64 characters. Only for codes that send people somewhere. Agoo keeps only a scrambled form of the password, so nobody can read it back: if you forget it, set a new one.
• Campaign tags: added to the link as utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term and utm_content, so your website's analytics shows which poster or flyer brought people.

Rules (Pro)

On Pro and Enterprise, Rules send people somewhere else by device or country: iPhone and iPad, Android, any phone, any tablet, or computers, and a two-letter country code such as GH. The first rule that matches wins; anyone else goes to the code's own destination. A code can have up to 20 rules. For example, send iPhones to your App Store page and everyone outside Ghana to your international site.

Scans

A tracked code's page shows its scans for the Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days or Last 12 months:

• Scans: scans of the live code, with the total since it was made.
• Different scanners: each scanner is counted once a day, without keeping who they are (below).
• Not let through: scans while it was paused, not live, ended, over its limit or waiting for a password.
• Scans each day, When people scan (by weekday and hour, on your organisation's clock), Countries, Cities, Devices, and Systems and browsers.

QR codes shows each tracked code's total scans, and your organisation's scans over the last 30 days.

Scans of all your tracked codes also appear in Reports for the same period, with the codes scanned most, and in scheduled report emails for people who can see every code. Home shows today's scans.

Export a code's scans as CSV or Excel, one row a scan: when, the country, region and city, the device, system, browser and language, whether it was a new scanner that day, and what happened. Each export is recorded in the audit trail.

How far back you can see

What you see follows your plan's visitor history: 3 months on Free, 12 months on Starter, 24 months on Growth, up to 5 years on Pro, and as agreed on Enterprise. Older scans are kept, hidden, and come back when you move to a plan with a longer history.

Scans are kept for 2 years by default, then deleted automatically. Change this with QR code scans in Console → Settings → Data & privacy, within your plan's maximum. See Retention and deletion.

What's Recorded About People Who Scan

People who scan your codes never chose to use Agoo, so a scan records as little as it can:

• No IP address, ever. The network that serves the short link uses the connection only while it answers the scan.
• Location is the country, region and city worked out from the network, never GPS. It's often only the nearest big town, and sometimes unknown.
• Device, system, browser and language come from what the phone's browser says about itself.
• A daily scanner code: a one-way code made from the connection, the browser and the date, so the same person scanning twice in a day counts once. It changes every day, so nobody can follow a person from one day to the next, and it doesn't identify anyone. It isn't in exports.
• Passwords are kept only in a scrambled form.

Plain codes record nothing: scanning one never reaches Agoo.

Your organisation is the controller of scan data and Agoo processes it for you, as for visitor data. Mention QR scans in your privacy notice if you use tracked codes. See Data protection.

• QR codes: Plain and tracked codes, and what each plan includes.
• Who makes codes: Let other people make codes, with allowances and approval.
• Retention and deletion: How long scans and other data are kept.

Codes for People and Places

Staff cards from People, check-in posters for each entrance and gate, Guest Wi-Fi posters, directions to a site, and attendance badges, made from the record they're about.

Some codes belong to a person or a place. Make them from that person's or site's page, and Agoo fills in the details and keeps the code with the record, so you can always find it again.

Each person's and site's page has a QR codes panel listing the codes about it, with their status and scans. Everyone can find their own staff card under Account → Profile, and make one there if your organisation lets them make codes.

Staff Cards

A staff card is a tracked code that always shows the person's current details from People: their name (the one they go by), job title, department, email and phone. Change their details in People and the card changes at the next scan; nobody needs a new card. When someone leaves and is deactivated, their card stops showing their details.

Check-In Posters

A check-in poster goes at a site's entrance or one of its gates. What scanning it does depends on the site:

• Self check-in on: the poster opens self check-in on the visitor's own phone. They choose why they're visiting, give their name and phone, find their host by name and answer your questions, and their host is told. See Self check-in from posters.
• Self check-in off (the default), or the poster's code paused: a page welcomes the visitor to that site or gate, adds a line you write (for example where reception is), and asks them to see reception.

Turn it on or off in Settings → Sites → the site → Check-in rules → Self check-in from posters. The same printed poster works either way, so you never need to reprint.

1. 1

   Open the site

   Settings → Sites, then the site.

2. 2

   Choose Check-in poster

   The studio opens with the site chosen. To make one for a gate, choose the gate under Where it goes.

3. 3

   Add a line for visitors and design it

   Optional: "Reception is on the ground floor, to your left." Then choose its design and frame, such as Scan to check in, and save.

If you remove a gate or a site, its check-in posters end: anyone who scans one is told it has ended, rather than being sent to a door that's gone.

Request Posters

A request poster lets people who aren't expected ask to visit: a supplier at your gate, or a job applicant who saw your notice. Scanning it opens your request page, where they confirm their phone or email with a code, say why they're coming and who they'd like to see, and the host approves before any pass is sent. Make one for a site, or for your whole organisation, from Starter.

While the site doesn't take requests (or none of your sites do), the poster opens a page that says so politely, with your line for visitors, and asks them to contact you directly. Turn Take visit requests on in the site's check-in rules and the same poster opens the request page: nothing to reprint.

Guest Wi-Fi Posters

A Guest Wi-Fi poster goes at reception or in a waiting area, so visitors don't have to ask for the Wi-Fi. It's always about one site: make it from the site's page (Print a Guest Wi-Fi poster in its Wi-Fi panel, or Guest Wi-Fi poster in its QR codes panel), from Settings → Wi-Fi, or from QR codes → New QR code. If the site has more than one guest network, choose which one it shows.

• Who sees the Wi-Fi: Visitors who are checked in, who confirm who they are with the phone number or email they gave, or Anyone who scans it.
• A line for visitors, optional, such as "Ask reception if you need help."

Its page always shows the network's current name and password, with your Wi-Fi terms to accept, so changing the password never needs a reprint. If Guest Wi-Fi is turned off, the poster asks people to see reception. If you remove the site, its Guest Wi-Fi posters end, as its check-in posters do. It counts as one of your plan's tracked codes, on every plan. See Guest and staff Wi-Fi.

Drop-Off Posters

A drop-off poster goes where couriers arrive: a side door, the gate or the mail room. It's always about one site. Make it from Deliveries → Settings (Make a drop-off poster, once Couriers log parcels from a drop-off poster is on and saved) or from QR codes → New QR code → Drop-off poster, choosing the site.

While the drop-off page is on, scanning it opens a page on your organisation's own address where the courier says who the parcel is for, photographs the label, says what it is and gives their name, and the recipient is told with their collection code. While it's off, the same poster asks the courier to hand the parcel to reception, with a line you write if you like, so you never reprint it. If you remove the site, its drop-off posters end. It counts as one of your plan's tracked codes, on every plan. See Deliveries.

Directions

Directions makes a location code from the site's map pin (set it under Location on the site's page). It can be plain, so it works for ever without Agoo, or tracked, so you can see how often it's scanned.

Attendance Badges

People who clock in can have a QR badge to show the kiosk. Open People, the person, then Clock-in → Issue a badge. The badge is shown once: print it or save it straight away. Agoo keeps only a fingerprint of it, so it can't be shown again; if it's lost, Revoke it and issue another. Kiosks stop accepting a revoked badge at their next sync.

Badges are plain codes in Agoo's Signature style and are never counted against your tracked codes. They need the person to be on attendance.

Your Brand On Codes

In the studio, Logo → Use our logo puts your logo from Branding on the code, from the Starter plan. Colours → Your brand colour uses your brand colour for the code and its corners, from Growth.

Design and Downloads

Style your QR codes, test that they scan, download them for screens and print, save brand templates and make many codes from a spreadsheet.

The QR studio shows a live preview as you design a code. Options your plan doesn't include show which plan does; nothing is hidden behind a watermark.

Design a Code

The studio has five tabs.

A new code starts in Agoo's own style: rounded modules and corners with doorway-shaped centres, in dark ink on white.

The studio saves your work in progress to your account every few seconds while you're online, so you can pick it up on another computer, and keeps it on this one through a power cut or a dropped connection (see Unsaved work and drafts).

Some tips that keep codes easy to scan:

• Keep the code darker than its background. Many phones can't read a light code on a dark background.
• Keep the quiet zone at 4 modules or more.
• Smaller logos scan more reliably. A logo covers part of the code, so a code with a logo always uses High error correction to make up for it.
• Higher error correction survives more damage, such as scratches on an outdoor sign, but makes a denser code.

The Scan Test

As you change the design, the studio draws the code small, the way a phone sees a poster across a room, and reads it back with the same reader most Android phones use. It also checks the contrast between the code and its background.

Always scan a printed copy with a phone or two before you print hundreds.

Download

Choose Download on a code, or in the studio once it's saved.

Every format is the same drawing, so a code looks the same on a screen, a sticker and a banner. For print, PDF and EPS stay sharp at any size; for a large banner, scale the PDF rather than a PNG.

Brand Templates

On Growth and above, or with the Advanced QR add-on, Owners and Admins save designs as brand templates in QR codes → Templates: your colours, logo, frame and call to action, once, so every code your team makes looks like yours.

• Anyone making a code can start from a template with Brand template in the studio.
• In QR codes → Settings, you can ask that every code uses one. Then everyone except Owners and Admins chooses one of your templates. See Who makes codes.
• Changing a template doesn't change codes already made from it.

Many Codes at Once

On Growth and above, or with the Advanced QR add-on, QR codes → Many at once makes up to 500 codes from a spreadsheet, all in one design: room signs, staff cards, asset tags or event badges.

1. 1

   Choose what each code does

   Website, Contact card, WhatsApp, Phone call, SMS, Email, Text or Location.

2. 2

   Choose the design and whether they're tracked

   A brand template, or Agoo's standard design. Turn on Tracked codes to make tracked codes; each uses one of your organisation's tracked codes, and the page shows how many are left. Plain codes are unlimited.

3. 3

   Fill in the spreadsheet

   Choose Download a sample file, fill in one row a code in a spreadsheet, and save it as CSV (up to 2 MB). The first row names the columns, starting with name.

4. 4

   Upload and check

   Choose Choose a CSV file. Each row is checked, and problems are shown by row before anything is made.

5. 5

   Make them and download

   Choose Make to create them. Download them all at once as a ZIP of PNG, SVG or PDF files named by their row, or find them in QR codes.

• QR codes: Plain and tracked codes, and what each plan includes.
• Tracked codes: Controls, rules, scans and what's recorded.
• Branding: Your organisation's logo and colours across Agoo.

Your Own Short-Link Domain

On Pro and Enterprise, give new tracked QR codes a short link on your own domain, such as go.voltabank.example/AbC1234, with one DNS record.

A tracked QR code holds a short link, such as https://agoo.click/AbC1234. On Pro and Enterprise you can give new tracked codes a short link on your own domain instead, such as https://go.voltabank.example/AbC1234. People who look at the link under a poster's code, or see it in their phone's camera before they open it, see your name.

Everything else about a tracked code stays the same: you can change where it goes, its controls and rules still apply, and its scans are counted as before.

This is separate from the domain for your visitor and booking pages, which comes with every paid plan. Use a different subdomain for each.

Set It Up

Owners and Admins set it up. You need access to your domain's DNS settings, or someone who has it.

1. 1

   Choose a short subdomain

   Shorter links make smaller, easier-to-scan codes, so keep it short: go.voltabank.example or qr.voltabank.example. The domain on its own, such as voltabank.example, can't be used, and nor can Agoo's own addresses.

2. 2

   Add it in Settings → Domains

   Go to Console → Settings → Domains. Under short links for tracked QR codes, enter the address and add it. Its status is Pending.

3. 3

   Add one DNS record

   At your DNS provider, add a CNAME record with the name go (the part before your own domain) and the target domains.agoo.click. If the Console also shows TXT records, add each of them too, exactly as shown.

4. 4

   Wait for Active

   Agoo checks the record automatically, or straight away when you select Check now, then issues the security certificate and renews it automatically. When the status is Active, Owners and Admins are emailed, and every tracked code made from then on gets a short link on your domain.

If the check fails, the Console says why. Fix the record and select Check now. See Use your own domain for common causes.

Which Codes Use It

Each code keeps the address it was made with, so adding your domain never changes a code you've already printed. Nobody chooses the domain per code: every new tracked code in your organisation uses it.

Your Tracked Codes Never Stop Working

As with every tracked code, what happens to your plan never stops a code you've made:

• If you move to a plan without it, such as Growth, codes already made with your domain keep working on it. New codes use agoo.click. Move back up and new codes use your domain again.
• Your domain keeps serving its codes until you remove it in Console → Settings → Domains. Keep its DNS record in place for as long as those codes are printed anywhere.
• Even after you remove it, each code still opens at agoo.click with the same code, such as agoo.click/AbC1234, so no code is lost.

• Tracked codes: Controls, rules, scans and what's recorded.
• Use your own domain: Your visitor and booking pages on your address.
• QR codes: Plain and tracked codes, and what each plan includes.

Who Makes Codes

Choose who in your organisation can make QR codes, give them allowances, approve tracked codes before they go live and ask for brand templates.

Owners and Admins always make and manage every QR code. In Console → QR codes → Settings, they decide who else can, and how.

Who Makes Codes

Choose one:

Everyone shares your organisation's tracked codes. Plain codes are unlimited for everyone.

How Codes Are Made

On Growth and above, or with the Advanced QR add-on, three more settings apply to everyone except Owners and Admins:

• Tracked codes each person may have: an allowance from your organisation's tracked codes, so one team can't use them all. Leave it empty for no limit of their own. Archiving a code gives its place back.
• An admin approves tracked codes first: new tracked codes wait in QR codes → Waiting until an Owner or Admin approves them. Plain codes don't wait.
• Codes use a brand template: everyone chooses one of your brand templates, so every code looks like yours. Save a template first; while this is on, you can't delete your last one.

Approve Codes

When codes are waiting, Owners and Admins see how many next to QR codes in the menu.

1. 1

   Open QR codes → Waiting

   Open the code to check where it goes and how it looks.

2. 2

   Approve or turn it down

   Approve puts it live at once. Turn down stops it; add a Note to tell its maker why. Until it's approved, scanning it says it isn't live yet; once turned down, it says it has ended.

When approval is on, a code restored from Archived by anyone other than an Owner or Admin waits for approval again.

Everyone who can approve codes is emailed when one is waiting, with a link to it, and the person who made it is emailed the decision, with your note.

Who Sees What

If your organisation stops letting someone make codes, their codes keep working, and Owners and Admins manage them.

When Someone Leaves

When you deactivate someone in Console → People, their codes become the organisation's. They keep working, and show The organisation as their owner. Owners and Admins can change, pause or archive them. A Staff card for that person stops showing their details.

After a Move to a Lower Plan

Settings above your new plan stop applying, and nothing stops working:

• Chosen people and Everyone who signs in stop applying, so only Owners and Admins can make new codes until you choose roles instead.
• Allowances, approval and required templates no longer apply to new codes.
• Every code already made keeps working, tracked or plain. See Your tracked codes never stop working.

Every change to these settings, and every approval, is recorded in the audit trail.

• QR codes: Plain and tracked codes, and what each plan includes.
• Roles and permissions: What each role can do.
• Invite your team: Add people and give them roles.