Serial numbers are the worst part of a certificate. They are long, they are printed small, they are usually behind the unit, and getting one digit wrong makes the paperwork wrong. So anywhere a certificate asks for a make, model and serial, there is a Scan button above the fields.
Tap it, photograph the plate, and Mucka fills in what it can read.
Already got a photo of it? Tap Choose from photos under the Scan button and pick it from your camera roll instead. It reads exactly the same way.
What it reads
| Plate | What comes back | |---|---| | Gas appliance badge | Make, model, serial, GC number, appliance type | | Air con unit rating plate | Make, model, serial, unit type, nominal cooling and heating in kW | | Air con outdoor unit plate (on the refrigerant circuit) | The refrigerant and the factory charge in kg | | Oil boiler plate | Make, model, serial, appliance type | | Oil burner plate | Burner make, model, type and the burner's own serial number | | Unvented cylinder badge | Make, model, serial, capacity | | Oil tank label | Make, tank type, serial, capacity, OFCERT licence number |
On an oil appliance there are two scan buttons on the card: one above the boiler details and one above the burner details. That is because the burner bolted into the boiler carries its own plate, usually on the other side of it, and you are stood in front of one or the other.
Either button reads either plate. Mucka works out whether it is looking at the boiler or the burner and fills in that half of the card, so a Riello burner never ends up recorded as the make of the boiler — and if you tap the nearer button and photograph the other plate, the details still go in the right fields.
That includes the serial. Both plates carry one and they are different numbers, so a serial read off the burner goes in the burner's box and a serial read off the boiler goes in the boiler's. You never end up ordering a part against the wrong one.
Serial numbers off the barcode
Plenty of plates print the serial twice: once in small type, and once as a barcode. When Mucka can read the barcode, that is where the serial comes from, because a barcode either reads exactly or not at all. It cannot come back one character out.
This matters most on Vaillant and Glow-worm. Their serial is 28 characters and often has a run of <<<< and a run of zeros in the middle, printed small, which is the easiest thing on any plate to misread by one character. Get the barcode in the photo and the serial is copied straight off it.
If the barcode is not in the photo, or will not read, Mucka reads the printed serial instead and puts a line under the box: Read from the photo. Check it against the plate, character by character. The line goes as soon as you edit the serial.
Ideal and Worcester print their serial without the word "Serial" next to it: on an Ideal it is the long number on the row under the model name, and on a Worcester yellow label it is the top line. Mucka knows where to look on both.
The photo goes onto the job too
You do not have to take it twice.
When a scan reads cleanly, the same photograph is filed to the job the certificate came from, so it turns up in that job's photos alongside anything else your engineer added. The plate, the burner badge, the analyser screen — they end up on the record without a second trip round the back of the boiler. The form tells you when it has landed: Photo saved to the job.
Two things worth knowing.
If the plate could not be read, the photo is not filed. That one is about to be retaken, and three blurry attempts on the job helps nobody. Retake it and the good one goes on.
And if the certificate was not started from a job — you opened a blank one from the Certificates page — there is no job to file it to, so nothing happens. Start the certificate from the job and you get it.
What it will not do
It never guesses. If a line is scuffed, faded or out of focus, that field comes back empty rather than filled with something that looks about right. A serial number that is nearly correct is worse than a blank one, because nobody goes back to check it.
It never fills in a reading you are supposed to take. An air con plate prints the supply voltage and the fuse rating; a cylinder badge prints its design pressures. Mucka deliberately ignores all of them. Those fields are what you measured on site, and a certificate that quietly reports the manufacturer's figure as your measurement is not a record of anything.
It never overwrites the whole card. Anything you have already typed stays put unless the plate genuinely carries that field.
Everything it fills in is editable. Check it against the plate before you approve — the certificate is your signature, not Mucka's.
It needs signal
This is the one part of a certificate that does not work offline. Reading a photograph happens at Mucka's end, so in a cellar or a plant room the button says Needs signal — type it in by hand. Everything else on the certificate carries on working with no bars at all.
You do not have to type it, though. With no signal:
- Photograph the plate with your phone's own camera while you are stood in front of it.
- Carry on with the certificate.
- Once you are back in signal — at the van, or at the top of the cellar stairs — tap Choose from photos and pick that photo.
The Scan analyser button on the combustion readings works the same way. Photograph the analyser's ratio screen while you are stood at the boiler, and tap Choose from photos under the high or low rate once you have signal.
Do step 3 before you sign the certificate, while you can still check what it filled in against the plate.
Mucka does not save the scan up and send it by itself when signal comes back, on purpose. A scan that landed twenty minutes after you signed the certificate would change a record you had already approved. Choosing the photo yourself means it only fills the form while you are looking at it.