Labels and codes

Rostoc gives every roast and every green coffee Lot a short code, and can print that code on a label with a QR code on it. Scan the label later and you land back on the record it came from.

Every Batch and Lot has a code

Codes are assigned for you. You do not type them in and you cannot run out of them.

Roast Batches are numbered RB-0001, RB-0002, and so on.
Green coffee Lots are numbered GL-0001, GL-0002, and so on.

The two sequences are independent, so RB-0001 and GL-0001 are different things and can both exist. Numbering runs across your whole roastery rather than per Machine or per coffee, so a second person roasting on another Machine continues the same sequence. It never restarts — not on a new year, not on a new Plan.

Note: Batches recorded before numbering arrived now carry their old number with the RB- prefix, unless a label was already printed for them; a Batch with a printed label keeps the code on its label. A printed label is never rewritten, so what is on a bag in your warehouse stays true.

Where you see the code

The code leads wherever a roast is named: the Batch column on the Batches screen, the title of the batch detail view, the Roast Batch column on the plan detail view, and the title above the Curve.

The Batches screen, listing roasts by their code

The Batch column sorts by number, so the newest roast is the highest code.

Green Lots show their code the same way, on the Lot row and at the top of the Lot itself.

Print a label for a Batch

There are four ways in:

On the Batches screen, open the … menu at the end of any row and choose Print label.
On a batch detail view, open the … menu at the right end of the page header and choose Print label.
Straight after a roast, the message confirming the roast was saved offers Print label.
After you scan a Batch’s label, the Scanned code window offers Print label, for replacing a damaged sticker.

Print labels for several Batches

To label a day’s roasts in one go, tick the checkbox of each Batch on the Batches screen or in a Plan’s table of Batches. In the bar at the bottom of the screen, open … and choose Print labels. It works from one Batch up.

You choose the stock once, and Copies per batch sets how many labels each Batch gets. The window adds it up before you print, for example “36 labels · 2 sheets”. Every label goes into one file, in the order you ticked the Batches, each with its own code. If Rostoc cannot get a code for one of them, nothing is printed and the window names that Batch. Your ticks stay in place afterwards, so you can compare the same roasts next.

Print a label for a Lot

On a Coffee Line, open the … menu at the end of any Lot row and choose Print label.
On a Lot, open the … menu at the right end of the page header and choose Print label.
When a delivery arrives, open its order, open the … menu at the right end of the page header and choose Print labels. Every Lot the order became prints in one go, except a Lot that is finished. Set Copies per lot to the number of sacks in each Lot.

Choose the stock and how many

Print label window in Rostoc

The window names the record it is about to print, so you can check the code before committing a sheet to it.

Pick what you are printing onto. The list is grouped by the printer that takes each stock, and names each one by its size and the product codes printed on the box:

Printer	Stocks
Zebra, Rollo and other 4-inch thermal printers	4 × 6 in shipping label, 4 × 3 in, 4 × 2 in, 3 × 2 in, 2¼ × 1¼ in (also Dymo 30334), 2 × 1 in
Dymo LabelWriter	89 × 36 mm (99012, 30321), 102 × 59 mm shipping (30256), 89 × 28 mm address (30252, 99010)
Brother QL	90 × 29 mm (DK-1201), 62 × 100 mm (DK-1202)
A4 sheets	Avery L7160 / J8160 (21 per sheet), L7163 / J8163 (14), L7165 / J8165 (8)
US Letter sheets	Avery 5160 / 8160 (30 per sheet), 5163 / 8163 (10), 5164 / 8164 (6)

Rostoc remembers the stock you last printed on, with your account, so you choose it once.

The label is laid out for the size you pick. On a large label the QR code and the text grow with it, and every detail fits. On an upright label, such as 4 × 6 in or 62 × 100 mm, the code sits below the text. On a small label the text keeps its size and the last details are left off.

Set your printer to the label size

Rostoc makes the label at its exact size. Your printer does not know that, and most printer drivers scale whatever they are sent to fit their own paper setting. A label printed at the wrong setting comes out stretched, shrunk or cut off, and a QR code printed at the wrong size may not scan.

In the print window:

Choose the same label size as the stock you picked in Rostoc. For a thermal printer, this is the paper or label size in the printer’s settings.
Print at 100% scale, or Actual size. Turn off Fit to page or Scale to fit.

For a sheet, choose A4 or Letter as the paper size, and still print at 100%. Each label then lands on its label on the sheet.

If your stock is not in the list, pick the one closest in size that is no larger than your label, and print at 100%.

Choose what prints

Under On the label, untick anything you do not want printed. A Batch label offers Coffee, Plan, Roast date, Batch weight and loss and Green lot. A Lot label offers Coffee, Supplier, Origin, Initial weight, Date recorded and Date arrived. Both offer the two lines at the bottom: QR code as text, the QR code’s own characters written out, and “Scan to open”, the line that reads Scan to open in Rostoc.

The Batch or Lot code and its QR code always print. They are what ties the bag back to the record, so they cannot be turned off.

When you print, Rostoc saves your choice to your account, separately for Batch and Lot labels, so it is the same on every computer you print from and in the web app. Each person in a roastery has their own, and so is the stock you last printed on.

Fewer details leave more room for the QR code. A label with no details under its code prints the QR code as large as the stock allows, which matters most on small stocks such as 2 × 1 in and 2¼ × 1¼ in, where a larger code is easier to scan.

If a detail you kept will not fit on the stock you picked, the window names it before you print. A detail too long for its line is left off rather than printed over the line below.

Copies prints the same label more than once, for when one roast fills several bags or one Lot arrives as several sacks.

Every copy carries the same code, because they are all the same Batch or the same Lot — and printing the label again later produces that same code too, so a smudged sticker can be replaced without the old one going anywhere different. Scan any bag from a roast and you land on that roast.

On the desktop app, Rostoc writes the label and opens it in whatever normally opens PDF files on your computer, where you print it. In the web app, the print window opens directly.

What is on the label

Unless you choose otherwise, a Batch label carries the code in large type, the green coffee it was roasted from with the percentages of a blend, the Plan, when it was roasted, the weight the whole batch came out at with its weight loss, and the green Lot’s code. The weight reads Batch: … so it is not taken for the weight of the bag.

A Lot label carries the code, the coffee, the supplier, the country of origin, the weight the Lot started at written as Initial weight, when the Lot was recorded, and when it arrived.

It deliberately does not print how much is left. A sticker cannot be updated, so a stock level would be wrong after the first roast draws from that sack — where the starting weight stays true for as long as the label is readable.

Anything the record does not have is left out rather than printed as a blank line, so a Lot with no supplier gets the remaining details moved up instead of a gap. The smallest stocks, such as 2 × 1 in or the Letter sheet’s 2⅝ × 1 in labels, have room for the code, the coffee and at most one detail line. Larger stocks carry the rest. A long coffee name takes two lines rather than running into the line below.

Both carry a QR code, and the QR code’s own characters in plain text below it, such as K7M2-QX4A3B, so they can be read aloud or typed in when a scan fails. You can turn the plain characters off; the QR code always prints.

Scan a label

With a phone

Point a phone camera at the QR code and open the link it offers. Rostoc opens the record the label came from — the Batch or the Lot.

If the desktop app is running on that computer, the link hands off to it and the record opens there, in the same Scanned code window a barcode scanner uses. Otherwise the page offers Use Rostoc in the browser, and the web app opens the record instead. Either way the scan lands on the record; the page in between tells you which door it is trying.

You will be asked to sign in if you are not already, and you are returned to the record afterwards. A code belonging to another roastery is not readable by you.

With a barcode scanner

In the desktop app, a hardware scanner works from any screen in the main window — you do not have to open anything first. Scan a label and a Scanned code window opens over whatever you were doing, showing the record it belongs to. Choose Open roast or Open lot to go to it. A Batch also offers Print label, and a Lot Set as in use. Scan the next label and the window shows that one instead. The web app does not listen for a scanner; use a phone there.

A scanner is a keyboard as far as your computer is concerned, so Rostoc recognises one by how fast it types: a burst far quicker than a person, ending in Enter. It stays out of the way while you are typing in a field, so scanning into a search box shows you the text rather than jumping away. Roast Studio is a separate window and never listens, so a stray scan cannot mark a milestone on a live roast.

You can also paste a scanned label URL into the main window and Rostoc will resolve it the same way. Scan, in the … menu at the right end of the header on Coffee lines or Inventory, opens a screen that does nothing but wait for the next scan, for when you are working through a shelf.

When a code does not resolve

If you scan a Lot that has since been merged into another Lot, Rostoc says which Lot it went into and links you there, rather than showing you an empty record. A code whose record has been deleted, or that was never bound to anything, says so plainly instead of failing silently.