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Part 2 of 7 · Lost property matcher series ~5 min read

How a found item gets logged in ninety seconds

Everything downstream in this system depends on a record existing, and the record is created by somebody who is mid-shift, holding a tray, and has no interest in your software.

Key takeaways

  • Three fields and a photo. Everything else is derived or optional.
  • Where and when are the fields that make matching work.
  • Categories come from a short list; free text does not match.
  • Print a label at the point of logging, or the record and the item separate.
  • Valuables take a different path, immediately, with a second person.

The time budget

Proportion of found items logged against the size of the logging formA bar chart with three bars showing the percentage of items actually logged. Three fields plus a photo: ninety-four percent. Six fields: seventy-one percent. Eleven fields plus a form: thirty-four percent. A note says the unlogged items do not vanish; they go in the cupboard with no record, which is worse than not having the system.050100150200~943 fields + photo~716 fields~3411 fields + formItems actually logged, %The unlogged items do not vanish. They go in the cupboard with no record, which is worse than not having the system.
Fig 1. What each additional field costs in compliance. This is the only design decision in the whole system that changes the outcome by a factor of three.

This is not a claim about laziness. Somebody clearing a function room at midnight has a job that is not this, and a system that costs them four minutes per umbrella is a system they will route around by putting the umbrella on a shelf.

The three fields

  • Category, from a list of about twelve. Not a description.
  • Where, from your own zone list — bar, function room, car park, room 214. Tapped, never typed.
  • When, which is now, defaulted, and correctable to ’earlier today’ in one tap.
  • And a photograph, which is not a field so much as the whole record. It carries the colour, the brand, the condition and the size without anybody describing any of them.

Why the category list is short

Three approaches to categorising found propertyThree boxes stacked on the left. Free text, such as an abbreviated black jacket entry, labelled unsearchable. A long taxonomy with four levels and eighty leaves, labelled unused. And Twelve categories, one tap, labelled works. All three converge on Matchable records, consistent across every finder, which leads down to The photo carries everything else. A note says the detail lives in the photograph and the category only has to narrow the search.Free text'blk northfacejkt L'unsearchableA long taxonomyfour levels,eighty leavesunusedTwelve categoriesone tapworksMatchable recordsconsistent acrossevery finderThe photo carrieseverything elseThe detail lives in the photograph. The category only has to narrow the search.
Fig 2. Three ways of describing a found item. The short list wins because it is the only one that produces the same word from two different people looking at the same jacket.
  • Database
  • App integration
  • Analytics
  • Front-end & mobile

Zones, not addresses

Where an item was found is the strongest matching signal you have, and it only works if the same place is recorded the same way every time. A list of zones specific to your site — the ones staff already say out loud — beats a text box or a map pin.

The zone list is also the thing that makes a vague claim workable. Somebody who says ’the upstairs bar, I think’ has just eliminated ninety percent of your inventory without knowing anything about their own item.

The label is not optional

A record without a physical label on the item is half a system. Somebody will find the jacket in the cupboard and have no way of knowing which of four jacket records it belongs to, and at that point the photograph is doing work it should not have to.

A short code on a sticker, printed or handwritten from the screen, is enough. It is the join between the thing and the record, and it costs three seconds at the moment when everything else is already open.

Valuables leave the path

What gets treated differently, immediately

  • Cash — counted by two people, recorded to the note, and stored separately. The record says who counted it.
  • Identity documents — passports, driving licences, immigration papers. Often returned to the issuing body rather than held, and never posted casually.
  • Bank cards — destroyed or returned to the bank; the guidance is on the card itself and it is not ’hold for a month’.
  • Devices — logged, not opened, and stored where they cannot be casually picked up. A lock screen message is the only acceptable way to look for an owner.
  • Medication, and anything hazardous — not held at all. There is a disposal route and it is not the cupboard.

These are policy decisions and they vary by jurisdiction and by what kind of business you are. The system’s contribution is small and specific: the category picked at logging time sends the item down the right path immediately, rather than after somebody notices in three weeks.

Next: matching a claim to it.

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