The AriaQR dashboard is one page per code with six screens: Overview, Where, Devices, Placements, Style, and Settings. Each one answers a different question about the code and the people scanning it. This is a walk through all six, in the order you will use them.
What is on the Overview screen?
Overview opens with the code itself. Not a thumbnail of a generic QR, but your actual artwork with the code in it, and a download button beside it. The download gives you the 2048px master PNG, with or without a white border, and for a "Code in your image" job the full artwork too. If you lose the file you printed from, this is where you get it back.
Under the code are the totals: total scans and unique visitors. Unique visitors is privacy-preserving and counted without cookies, so it is safe to quote in a client report.
Then the timeline: scans per day, one bar per day. Below it, the hour-of-day heatmap in the scanner's local time. A campaign that ran for three weeks shows its shape here. Most people spend their first minute on this screen and never need the others. The others are for when the totals raise a question.
Where does the map get its scan location data?
Where is a real map, not a decorative one. Scans are plotted and clustered, so a city with two hundred scans shows one marker with a number until you zoom in and it splits into smaller clusters. Under the map are tables for countries, cities, and postal codes, each with a scan count.
The location comes from the network address the phone used. There is no permission prompt, and the phone's GPS is never asked for anything. That means the data is approximate: country is reliable, region and city are usually right, and postal code appears only when the network provides one. A scan through a mobile carrier or a VPN can land in the wrong city or resolve to a country alone. This is true of every QR code scan location feature on the market, and the honest way to read it is explained in QR code analytics explained.
The practical use is comparison. If a code printed on a magazine insert shows scans in three states and you only distribute in two, you have learned something about pass-along. If a code on a storefront shows scans from another country, someone posted a photo of it.
What does the Devices screen show?
Devices splits scans three ways. First, phone versus desktop. Desktop scans are people opening the link from a screenshot, a slide, or an email, and they are common when a code lives in a PDF.
Second, operating system, so you can see iPhone against Android and the versions in play. If a landing page misbehaves for a slice of scanners, this is where the slice shows up.
Third, in-app browsers. When a code is scanned from inside Instagram, WhatsApp, or a similar app, the destination opens in that app's built-in browser instead of the phone's normal one. Those browsers can log people out, block downloads, and lose form data. The dashboard names the app, so if a third of scans arrive through Instagram you know to keep the landing page simple and avoid a checkout or an app-store handoff on the first tap.
How do Placements compare codes side by side?
Placements is for one campaign that lives in several places. Instead of one code on five posters, you make five codes that share a destination and give each a name: the location, the channel, or the print run. The Placements screen puts them in one table with scans and unique visitors next to each other, so the question "which poster worked" has an answer instead of a guess.
You can also ask AriaQR to add UTM parameters to the destination for each placement, so the same split appears in your web analytics tool. The full method, including how to name placements so the table still makes sense in six months, is in placements: put the same code on five posters.
Can you restyle a code without losing its analytics?
Yes, and that is what the Style screen is for. You can change the finder-eye shapes, the dot shapes, and the colors after the code exists. The code itself does not change: same short link, same destination, same scan history. The eyes and margins stay translucent so the image shows through.
This matters more than it sounds. Print shops ask for a lighter version for a dark background, a client wants the brand color, a second run needs rounder dots to match a new typeface. On most tools each of those means a new code and a fresh zero on the counter. Here it is a restyle and a new download, and the totals keep counting. Every download is still verified on real decoders under real-world conditions before it reaches you.
What lives in Settings?
Settings is the working end of the dashboard. Four things live here.
Destination. The link the code points to, editable at any time. Change it and the next scan goes to the new address. AriaQR also checks the destination daily and tells you if it stops responding.
Share link. A read-only view of this code's analytics that you can hand to a client, a venue, or a printer. They see the numbers and the map. They cannot change the destination or the style.
Alerts. Email or a webhook to Slack, Discord, Zapier, or anything else that accepts one. Three triggers: the first scan, a broken destination, and a scan digest. The detail is in editable destinations and scan alerts.
CSV export. Every scan as a row, with its timestamp and the same fields the dashboard shows. Bring it into a spreadsheet or your own reporting.
Which screen answers which question?
| Screen | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Overview | How many, how often, and what did the code look like |
| Where | Which countries, cities, and postal codes, on a map |
| Devices | Phone or desktop, which OS, which in-app browser |
| Placements | Which poster, channel, or print run worked |
| Style | Can I change the look without a new code |
| Settings | Destination, share link, alerts, export |
Where to start
Make a code, scan it from your own phone, and open the dashboard. Overview will show one scan, Where will show your city, and Devices will show your phone. That is the whole loop in under a minute. Then set the destination you actually want, turn on the first-scan alert, and print. Accounts are optional, but signing in keeps every code's dashboard in one list. For regular use, see pricing.