Import/Export Clients

Last night's update brought the latest changes to the Address Book in the Basic and Professional Suite. Previously you have only been able to import clients into the Basic/Professional Suite. With the update you can now import both clients and prospective clients. You can also export your client list including clients, archived clients, and prospective clients.

If you need more advanced exporting then you should try out the StudioCloud CRM. That will allow you to filter clients according to other information such as organizations, dates, etc.... before you export them.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

Last Week's Updates

At the end of last week the StudioCloud development team made some updates that we just wanted to let you know about. The first update was to the login process. The development team has sped up the login in process considerable.

The second update was in the Bookkeeping section of the Basic and Professional Suites. If you go to the tab labeled "Accounts" in the Bookkeeping section and edit or create a new account you can now add a starting balance for that account. Currently all of your accounts will have a starting balance of zero but if you add in a starting balance then the account balance will be calculated based on that starting balance.

The last change was in the Search functionality of the Client section of the Basic and Professional Suite. Last week we added in the ability to assign "tags" to customers to help track additional information. Now in the search box on the bottom of the client and prospective client lists you can search for tags that have been assigned to customers. This is one way of finding your customers even more quickly.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

StudioCloud On-Location is Now Available

The StudioCloud development team has been hard at work and has just released the much anticipated StudioCloud On-Location into open Beta.

StudioCloud On-Location automatically detects whether or not you have an internet connection and, if you don't, it will automatically save your changes to your computer until you have an internet connection. This allows you to continue to operate if your internet goes down. In addition, you can also go to events where there isn't an internet connection, such as a school or wedding, and add prospective customers or create new invoices.

StudioCloud On-Location has a new sync page which will show you a table of everything you have done while offline. When you get an internet connection just go to the sync page and click on the sync button and it will sync everything up with your Basic/Professional Suite.

Note: StudioCloud On-Location is still in beta which means that the program might still have some unknown bugs in it. We recommend doing a trial run of using the On-Location without an internet connection before going to an event to confirm that it worked as expected.

StudioCloud. It’s just that easy

Track More Customer Information

Last night's update included more client information updates. You can now save different types of dates that you want to track. By default we have entered Anniversary, Birthday, and Graduation as dates for your to track. You can edit or delete those default date types and add your own by going to the Clients section of the Basic and Professional Suite and then clicking on the tab labeled "Settings".

Next to the "Date Types" tab is the new "Tags" tab. The tags tab allows you to add tags that will help you quickly find customers for marketing campaigns. For example, you might have a tag for "Newborn pictures" or something similar.

Once you have added types of dates and tags that you want to keep track of you can add that information to your clients and prospective clients in the Basic and Professional Suite.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

Tracking Relationships

Last night's update included the ability to track relationships between people in your client list. In the Clients section on the Settings tab you can enter the types of relationships that you track in your studio. Then when you create a new client or update an existing one you can add relationships for that client. Whether it is a grandparent, spouse, child, or even a pet you will be able to track those types of relationships.

The relationships tracking will be used for creating marketing campaigns in an upcoming update to the CRM. Check back here for the latest updates.

Printing Your Tax ID Number

Because StudioCloud is an internationally used program we have tried to make sure that we are meeting our customers' needs around the world. Many countries require that the printed invoice include the business's tax identification number and, as such, we have now made it possible to include your business's tax id on your invoices in the Basic and Professional Suite as well.

To setup your tax id login to your StudioCloud account and go to Point of Sale. Click on the Settings tab and look in the section labeled "Tax Options". On the bottom left of that section you can save what you want to be printed on the invoice and select whether or not you want it included on your invoices. For example, if you are in Canada you might enter something like "GST #" and then your number or if you are in England it might be something like "VAT #" and your number.

If the "Show Tax ID on Invoice" checkbox is selected then this number will be included on all invoices just below your Studio's information.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

Sending Email Reminders

A new feature was added some time ago but we forgot to blog about it. Many of you have expressed to us the need to send appointment reminders for appointments other than sessions. So several weeks ago the developers made that request a reality. You can now have appointment reminders sent for any type of calendar event.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

Keep Track of Your Referrals

Have you ever wanted to be able to keep track of where your customer's are coming from? Maybe you want to offer referral rewards to existing customers or you need to know whether or not a marketing campaign is working for you studio? Well now you can do it all right inside of StudioCloud. Last night's update included a referral field in the create/edit client and prospective client. Simply click the button labeled "Update Referral" and you will see three options to choose from:

1. Client was referred by another customer


2. Client was referred by a marketing campaign


3. Client was referred by something or someone else

The first two options allow you to select a client or marketing campaign from your lists. The last option gives you a blank text field to type anything you want.

You can set up marketing campaigns in the just released Customer Relationship Manager (CRM). To learn how to use the CRM we encourage you to watch the video tutorial that will step you through the current functionality of the CRM and how to use it. Don't forget to setup your email accounts so you can use the email marketing that is built in to the CRM.

Check back soon for reports that will give you an idea of where your customers are coming from.

StudioCloud, It's just that Easy

More Website Integration

The development team has brought even more integration to your studio's website. Our last post (http://blog.studiocloud.com/2008/05/integrate-studiocloud-into-your-website.html) was about the new feature of embedding the StudioCloud Update Information Module into your website. Well now you can embed the Contact Us Module as well. The Contact Us Module is similar to a typical contact us form that is fairly common on most websites. However, not only does it send you an email with the message in it, but it also stores the message in your Basic/Professional Suite.

But wait there's more. When someone submits a message through the Contact Us Module, StudioCloud tries to match and associate the message to one of your existing customers. And if it can't find the email anywhere in your customer list, then StudioCloud automatically creates a new "Prospective Customer" and associates the message with that new prospective customer. We hope that this will help your studio run even more efficiency.

But if that is not enough for you, then there is more. You can now embed the StudioCloud Online Gallery into your studio's website. That way your customers come to your website and never leave. As far as they can tell you just have a fantastic, professional looking online gallery. Just one more thing to help build your studio and make it more of a success than it already is.

We do have several articles in our support section on these topics:
StudioCloud Update Information Module
StudioCloud Contact Us Module
StudioCloud Online Gallery