StudioCloud Product Updates

We know alot of you have been patiently awaiting the new features that have now been released. Here are some of the most recent updates to StudioCloud's products.

StudioCloud Desktop Updates

1. You can now delete multiple users, products, or services at once. To use the group operations just mark the checkbox in the left-most column of the tables and then use the "Group Operations" button just above the table.

2. Track the individual cost of a product or service from within StudioCloud. To add the cost to a product or service just edit the product or service and use the "Cost" field. The product/service cost is currently utilized in producing the new report "Income, expense, and profit breakdown" which shows you a breakdown of quantity purchased, revenue, expense, and profit of products, services, and packages. In addition, the development team has made additional updates to the reporting section that should make managing your studio even easier.

3. You now have the ability to track your jobs from the moment you receive a lead. You can track who needs to complete what tasks and what needs to be done next to follow up with each client. Go under your Workflow tab and you will see a Jobs section. The new Jobs section helps you track all of your pre-order items while Workflow tracks everything once an invoice/order has been made. It is all tied together to give you a clear picture of where each job and order stands.

StudioCloud PSG 2.0 Updates

1. A new HTML invoice was added to the PSG 2.0. You can now see thumbnails of the ordered images in the invoice. The HTML invoice will eventually be added across all of the StudioCloud products.

2. When viewing images using StudioCloud PSG you have always been able to view B/W and Sepia and even crop pictures. With the most recent updates, any changes you apply to a picture will be saved and will be shown on the HTML invoice with those changes.

StudioCloud, It's just that easy.

StudioCloud Alert System

A new version of StudioCloud Desktop was released this afternoon. The developers added a new alert system to help you stay on top of time sensitive items. The alert system is not enabled by default. To enable the system open up StudioCloud Desktop and go to the Settings section of the program. There are four different types of alerts: Sessions, Leads, Orders, and Tasks. For each of these alerts you can specify how far in advance you want to be notified.

Once you have setup your notifications you will begin receiving a small popup letting you know when something is coming up. We are very interested in your feedback and we want to make sure that this helps you and your studio. So please feel free to let us know what you think.

StudioCloud, It's just that easy.

StudioCloud Helping To Streamline Processes

The purpose of StudioCloud software is to make running your studio as easy as possible. So the development team has recently added some new features to StudioCloud Desktop to help you streamline your processes.

First, when you are creating or editing a client you can quickly create a new session or invoice for that client. There are two new buttons at the bottom of the form labeled "Create Session" and "Create Invoice" that should help stream line this process. In addition, a similar "Create Session" button has also been added to the form for creating and editing your a prospective client.

Second, when you are creating or editing a session you can now edit the client information just by clicking the edit icon. Any changes you make will be updated in that session and all other sessions. In addition, you have always had the ability to create a new invoice based on a session that you are creating. With the most recent updates the new invoice will actually popup so that you can edit it after the session is saved. This will allow you to add and down payments or session fees right then and there.

Finally, when creating or editing an invoice you can edit the client information. There is now a button just to the right of the "Select Customer" field. When clicked it will open up a window to edit that clients information.

StudioCloud hopes that these changes will make you and your employees just a little bit faster. That way you can spend more time doing what you love.

StudioCloud. It’s just that easy

Updates to StudioCloud Desktop and Browser

There have been some recent updates to StudioCloud Desktop and StudioCloud Browser.

1. The development team has begun integrating with internet payment gateways. The first gateway we have integrated with is Authorize.net. If you currently use a merchant account that process credit cards through Authorize.net then you can setup your merchant account information in StudioCloud Desktop in the Settings section so that when you have a payment that is being made on a credit card you can process it right then and there. *
2. Orders made from the StudioCloud Online Proofing have always been automatically added to your list of workflow orders. However, with the recent updates you will even be able to view the thumbnails of the images that were ordered in StudioCloud Online Proofing. This should make it easier for you to process your orders. *
3. The graphical view of the calendar that allows you to quickly view when your appointments are was recently updated to include additional information both in the appointment and the tooltip. (This update only affects Professional Suite users.) You will now see the photographers, assistants, equipment, and locations that are scheduled for a session both on the calendar and in the tooltip.
4. The button that used to be in the reports section of StudioCloud Desktop and StudioCloud Browser that allowed you to print a list of your clients has been removed. Instead there is now a button on both the clients section and the prospective clients section that allows you to print this report. This should make it easier for your to find this information when you need it.
5. The development team recently implemented a new feedback system. For the most part, you will not see any huge changes. The difference is that this new system allows you to respond to our support team from within the StudioCloud programs. In addition, you can see the conversation history of a particular item of feedback. That way you don't have to go searching through your emails to find out what a member of the support team said in their last email. We believe that this will make it easier for you to communicate with us and vice versa.

StudioCloud. It’s just that easy

* Affects only StudioCloud Desktop

StudioCloud Desktop Updates

We’ve done a lot of improvements to StudioCloud Desktop with this new update and we want to make sure you know about them. Below is a list of the changes that have been made in the latest StudioCloud Desktop update.

1. We have improved the agenda widget on the overview page. We renamed agenda to “Time Sensitive Items” and added in leads, orders, and a tasks tab to the widget. Only items with a pickup date are shown in the tabs.

2. You can now change the agenda day to view the events for any day.

3. Leads/Prospective Customers now have an event type and estimated date field to help you manage your leads better.

4. Workflow has been substantially improved. Previously the product pipelines and order pipelines were created and managed on the same page. That was confusing. As such the product pipelines is now available on the Products page under Point of Sale. The Workflow page still contains the order pipelines. We have also added in a service pipeline as well on the Services Page page under Point of Sale.

5. We have also added in a default pipeline checkbox to both the product pipelines and order pipelines. If an order default pipeline checkbox is selected any order that doesn't have a pipeline assigned to it will automatically be assigned the default pipeline. Likewise for product pipelines. This should speed up the workflow process.

6. We have renamed Task Lists to Categories and added in an individual task view on the Tasks page under Workflow. The individual task view allows you to see all of your tasks and filter them by categories.

7. We added a New Task button to the quick task window.

8. We also added in a Import from ICS (calendars) button on the Agenda Page under Calendar. This will import calendar appointments from third party calendars.

9. We added in a Last Modified By and Last Modified Date column under the View Columns button under invoices. These columns show who last edited the invoice and when it was last edited.

10. We added in a Select a Date Range to the Print Time Card Report for those studios who want to see all of the time card entries for a given time period outside of the Pay Periods Range.

StudioCloud. It’s just that easy

Tip of the Week-StudioCloud 2.0 Official Release

StudioCloud is proud to announce its official 2.0 release of its family of studio management products. This release brings photographers state of the art features that have never been seen before.

The StudioCloud Basic/Professional Suites can now be accessed through a redesigned browser version, a brand new desktop version, or using the redesigned mobile version. The new desktop version has built in offline capabilities, which means that if your Internet has problems your studio can keep operating until the Internet comes back online.

In addition, the Online Proofing has been redesigned specifically to increase your studio’s sales. It now has new features like drag and drop ordering, side-by-side comparisons, multiple online galleries, and much more.

To read the official press release click the link below:

http://studiocloud.com/support/?View=entry&EntryID=109

StudioCloud, It’s just that easy.

Tip of the Week -Tags

This week’s Tip of the Week has to do with Client Tags. Client Tags are an important part of creating profitable marketing campaigns. Tags allow you to create marketing campaigns that focus on specific types of clients. Every client might seem different but many of them have similarities that you can use to create that perfect marketing campaign. For example, similarities such as interests, hobbies, events, lifestyle, estimated income level, employment, etc. can all be used to identify which customers a specific marketing campaign would appeal to the most.

StudioCloud provides you with intuitive, easy to use, tagging functionality that enables you to create that perfect marketing campaign for your clients. Tags also help you to effectively organize your clients to create an even more efficient studio.

To get more information regarding how to setup and use tags refer to the link below:

http://app1.studiocloud.com/support/index.php?/category/135/0/10/

StudioCloud, It’s just that easy.

Tip of the Week - Workflow

This week’s Tip of the Week is focused on increasing your studios efficiency. The key to being efficient is establishing simple and intuitive workflow processes for you and your employees.

To assist you in this, StudioCloud offers advanced workflow features in the Desktop application that allow you to easily setup and maintain your studios product and order workflow. The product workflow is the actual status of each individual product in an order while the order workflow is the status of an entire order.

To get step-by-step instructions on how to setup your studios workflow click the link below.

What is a Pipeline?
http://studiocloud.com/support/?View=entry&EntryID=105

Workflow Instructions:
http://studiocloud.com/support/?View=entry&EntryID=106

As your workflow efficiency increases your order turnaround time will decrease and you will be able to get more work done in less time.

StudioCloud, It’s just that easy.

Tip of the Week – Email Marketing Campaigns

This week’s Tip of the Week has to do with email campaigns. Email campaigns are one of the most cost effective marketing tools available to photographers. However, caution should be used not to send too many emails to a client or to have an email message be too generic.

To help you avoid sending generic emails, StudioCloud allows you to create marketing campaigns based upon session types, dates, tags, relationships, organizations, and numerous other criteria. By utilizing StudioCloud’s email marketing tools you will be able to craft a custom message for a specific group of clients. Not only will StudioCloud let you create email marketing campaigns but it will also send those emails out for you.

Marketing just got a lot easier.

To get step-by-step instructions on how to create an email marketing campaign click the link below

http://studiocloud.com/support/?View=entry&EntryID=101

StudioCloud, It’s just that easy.