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Get down with ProSelect!
Travis Schreer
posted this on August 10, 2010 08:29
A welcome addition to all of you ProSelect users out there is ShootQ's ability to import orders that were created in ProSelect. This is a fantastic way to keep track of all your orders right within ShootQ and it's easy like Sunday morning. Here's how it works.
In your ShootQ Settings tab, you will see an option for ProSelect in the Integrations section, and clicking on it will show something like this.
The integration itself works like the inbound email feature, so you will send orders exported from ProSelect as attachments to a unique email address in your ShootQ account (which is in the yellow box). You will also see the Legacy Tax Settings below this, which allow you to assign default names to taxes that are attached to orders. This appears because all but the newest version of ProSelect send orders as either "Tax 1" or "Tax 2" so, if you have an older version, you can avoid the default naming convention and define a name for ShootQ to convert these taxes to. If you are hip to the newest version of ProSelect, you can define these names in the area of your ProSelect account that is shown below.
In order to get these orders into your ShootQ account you first have to get them out of ProSelect, which you will do by choosing the Orders menu and selecting Export Orders. You dig?
This will show you the orders that are available to export and you can choose which one you want in ShootQ, or hustle them all if you're feeling fly.
As you can see in the image above, you want to export to Standard XML for Web, since that's the type of reading ShootQ wants to do and click Export Now. Then it is just the age-old game of deciding where they should go on that computer of yours until you ship them off to ShootQ.
From here, it's just a matter of attaching the file to an email and sending it to your secret ShootQ email (you know, the one with the plus sign in it).
Then ShootQ says "hey, you have imported order(s)" on your Home tab.
Then you click on it and say, "hey, I've never seen this screen before! And it's green."
"But what's all this ShootQ Product drop-down menu business?" Well, the categories lets you pare down that monumental list of things you sell (if you were a good organizer and used the categories when you set up your pricing) and the choose option lets you associate all those things on the left with a product or service in your ShootQ pricing. Then you think, "do I really have to do this EVERY time?!" And ShootQ says "Nope!" Because ProSelect has this really cool option in the Orders menu called "Price List Setup"... but first, you have to enable an option in your ProSelect Preferences under the Pricing & Ordering section that you see down below. Just be sure to enable the option to "Show Product Codes on Price List Items".
Once you've done that, you can go to Orders and select "Price List Setup".
Here you will see a list of each of the items that you sell, like so:
The next step is to select one and click the "Change" button up top. Then you will see the following screen where you can designate a code for that individual item.
Even though ShootQ only wants to read XML, it remembers every one of those codes that it's seen, so you only have assign it once but, if you ever want to change that assignment, you can.
"Why in the world, would anybody put chains on me?"
No chains here, Lionel. Get down with your ProSelect self! (And if you caught that reference you better post a comment!)
Comments
WOW! This is GREAT news! What would be even cooler is if a PickPic integration is in the future!
Sooo ... when're you going to release that ShootQ app that works on my Commodore 64?
Do I need to put anything in the Default Codes boxes in ProSelect?
@Aaron - You can if you'd like. You can enter default codes to cover large swaths of products or you can add unique product codes to each item in your ProSelect price list. ShootQ will only ask you to correlate imported ProSelect products to your pricing in ShootQ if they have a product code.
You guys ROCK!
Can you give those of us who have not set up product codes some guidance on how to best do it so that it makes for a smoother import to ShootQ?
Is it better to do the default codes or unique codes?
Thanks,
Mindy
How long should it take to enter the what's new area after the email is sent. I have one I sent 4 hours ago that I don't see and another one that I just sent that is not there either. Do you need to put something in the subject line of the email or in the body?
I am also curious to your suggestions about codes, if we are not currently using anything like that in pro select or shoot q what do you all think works best?
When I import it doesn't allow me to match with anything.
We are experiencing the same issue as Candice, just did an import and did not allow us to match with products. Using Firefox 3.6.8 on a Mac.
@Candice and @Jeremy,
In order for us to correlate products from ProSelect to products in ShootQ, you must have assigned them a "Product Code" in ProSelect. So if you send us an order that contains items without product codes, you won't be able to link them to products in ShootQ.
Here's how to accomplish this in ProSelect. I'm using the Mac version, so the location of settings may vary on Windows:
Correct - but I already had that setting turned on.
@Aaron,
Regarding your email that never showed up. Try sending it to us again, and if it doesn't work, file a support ticket so we can dig a bit deeper.
Also, regarding choosing product codes, this can be anything your heart desires, though you'll want to choose unique ones for different items. I like to simplify product names into a random "code" of sorts, similar to the following:
Asuka Book => ASUKABOOK
8x10 Print => PRINT8X10
etc...
@Jeremy,
Yep, it's a two-step process. Have you entered product codes for your individual products in "Orders > Price List Setup" ?
When I read your info on this page, it does not seem like that part is even required. We got to this screen (using your link below) but did not see the "Notes for this order group" section as it never loaded it.
We would test it, yet we tried to delete the invoice created last night using the integration and we can't (submitted a support ticket to get that deleted).
would love to see PickPic integration as well ;)
Ditto on PickPic integrations :)
Is there a way to attach the image names to this? That would be so helpful!
Attaching image names and pictures like the proselect printouts would be fantastic!
Are clients sent an email telling them their order is available to view online? I've hit the send a reminder button because I have the client pay online, but I am unsure what/if they're even receiving anything.
Karen,
Great ideas! Unfortunately for now, ProSelect's XML for Web export format doesn't include the information we'd need for image printouts.
When orders are imported, ShootQ doesn't send any emails automatically, but scheduling an email reminder should work just fine for generated invoices. I'd take a look at your ShootQ Upcoming Correspondence (https://app.shootq.com/correspondence#upcoming) for a view of all emails scheduled to be sent in the near future.
My proselect orders are not showing up in the client area for them to view, what do I do?
No orders showing up here either?
Nick, Amy, I've created support tickets for each of you so we can gather more information and investigate further.
I've been e-mailing ShootQ on a bug with this feature since January and it's still unresolved. I hate ranting about this "publicly" - but I have no other way to get results. Plus, some of you may not be aware of this and it could be causing issues and you don't even know about it. We've learned that we do our own testing on every new ShootQ feature as we've been finding too many issues that negatively impact our business processes.
I have been working with a few different folks with ShootQ and continue to get a similar response that a new project is of a higher priority. It's very unfortunate that production bugs are viewed as a lower priority than anything else. Below are the details of this bug...
Sales Tax Bug
When we import orders from ProSelect, the sales tax must come into ShootQ differently as our .CSV export (using the business reporting feature) does not show the sales tax the same as other items. This causes problems and extra work on our end when creating our quarterly sales tax reports. We have tried a few different settings with the same results.
It seems that ShootQ is less responsive to issues since Pictage took over -- I've had an open ticket since November regarding profit margins calculating incorrectly that is apparently still unresolved. The ShootQ Profit Margin is showing 27.85%and it should be 41%.
For me, this is waaaay out of character to what ShootQ was before the Pictage acquisition -- in fact, the tech support in the past has been the best I've ever experienced, bar none.
Not sure what the issue is, but hope that these issues are addressed and resolved.
Mindy
Hi Everyone,
You're right. We haven't updated ShootQ in a while. That's partially my fault, for prioritizing Nimbus (which is a major new feature of ShootQ). I've spoken to Jim Collins, the CEO of Pictage, who was pretty upset that we hadn't been keeping up with ShootQ development. He's allocated some funds for us hire additional developers to expand our capacity to make improvements to ShootQ's core functionality.
Thanks everyone for your patience. Look for improvements soon...
Andrew
Andrew,
Thank you for responding to this. Trust me, we do not enjoy being a hard case on this - but the issue we reported is not an improvement to ShootQ functionality. It's a request to fix a bug that is almost 3 months old. I work in IT and have for a decade for numerous organizations. Production bugs are always a top priority and it is extremely frustrating for our studio that not only do these not get treated with high importance - but we also have to follow up multiple times before they get addressed.
We have offered a few times to provide UAT testing on new features as we have experience in this and are frequently finding bugs in production.
It is great to hear ShootQ is working to address adding more staff members - yet letting bugs continue to cause problems in a production environment should never happen. Nor should we have to wait 2 weeks+ to get a response to a follow-up and still not have a response on it.
Jeremy, you're absolutely right. We got behind the ball on resources, and bugs have not even been addressed. That won't be happening in the future.
And this is why ShootQ is the best...because they communicate honestly and forthright manner. This is the ShootQ I know and love...
Mindy
Jeremy,
You are absolutely right. No pulling of punches, no sugar coating it. We simply have prioritized other things, and its caused us to slow down on ShootQ too much. I will personally apologize here about this. We could have done better. But, this is just an explanation of why this has been happening, and an apology. Lets talk about what we're going to do to make this right.
A few other things that I think are worth stating here, for the record. Since ShootQ become a Pictage product, we've gained access to resources that have helped us do some things much better. We now have a fantastic group of well-trained Customer Care representatives available via phone. We've got a group of testers, product managers, and "infrastructure" experts to help keep things running smoothly, and make them even better.
Clearly, though, we're still getting the hang of balancing all of the new projects we're working on with the great projects we already have out in the wild. I think, thanks to honest feedback of people like you, that we understand much better what our customers expect, and quite frankly deserve out of us all.
Thanks for your honesty, and your patience. We hear you, and we'll push hard to get it right.
Thanks to everyone who's commented on this thread with such honesty. Jonathan's right: you guys deserve more from us. We want to continue to be attentive to your needs, with the same problem-solving passion that drove us to create ShootQ in the first place.
Each time you share this feedback with us, I wince. It's painful to hear, but that's because it's the truth.
Jonathan outlined our strategy for addressing and fixing these issues.
I also want to share the direct line to folks who diligently run the Photographer Care team. They're eager to hear from you! 888-974-6687 M-F 6-6 PST.
The ShootQ concept and overall features are fantastic. Sadly, the difference between an ok/good system and a great one (much like the difference between a good/great portrait) is attention to detail. Right now, the attention to detail here leaves a lot of opportunity for improvement.
I do appreciate the responses - yet admittedly there is still no progress on the 3 open production bugs we have reported. One of them is now over 3 months old, the other is a month old and the last one is 3 weeks old. It's been weeks since we have received any communication on these production bugs.
We are still paying the same monthly amount for a system that ShootQ openly admits has been neglected in some respects...and our studio continues to find these production bugs for ShootQ.
We are beyond frustrated with the lack of attention to detail when implementing features, poor communication regarding issues and the only responses continue to be "we're working on it".
I hate being "that guy" that consistently complains - but our studio is at a loss with what other option we have - other than making a change with our studio management system. We can't continue to use this system and feel good about recommending it to our workshop students when the customer service is lacking and bugs continue to be introduced - then ignored.