What's new with Q? November 22, 2011

All good additions.  The Quickbooks improvement is welcome as so are the addresses for Ceremony and Reception.  I must say though, I am frustrated and baffled that a Pre-ceremony Details section has not been added.  It's been requested by multiple users and is something that every wedding photographer can use.  Come on guys, if you can add address fields you can surely add a few more for Pre-ceremony.  -Jeff

I agree with Jeff , pre ceremony location addresses would be awesome. Thanks

Hey Guys,

I get why you want pre-ceremony locations, but we didn't include those for two reasons.

1) If we add pre-ceremony, somebody else is going to ask for day-after brunch or rehearsal dinner locations. We have to keep these two fields as a "lowest common denominator" — almost all weddings have ceremony and reception. Not every photographer shoots the preparation.

2) This is what questionnaires are for! Design a questionnarie and send it to your client a few weeks before the event to get these kinds of details. Typically, they don't know where will be preparing when they book...

Love it!!! Thank you for always looking to go to the next level!!! It's how we want to strive in our business too! It's exciting to see new improvements!!! Thank you for the ipad changes, that is a HUGE help!!!! HUGE!!!! We often have that with us and it's much easier than the iphone to navigate (getting younger, lol!!) 

Thank you for all you dooooooooooo!!!!!!

Andrew, I can appreciate the strategic direction in development but from a functional perspective I would venture to say that we are encountering many more situations of wedding preparations than day after and rehearsal.  Functionally, it seems that to have ALL locations that my photographer teams need to go to on the day of the wedding IS the lowest common denominator.  I use a questionnaire just as you describe and have to retype the prep location info in the Remarks area.  Otherwise, my team members have to keep track of two pieces of paper, the questionnaire and the ShootQ Shoot Info Overview page which gets printed and contains ALL of the information pertinent to the wedding day.  It just seems that it makes sense to capture all of the shoot day locations in the same area, pre-ceremony, ceremony, and reception.

Jeff,

Have you given the printable shoot dossier a try?  It's located on the left menu when viewing a shoot, and gives you the ability to print out shoot information, locations, dates/times, and questionnaire responses.

Hey Jeff,

I'm better undrestanding the problem that you're facing with your explaniation. I still don't think that the solution is to add additional address fields to the shoot overview, for the simple fact that while they may be useful to you, they may not be useful to everyone. For the people that don't find them to be useful, it's just wasted space.

What if we were to allow you to designate the questions in a questionnaire that you want to show up on the shoot overview (so they are consolidated and front-and-center)? This would have a similar effect, I think, to what you are suggesting...

Ryan, I don't use the print dossier feature.  It's missing the detailed times for the wedding, reception, the (in question) pre-ceremony details and a few other things.  Also, I don't care for my team to know the Booked Package Details.  Interestingly though, if there was a capture of WEDDING DAY pre-ceremony details it would generate a map that would be highly useful. 

Andrew, being able to push questionnaire responses to the shoot overview is an interesting idea and may be more value added than what I am requesting.  I suspect it's a larger development effort though.

I enjoy the active conversation on this subject, it's how our tools become better for all users.  Thanks.

I enjoy talking to users too, Jeff. The back-and-forth leads to better features than either one of us had thought of. It's a good collaboration.

I'm adding a ticket for this idea.

I would second the notion of having the ability to import questionnaire details into the front end view. As of right now, those Q's and A's are buried further down than I feel is needed. Though I suspect Jeff is correct in that it would be a large undertaking.

Hey Daniel,

It's actually not a huge undertaking, it's just a matter of priorities. But I think this is (potentially) a good solution we've come up with here. Love it!

Hey all,

I too have always wanted more info available as fields in the overview, and I applaud this new step! However, I agree that if it's a part of the event day, it should be available on the overview, and a bare minimum approach to this reduces this section's usefulness.

I like using questionnaires for gathering info, but it doesn't seem like the best final place to consolidate and view that info. Andrew, your suggestion to populate the overview with questionnaire answers would be a great improvement, but may I suggest an alternate idea ... ?

What if the overview area was similar the relationships area? Photographers could populate the section with only the details/events that are important to that event. We could create details within an event like we create relationship roles.This would allow us to populate the day with all the right details, and turn off the ones that are not important. Think of the potential usefulness of having sections with locations/times available for: Pre-Ceremony - Bride's Location,  Pre-Ceremony - Groom's Location, First Look, Family Portrait Session, etc. Even more specifically, what if a photographer could add their own sections like Baarat (a groom's parade) or Ghar Nu Laxmi (welcoming of bride at groom's home after ceremony) for some Indian weddings?

I guess my point is that not every wedding fits nicely into the existing fields. The recent changes help, but it's still basic, and that's possibly a flawed approach to the section. I'd love to see the section become a useful, consolidated itinerary that prints on the dossier for a photography team, rather than having to search for the info elsewhere. Thanks!

Hi Russell...very thought provoking. 

Ryan Petrello (lead ShootQ Developer) and I had a long conversation this afternoon about the user interface in the ShootQ shoot overview. We need to revamp it - it looks disorganized. We will definately take this feedback into account as we're working on that process.

Andrew - thank you for listening ... I really look forward to seeing what comes of it! Happy Turkey Day to all of you.

Hi Guys, this has happened I think before with an upgrade, suddenly the spell check no longer works in the shoot q (when using a mac), it just says 'paste' when you right click. This is a much needed feature for ME!! Spelling is not my area of gifting!!!!

Thanks for your help!!!

Sherry Ann

Sherry Ann,

Thanks for mentioning the spellcheck issue - we'll have it fixed ASAP.

Great improvements. I do second everything said about the ability to import location and other information from the questionnaires. I would also think you guys should take a look at the dossier and maybe add ways to make it even more useful. 

One request: where can I find a more detail explanation as to what the hew Quickbook export do?

Thanks guys,

David

By the way, has the back up/export function fixed?

David,

We *did* make some improvements to the backup functionality.  Give it another shot and let us know if you're still having issues.

Thanks for all the hard work guys (and gals)!  And since we're never satisfied, I'd like to keep a couple past requests in front of you.

1) The ability to schedule Repeating Appointments would be extremely helpful.

2) The ability to schedule "non-shoot" related appointments such as a bridal show or staff training session, etc.

3) The ability to record a payment received "on account" such as a credit to be used after the wedding, and create a "credit memo" for a client that will show up as available credit to be used later.

Thanks again!

Pierre

Oh, lastly ...

4) The ability to have taxed and non-taxed items on the same invoice.

Ok, that might have been more than a couple requests. :-P

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pierre

Hey Pierre,

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

A couple of suggestions:

1+2) Use iCal or Google Calendar for your "regular" calendaring needs - such as repeating appointments non-shoot related appointments. Then, subscribe your ShootQ account to the calendar feed. That stuff will show up on your calendar display in ShootQ. We purposefully decided not to be general calendaring software, just because Apple and Google do that so well that there is no reason to try to compete or re-invent the wheel. They will always be putting a lot more money into that one app than we will ever be able to afford to put into ShootQ. So we piggyback.

3) This is a great suggestion. People have asked for this, and we have it on our list. It's a big project though!

4) This you should be able to do now. When setting up your pricing, you can designate an item as a product or a service.

And then, you can configure taxes in the package builder:

According to products and services. You can also add multiple sales taxes if you live in some crazy place like Chicago or Canada :)

Thanks Ryan. Back up works now.

Is there a way for me to not include the "Wedding Day Details" when my clients are going to book me? I'd rather have them fill out a Questionnaire AFTER they have booked me. I want to hassle them for information when I just want them to sign their contract and pay their retainer. Also, I shoot tons of weddings at one venue, and it's a pain for me to have to populate this info 30+ times a year. :(

Meant to say, "I don't want to hassle them for information"... :(

ShootQ + Nimbus: Rich Text Editing in iOS5+

Thank you! This is a feature I have been waiting for...been on holidays and only just realised the update. Cheers.