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ShootQ Work Arounds, thing we have done to stream line

David Higgins >

April 26, 2012 06:52

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OK, we have been a member in the past, left, and have come back. We left due to, what we felt were weak points in the system, but came back due to the high level of customer service, quality of lab and, of course, the ability to find work-arounds and implement them to streamline our process.

I am not going to list all the things we have done right now, but will over time continue to add tips and tricks to help you out if you have gotten stuck in the same places we have.

First tip for you is inside of the calendar:

We discovered the inability to schedule appointments, meetings, anything that was not directly connected to a shoot in process. We hated the idea of having to use multiple calendar platforms to be able to schedule everything accordingly. What we did is this, we created a lead in ShootQ, named this lead "Office Calendar Only". WE manually booked the shoot, with a line item of $0.00, scheduled "1 photographer", and booked the event out for May 1, 2020. Now, when we need to book any meeting, appointment, even who is on the main phone line that day, we can open "Office Calendar Only", select the proper employee, create a calendar event for them and not have to worry about cross platform calendars. It's all in shootQ and attached to the employees calendar. Same thing for studio/ office tasks, just use this event for all in house needs for calendar purposes. 

If you have any questions on how to do this feel free to contact us, you can use the forum, email me directly at rdh@kalistaimaging.com or even call me via my direct number. really I do not mind, if I am free I will answer. 

Hope this helps. 

David Higgins

calendar workaround.jpg

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16 comments

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  David Higgins > April 26, 2012 08:07

  Next tip for you;

  Gear Scheduling! Keep your studio equipment in order and never book TOO many jobs. 

  Too many jobs, I know, how can that be right? Well, if your studio is like ours, based out of my home currently, with several employees covering events you need to make sure your gear is accounted for just as much as your staff.

  Well, if you have a ShootQ Hub account, you can do just this. Here is what you do:

  Log into your ShootQ account; go to your "Settings" tab, under account, select "People and Roles", select "add New User", Create the user using YOUR OWN EMIAL (yes the system will allow for this!). I name mine things like "5dmk2 Portrait rig", "Portrait light kit 1" ect... Using first and last names of course. Then make sure to make this an employee of each of your brands this gear will  be used by. You will then save your new "employee". Now you will receive an email asking you to create your new user account, disregard it, delete it, don't deal with it. (if you do it will try to get you to create a new user name, password, and enter a valid email address, this of course is not at all what you want to do, it's both a waste of time and will be of no benefit to you. 

  When you create a new even you will notice the gear (your new employee) shows up in the scheduling photographer section. Now you have the ability to schedule your cameras, lights, backdrops, sets, what have you if you have the ability to schedule multiple shoots at the same time and prevent yourself from booking a job where you have enough cameras and lenses but need 6 lights, but they are all used already for another booking!

  Click "quick view" to see exactly what to do!

  If you have any questions on how to do this feel free to contact us, you can use the forum, email me directly atrdh@kalistaimaging.com or even call me via my direct number. really I do not mind, if I am free I will answer. 

  Hope this helps. 

  David Higgins

  
  
  
  Gear Scheduling.jpg
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  David Higgins > April 27, 2012 02:47

  I have found quite of few of these so if anyone is interested, feel free to contact me. 

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  Troy Schmidt > August 11, 2012 02:10

  Very good workarounds!!!  

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  David Higgins > August 15, 2012 03:42

  Thanks, we are working out a few more to fine tune our process in here.

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  David Higgins > August 15, 2012 03:49

  A new tip for you:

  Sadly we cannot currently add specific job titles to each individual employee.

  We have photographers, a video guy, an MUA, a hair stylist, an art director, a lighting tech, an interior designer and sales staff and assistants.

  When creating a contract you see that everyone you assign tot he job is tagged as photographer, or videographer, or what ever you set the primary to be. BUT DID YOU KNOW??????

  If you go into your ShootQ account, go to the SETTINGS tab, go to the PEOPLE AND ROLES page, then go the PERSONNEL TYPES tab. Here under each brand you can select only one title to show on your scheduling section of contracts.

  What we have done is generalize this title, by selecting the drop and choosing CUSTOMIZE, you are able to add a new title for your staff. Now this is very very important, make sure you fill out both section, SINGULAR and PLURAL.

  We used the title "KI Team Members", so when we book the session we can add all the members of the team we need, without it showing the client we are sending 15 photographers, instead we are sending 15 Team Members.

  Hope this helps.

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  David Higgins > September 27, 2012 07:33

  Here is another workaround discoverd by: Nathan Bell

  "So like many of us, I need to collect as many as 3 signatures on any one wedding contract.  The "Client" (who may be mom or dad who is actually doing the booking), The Bride (specifically for her model release) and The Groom (for his model release).

  Right now the contract can only take one signature from the client.  I found a work around for this by adding an Model Release Addendum.  One called "Bride's Model Release" and one called "Groom's Model Release".  Each are specifically worded to indicated that the expected signature is from the bride or groom.  The "Client" will automatically receive an email asking that the addendums (addenda?) be signed, but then you can email the groom and the bride separately to their specific addresses asking them to go to the client area and sign the model releases.

  Seems to be working for me until we can actually have Multiple signatures on a main contract."

  Thanks for the workaround!

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  David Higgins > October 09, 2012 19:25

  Seriously, no one reads this? This is helpful information people...

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  Paul Watton > October 15, 2012 06:05

  I read it. Great stuff. Now can you figure out even more to your wedding contract signature issue workaround that allows us to use different variable names other than a Bride or Groom. If we are doing a model shoot we need a model release. Not a bride release. If they would just give us a "model or Talent" release variable that would be great, but in the meantime. Any thoughts?

   

  Thanks.

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  David Higgins > October 15, 2012 07:18

  Hey Paul,

  If I am getting this right, what you can do, is create yourself new "Shoot Types" and connect these to Pictage under other, or maybe a category that matches closely enough. Then, add your contracts, Models Releases, what ever you need. I have quite a few different contract for everything from shoots, to just product sales I run through here for simple invoicing.

  Then, like with the Multi Signature, add an amendments you might need, and title them appropriately. 

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  Ben Bonilla > October 25, 2012 13:22

  Hi David,

     Where is the workaround for the "request a quote button"?  In another thread you mentioned that you placed your pricing on 3 pages.  Did you have to upgrade your Shootq account to do it?  All I really need is for the Request a Quote button to say is "continue"

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  David Higgins > October 25, 2012 17:45

  Hi Ben,

  OK, so yes, I have the Hub account with Pictage, so I do have the ability to make unlimited pricing pages.

  No as for the "request a quote" button, not something you will have the ability to change on your end. So, what I have done....

  On my main website I have my services pages set up with package info and pricing available for the client to see. Here I also make sure to let the potential clients know that we offer special package add on discounts as well. If they click on any of the Hyperlinks, they are sent directly to the corresponding ShootQ price page, rather than sending them the "Share Price Info" email which gives them a list f all your price pages at once. This is where you get the "request  quote button". Easiest way around this right now is verbiage. Let your potential clients now that, they will see both your most common packages as well as the retail list of other items available. If they choose to order any of these items with a package, that extra discounts for said item may apply, and they, by requesting the quote will get a final quoted price very soon.

  I know, it's not what you want, but it' a way to use it to your advantage.

  With having unlimited pricing pages, I am up to 12 so far, so I can have prices for specific genres and sub-genres and not inundate my potentials with too many numbers that do not matter to them. And again, I do not work for them... I just find ways to work it and make suggestions all the time, at this point I am sure they know me by name in their office.

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  Jason Lloyd > October 28, 2012 05:56

  Absolutely no work-arounds for color coding jobs in calendar I assume. Thanks for the header work-around...seems to be working thus far

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  William Rust > January 29, 2013 10:25

  Dig it!
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  David Higgins > March 18, 2013 19:52

  Sorry Jason, nothing I can find at all for color coding internal calendars in ShootQ. Makes no sense actually, they opened the color coder for external and locked it out for internal. Something they should change indeed as I have several brands in my account and see a mess of a calendar being the same color from every brand.

  No, with multiple brands what I did was send the ShootQ calendar to my Google calendar, then sent it back to ShootQ, giving it a new color allowing non multibrand staff to see the color coding on the calendar, but myself as the master account user, I see a jumble cluster of course of every brand on every calendar without separation which is a problem.....

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  Carrie Richards > June 17, 2013 02:46

  What about a work around for my leads that I do not book lingering around in my ical calendar? I would love to have these disappear since I am not shooting them...

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  David Higgins > October 02, 2013 03:42

  You can makeit so you do not see the leads calendar and only the booked by deleting that link from you ical. They are separate.