Studio Management on A Budget – Free Photography Studio Online Booking!

I run a small Photography Studio Management Software business, designed for smaller studios running on a budget.  The current version of the product, PSM Quest added  automated Calendar and Event Schedule tracking integrated with Google Calendar (Gcal).  This allows any of our users to publish their event with detailed schedules to Google Calendar (Gcal) with a few clicks and in less than 20 seconds!  We already had full integration with the Outlook Calendar, but 75% of my customers were running the product on systems wihotut Microsoft Office installed so I programmed a robust solution at no additional cost to support their needs.  The Gcal is not only displayed live in Quest but can be synced and accessible from any mobile device (alerts included) and can also be easily embedded in the Studios Website. 

My pitch and practice is to do more with less but without sacrificing quality.  Another common request I have had is about the support for a Photography Studios Online Booking with automated notifications of new requests.   Running Gcal to track and display your appointments, sessions and bookings is an excellent way to go as it can be accessed and synced by so many sources.  Do not be deceived by the “free” price there is nothing better that reaches as far on the market today, but wouldn’t it be nice to have it also accommodate appointment/booking requests and at the same price? I searched for such a solution and much to my surprise found a very user friendly and professional product that does this very nicely!  Enter Tungle!! 

Tungle Can be synced with Gcal and Outlook, among others, displayed and running on your Website or mobile devices.

 

 

I was able to set up, sync with my Gcal embed there booking code via copy paste into my website using the Web Widget in a couple minutes time.  It can also set up in FB, WordPress Blogs.

Here is the Master Schedule in Quest and online in the Studios Website, the source of the Tungle sync.

Here is a demo of both the Gcal and Tungle Booking agent embedded on one page in a Studios Website.

 

 

To book all the customer does is drag on the Free times.

Then add meeting details.

The customer receives a confirmation.

The studio receives an email and can also respond/book in Tungle.

Tungle also provides a beautiful stand-alone Calendar that can be linked to from your site. Here is the link to my demo calendar.

This is a great one for any Studio on a budget or not, I would encourage anyone interested in adding free online booking to your business to give them a spin, you will not be disappointed!  The rest of this post is quoting information provided on the Tungle site:

Tungle what?

Tungle.me is a scheduling application that syncs with your existing calendar.

• Eliminate double-bookings, time zone mishaps and the back-and-forth of finding a time to meet
• Easily schedule meetings, inside or outside your organization
• Invite others to schedule with you, without having to sign up

Is Tungle a calendar?

No… not yet. Tungle.me enhances your existing calendar, giving it the flexibility and agility you need to easily schedule meetings with anyone, inside or outside your company, no matter what calendar type they’re using.

What calendars does Tungle.me work with?

Tungle.me syncs with Outlook (with or without Exchange), Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Entourage for Mac and Lotus Notes.

Why would I use Tungle.me over just my calendar?

Tungle.me lets you propose multiple times in meeting invitations, share calendars across systems, inside or outside your company, and create a personal scheduling page with custom availability where people can see when you’re free and schedule meetings with you. It also automatically prevents double bookings and adjusts for time zones. Your calendar alone doesn’t give you that much agility.

Do people I use Tungle.me with have to sign up or download anything?

No. People can reply to your meeting invitations, or send you invitations through your Tungle.me page, without ever signing up or downloading anything.

 

Photography Studio Management Software Nirvana – Sneek Peek!

Click on any image for a larger view

On a much needed break from code and building  this evening, as mentioned I’ve been  inspired and have working overtime on an upgrade of my Photography Studio Management Software product.  It is 95% complete, a few more adjustments, finishing up the 80 pages of documentation, recording the how too vids and a bit more testing – the fun stuff!

This version has the basic functionality of the previous but a much cleaner and intuitive interface/workflow.  I have also added some really nice new functions based on queries and interest from customers over the last year since its initial release as well – more to come.  A big one is a live Google calendar with buttons to allow anyone to link/upload there events and appointments right from the program – this makes it available to iphones etc – the calendar is also running live internally.  On previous releases I was only able to support this process with users having Office 2007 installed,  now anyone can use and display it.  GCal is awesome in that it can also sync with Outlook (I do as well with the program) hit the iphones and also hang out on your web site – all for free!

Below is the Google Calendar running in Quest with an open event.  Events may be opened Quest the same way they are on line, just by clicking on the name.  In the display you will see another addition, the ability to produce a detailed Event schedule, it includes the type shoot, client, photographer, and times/titles of the key events for the session.  This becomes available to any web or mobile device and with alerts. The big challenge with Quest was that I support both Office and Non-Office users, with Office Outlook the process is very easy without on the other hand this idea took me many hours of design and testing!!  In a couple clicks and less than 20 seconds data can now be exported to a Non-Office System to Gcal!

In addition to listening to customers and folks interested in the program I constantly follow the Big Players in the business. I have scoured each process/workflow/form they offer asking myself – how could I offer the same functions?  Realistically most of it I could not touch, they have budgets, staffs of skilled programmers and tools but if there is any way a similar function could be designed, built and offered with no operating expenses, training, time or Staff I think I have done a pretty nice job.  The big goal has always been to fill a gap in the market supporting the needs of the 1,000′s of smaller studios in the world with an affordable product and it has worked quite well this last year.

Another function I have added is contact call management. Below is the Main Screen of that page, all of your planned marketing/cold/follow up calls required for that day are displayed – the record to document the call is readily available by clicking on the item.  Each of the pages throughout the program now tabbed by subject, very clean and much easier to manage a business with! 

Below are a few more samples of this work in progress. Edition and Image Tracking.

Package and Job Quote Management Tab.

Product Management Tab.

Ordering Tab.

 

Wireless Camera Control and Bracketing Overdrive on a Budget!

       

Click on any image for a larger view.

In HDR photography having a good range of exposures is key and although I have done fairly well with my cameras limits of 3 bracketed shots I have been exploring ways of expanding my bracket range other than manually stepping through each shot on the camera.

I stumbled on the amazing Promote® Control ($299) product which allows you to remotely control and set the bracketing parameters and then trigger the shutter. What this does is override the manufactures presets in the camera and any of the supported Canon or Nikon cameras will shoot any number of bracketed shots at any EV! Unfortunately they did not support my camera. Always being amazed that the upper end Nikon’s could bracket 10 shots, I kept digging looking for an alternative to the Promote product.

Update 4-28-2010 – Another soution on the market – The Open Camera Control (OCC) open source project is now complete, a really slick project using a Nintendo DS as the controller.  It does require an assortment of parts semi intensive soldering and programming but may be worth the effort to many as it can also  provide time-lapse shooting with built-in alarm clock and has a Sound Trigger function to name a couple.  They really created a stir in interest and traffic, more than likely the hundreds of thousands – nice!  I drew in a whopping 20 readers here!!

Lining up the three solutions I am still convinced my solution here is the simplest and most cost effective and to top it off neither of the other solutions have a wireless interface! 

First challenge was the software, Nikon Control tethering software did not support my camera, DIYPhotobits.com Camera Control on the other hand hinted that it might work. After several tests I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the product with my camera, it worked perfectly! I also tried every other free/downloadable tethering  software available but none came close to DIY.  Now my $700 D5000 can bracket even more than 10 the $2k to $7K Nikons are limited to - I have successfully tested bracketing on my camera up to 12 shots.

Next step was to find a remote access solution, I could shoot with a Laptop Hardwired to the camera just like the Promote but wanted to try and get a wireless trigger in play. I was able to do this with two pieces of gear, the Cables Unlimited USB-WIRELESS Dongle Set ($35 – a solution I had seen on a blog) and a cheap Netbook from ebay ($85 – my solution for mobility) running Windows XP.  The Netbook was to support my field work, it is light and with it running on batteries I can take it anywhere (7 inch screen and 1.5 lbs).  The USB set had to be modified with $5 worth of parts from Radio Shack to be able to run it on batteries, out of the box it only operates plugged in. In the picture you can see my Radio shack battery case (4 AA batteries with an on/off switch) mounted to my tripod handle with 2 small screws, the dongle transmitter base was also attached to the battery case with some double sided Velcro. To get a similar professional rig from Nikon WT-4A Wireless Transmitter is about $600, it does offer much better range and performance however.

Now I can program and bracket any number of shots up to 20 feet away from my camera with a total cost of $125.  $175 less than Promote and with wireless, they do not even support this, you are hard wired to you camera at all times!

DIYPhotobits allows you to adjust most of the settings on your camera remotely and also has some wonderful time lapse controls. The images may also be tethered/sent back to the Computer immediately after the sequence. 

 

Photography Studio Management Software – On A Budget!

The chrome has been polished!

After over 250 hours of work in my not so spare time I finally finished up last night making my deadline of today to have all versions ready and posted to purchase. I initially came out with a product that would run on systems with MS Office and Access 2007 installed a couple weeks ago, the newest releases will run on any PC with XP, Vista or Windows 7 and with or without Office 2007 installed opening up my market prospects quite a bit.  I can safely say this perfomance and cost wise the final product is the most affordable of its kind on the market today at $29.95.  The closest offerings on a smilar scale run $100 to $395 and with not as many features -;0)

Looking back I am not so sure I would do this again but it was a very rewarding project to design and build and make every odd idea I had no idea how to make work – do just that. Now a new chapter begins, tech responses and I am also set to host some web conferencing for demos and questions if needed using DimDim at no cost! Gave them a test run Friday night and was just amazed at the performance of their free offering – up to 20 participants, full audio for all participants and all of the other stuff offered by all of the big dogs out there – just amazing.

If you are reading about this project for the first time and are interested give us a visit at PSM Quest.

 

Photography Studio Management Software Suite

 

Along with convalescing to stay busy I have been able to get some much needed wrap up work completed on a product I have been designing. The product will be called “PSM Quest” and was initially a project to support my very small studio only shooting Fine Art Photography and I had the bad idea to expand it and offer it for sale after a few queries. In addition to the product I also had to build out the webspace/site to host the offering, vids, users manual and web positioning – sitting at about 180 hours of sleepless nights right now-;0)

It is a fully functional Photography Studio Management Software Suite designed to support the day to day business management in a small studio/shop at an affordable price – will come out with a onetime cost of $29.95 for unlimited users. I spent days searching for such a thing and it did not exist, most Suites offered by the industry leaders will set you back $300 to $2,400 a year, each year, yes they are annual subscriptions with many add on costs for expanded functions and per user fees. Do I offer everything they do? Of course not, I am a one man company with no budget! My goal was to match the essential, must have features provided by the most robust competitor offerings in the industry.

The product is complete, just need to “polish the chrome” a bit and finish the support material. Above  is a pic of the Website Main Page (up and running with some demos in place) and below the PSM Quest Main Menu.