The Táve Studio Manager™ Blog

Today we released the first of several significant updates to the Táve Studio Manager reporting system.

This release includes several new reports and the addition of 3d charts to make it easier to visualize how your studio is doing financially and where your work is coming from.  All of the reports can be customized for different date ranges or filtered to considering only specific job types.

The Income Report charts your accounts receivable, breaking it down by either the event date or payment date, allowing you to quickly see your financial position.

The various Booking Trends reports show you your booking rate, lead rate, and income broken down by job type or lead source.

Finally, the new Top Performers reports include various "Top 20" lists, like your most profitable clients, job types, lead sources, and products.   Broken down by when they were booked or the main job/event date.

With our experience deploying enterprise security systems, VISA auditing, and PCI compliance, security has been a focus of ours from day one.  

Today we're adding three third-party application security audit certifications, as you'll now see at the bottom of the public tavestudio.com homepage:

These third-parties regularly audit us to verify we're secure and encrypting traffic.

We'll be adding additional independent certificates soon.

Update (8/2/08):

We've added an Extended Validation certificate to our application, which means you'll now see the "green bar" of a trusted site in Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 3:





Accordingly, we've also updated the login panel, including the latest information:

Did you know that you can have the system automatically add tasks and work to a job when a client accepts a quote?   Use this under-utilized default work system to track more of your work while spending less time setting up the job.

When you edit a product, look for the "Work to create when ordered" module at the bottom left, as seen in this screenshot from the "Sample Album" product included in the sample data when you create your studio:



Use the "Add Work or Task" link to create the items.   However they look when you edit them here, is how they'll look when you sell the products.

When you set a Job Phase for the item, the task won't be due until the job reaches that phase.  As always, once a job is booked (when a client accepts a quote), you can set the phase of the job just by clicking the progress bar at the top of the Job Editor:

I'm sure it will come up in our next newsletter, but I wanted to share this tip sooner rather than later...

Among the many new features we've added recently, we added a few HUDs (Heads Up Displays) to the system.   We'll be adding more HUDs as we go (if you have specific places you'd like to see more pop-up info like this, let us know!).

Two useful HUDs:

On the availability overview, move your mouse over a day with events and you'll get a quick summary of each one:

Táve Studio Manager lets you subscribe to your calendar, and in the future receive to-dos and reminders, with your favorite calendaring application.

In this tutorial, we'll see how to publish a calendar and subscribe to it with Apple's iCal, Microsoft's Windows Calendar, and Google's Calendar.

One of our users asked a good question.   The question was essentially:

At which point should you start entering data into Táve Studio Manager?

There are three choices here:

1. Only enter in new leads, looking back at your legacy system for previous or current clients.
2. Entering in all clients and job that are open in some way.
3. Going back and entering in any client or job done since a certain point in time, for instance; the start of the year.

Clearly there's a conundrum here.  The easiest choice, the first one, is also the least helpful, while the most helpful is also the most time consuming.   The choice is yours, but I definitely recommend putting in as much as you're willing to do.

The more data you enter into Táve Studio Manager, the more useful it will be for you.   There are several reasons for this...

Reporting
Our reports will be more valuable with more data, especially some of the reports and analytics we haven't released yet.   You want to see trends, especially when it comes to planning for your future.

Marketing Campaigns
As we add campaign functionality to the system, you'll benefit with more effective lists for email blasts and postal mailings.

Persistent Memory
Do you remember all of your previous clients?  Will you remember all the details if they call again now or in a few years?  Táve Studio Manager will, and that means so will you!

The fourth option

I didn't mention it earlier because we're still working on an interface for this that meets our standards, but there is in fact a fourth option:

Importing your legacy data from a CSV file. 

If you do have a CSV file, or you can create one, you can wait to do it yourself when we release our import/export system or you can go ahead and email the CSV or Excel file any time to support@tavestudio.com and we'll import the data for you (give us a few days though!).

We're slowly going through the beta registration list and hand selecting studios to send early access invites to as we put the finishing touches on the product.

If you aren't one of the studios that received the early invite code, and you really really want one and you just can't wait, contact us!  

We're verifying all studios prior to sending an invite, so please include your website address and phone number in the message.

As we've been working and adding studios to the limited beta of Táve Studio Manager, we find ourselves commonly asking "Are we there yet?" like we're in the back seat of a station wagon on the way to Disney World.   

Are we ready for the first public version, what programmers often refer to as General Availability?   Are we ready to open it up to anybody who wants an account, instantly when they register?

The answer is now, "Almost!"  

Okay, that's not as exciting as "Yes! Let's go live now!", but we're getting there and I think you'll love what we've done so far (and this is just the start of the journey.... we have so many ideas we look forward to implementing for you).

If you want to be emailed when we release the free public beta, be sure to join our mailing list and then subscribe to this blog for other updates as they come.

Now that we're back from the WPPI expo in Las Vegas, we're hard at work preparing for our free beta which we'll be opening up to select studios who request the beta.

We heard so many great ideas at the show and decided some of them are just too cool to wait for a later version, so we're adding them to Version 1!

As Jason and I work to implement the new features, we're going to open the system up to the early adopters out there as a free "beta" program.   This is a great way to not only start managing your business right away, but also to get in on the ground floor and help shape the direction of Táve Studio Manager.   Sort of like having your own engineering team working for you!

As always, we believe its your data and we're just making it easier for you to use and manage it, so you can export your data at any time, even when you're prompted to subscribe at the end of the beta.

If you'd like an invitation to our free beta program, just join our mailing list.

WPPI has come to a close... WOW!! What an amazing experience. It was so great to meet all of you, especially all of our new clients. We are thrilled about how excited everybody is about Táve Studio Manager!

If you just joined, expect to get a call from me in the next few days as we settle back into the office.

If you're attending WPPI, be sure to come by our booth and pre-order Táve Studio Manager: Home Edition!

If you pre-order one year or more, you will receive a special rate of only $20 per month.

This special is ONLY available during WPPI, so be sure to come check us out! Our normal price is $25/month, so this is a great savings!

As always there is still no setup fee!!!

Adrian, Jason, and I are gearing up for an exciting couple of days at the WPPI Expo and Trade Show! We are super excited to show off our application, which is really going to do AMAZING things for you and your business at an amazing rate of only $25 per month.

The best thing about Táve Studio Manager, for me as a user, is that I can keep track of all of my clients and check up on information about their wedding or portrait session from anywhere, without ever having to refer to their client folder in the filing cabinet. Plus, I can organize of my favorite (or not so favorite) vendors and wedding professionals and easily refer to my notes about their services to stay on top of my networking. Adrian and Jason have built a very fast web application, so I can very quickly access data whenever I want.

Stop by our Bally's Venue Booth right next to WHCC and Simply Canvas near the lecture rooms! We'll be giving out some classic Las Vegas BLING to remind you of all the shiny things you'll be able to buy when our application helps you make even more money. We all know that conventions are all about the cool stuff you get to take home with you, so don't forget to come by our booth and pick up a fun gift... you just have to watch a demo to get it!

In just a few weeks, come see Táve Studio Manager in action, whether you're just starting your photography business or already have a large studio, at the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International 2008 Expo in Las Vegas, March 16th - 19th.

We're located at the more intimate Bally's venue next to the lecture halls, instead of the overwhelming main show floor.   When you walk into the venue booths area, look for us right past WHCC and Simply Canvas as you walk in the room.