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      SCHOOL - Fall Yearbook Portraits - View First with PhotoMatch (Recommended Workflow)

      How to setup and manage a school fall yearbook portrait event using PhotoMatch and offering View First.

      Getting Information from the School

      Long before you photograph a school you need to know what service items you need to provide.

      Service items are products such as Admin Files, Yearbook Files, ID Cards, ID Stripes, Stickers and Directories.  Each of these items can be produced in a variety of ways, so it's very important to find out exactly what products your school is expecting you to provide and the specifications for those items. Example:  File size, file aspect ratio, file type, text files, colors, styles, layouts, etc.  If any of the products or exports require captions such as student ID, teacher/homeroom. grade, moto, year, school logo, etc.

      CCS cannot produce products or export data you don't imported into your event.  It's critical to your success to know what you need and to get the needed information from the school so you can import it into your event.  Without this information you will not be able to provide the school with the properly formatted products and services they require.

      Things to consider:  Some photographers provide one or more of these items free to the school.  Some photographers charge for these items.  If you have to offer a rebate, some photographers deduct the cost of these items from the school's rebate.  These are all things that need to be worked out in your contract or service agreement during the booking process.

      NOTE:  Many states have passed a law requiring the Suicide Prevention Hotline be printed on the back of student ID cards.  Make sure you know if your state is one of them.  Click here for card back graphics.

      Legislation would put suicide hotline on student IDs | Southwest Ledger

      Service items your school may need

      We don't recommend offering all service items to your school, you just need to find out what they need and only offer what they require.

      In addition to knowing what items they need; you need to know when they need them.  

      • Do they need any items immediately after picture day or can they wait until after make-up /re-takes?
      • No matter when they need them, set a date so you are sure to deliver by the deadline
      • Some may need ID cards printed on site, on picture day.  Click here to learn more on print-on-site ID cards

      Admin Files

      • Do you need to provide Admin Files for your school's admin software?
        • If so, what is the name of the software you use?
        • Can they provide you with the specification/requirement data from that company?
          • If they can't or won't provide it, you can contact the company specifically and explain you are the photographer for this school and you need to know the specs for the Admin export to use with their software.

      Yearbook Files

      • Do you need to provide exported Yearbook Files?
        • If so, what is the name of the company producing the Yearbooks?
        • Can they provide you with the specification/requirement data from the yearbook company?
          • If they can't or won't provide it, you can contact the company specifically and explain you are the photographer for this school and you need to know the specs for the Yearbook files.

      Student and/or Teacher IDs

      • Do you need to provide students and/or staff with ID cards?
        • If yes, what needs to be included on the ID card?
          • Example:  Student Name, Grade, Homeroom, Student ID, Student ID Barcode, Logo, etc.
          • Are the cards the same for all students/staff?
          • What colors should the card be?  Or is there a graphic of design for the background of the card?
          • Vertical or Horizontal Cards?
          • Single Sided, Double Sided with ID on both sides, Double Sides with same back for all such as the suicide hotline
          • Do cards need to have a slot punch for a lanyard?
          • With the above information, present them with the CCS ID card layout that works best for their needs

      ID Strips (typically elementary only)

      • Do you need ID strips for each student or specific grades?

      Stickers (typically elementary only)

      • Do you need stickers?
        • What grades?
        • How many stickers per student?
        • Include teachers/staff?

      Directories

      • Does the school require one or more directories?
        • How many directories?
        • How should the directory be organized?
        • Include teachers/staff?
        • Printed on Photographic or Press Paper?

      Event Setup

      The following instructions will guide you through a fall school portrait event using PhotoMatch and offering View First marketing.

      1. Click on Events on the top menu in CORE.  
      2. On the left menu select School
        1. This narrows down the workflows, features and products to that specific type of event
      3. Click “Create New Event”
      4. Select Your Acct #
        1. Select the market type: School
        2. Select your workflow
          1. You will notice the add-on features are automatically selected or deselected based on your workflow settings.
            1. At this point you can select or deselect any add-ons
          2. Enter Your Event Name – Remember your customer will see this name, so we don’t recommend abbreviations. If you allow customer to search for events, the full name and year in the event name are helpful.
          3. Event Date: enter the date of the event
          4. Event Deadline: enter the deadline date that will appear on the website (people can still order after the deadline).  We recommend a 7-day deadline.
          5. Late Fee Date: enter the date you want to start charging a late fee. This date needs to be at minimum one date after your deadline date.  We recommend not setting a late fee date and instead using a CCS Preferred offer that automatically increases prices after the deadline.
          6. Email Campaign will be preselected based on the settings in your Workflow, this can be changed after the event is setup if necessary
          7. Offer: will default the offer you set on the Workflow. You can change it here or after the event is setup.  We recommend one of the CCS Preferred school offers.
          8. Zip Code: this is the zip code of the event location
          9. Click Continue to setup the event
          10. You will now be within the Event Details of the event you just created

      PhotoMatch Auto-Processing Dates

      PhotoMatch only auto processes data for 14 days from the event date.  If you offer make-up/re-take picture days and the date(s) are more than 14 days from the original picture day, you will need to extend the auto processing date.   You can extend the auto processing date up to 30 days after the original picture day.

      If you have a need to extend more than 30 days, please contact support.

      Formatting your Names Roster

      When you get the roster, it won’t likely be in a format to import without you editing the data columns. 

      Roster with Contact Data:  If you are getting contact data, try to get both an email and cell phone for each parent.

      Roster without Contact Data:  If you cannot get contact data you will need to use registration to collect parent's email and cell phones so you can market the photos after picture day.

      If you are required to provide service items, such as ID cards, ID stripes, directories, stickers, school software admin files or yearbook export files, you will need to know what service items you need to provide and the specs for those items.  These items may require you to import additional data and/or import some data into multiple columns in your spreadsheet.

      At minimum you will need student’s first and last name, grade, teacher/homeroom, student ID# (if school utilizes student IDs) and division. 

      The division is a group or class.  The division is how people are “divided or grouped” together and how you will identify group/class photos and what group/class photo a person belongs to. Each person’s name will be associated with a “division”.  It is extremely important that subject/parents know what “division” they or their child belongs to.  Making divisions names descriptive is important. Also, all division names must be unique.  You can’t have two divisions with the same name.

      Divisions = Group/Class

      In your spreadsheet have a column titled “division”, each class or group you’ll be photographing needs to be listed. This is how CORE knows what group photo a person belongs to.  Division names are not placed on products so you can be descriptive with your division names.

      Parents are more likely to select the correct class/group when the division is more descriptive rather than just having names or grades, since there could be more than one teacher with the same name. Use the grade and teacher name for the division like this

                  PreK AM-Mrs. Smith

                  PreK PM-Mrs. Smith

                  K AM-Ms. Jackson

                  K PM-Ms. Jackson

                  1st-Mr. Wilson

                  1st-Mrs. Matthews

      Go here to download a spreadsheet with the appropriate headers for the data you are likely to receive.

      https://www.gradphotonetwork.com/QP4Assets/1/Custom/TrainingDocs/SchoolSpreadsheet.xlsx

      Note: Some data will be imported into more than one column.   Such info will be Student ID, Grade, Teacher/Homeroom.

      Once you have your spreadsheet formatted properly for import you can proceed to import the data into your event in CORE.

      Importing your Roster

      Once you have your spreadsheet formatted properly, you can import your roster.

      1. Click on Names & Contact data on the left menu
        1. Click the link “Import names and orders”
        2. Browse for your spreadsheet with names and contact data
          1. Check Table contains field headers and click continue
        3. Check where your data was located on your spreadsheet. Likely “Sheet1” is the tab was not renamed. Note: if you have more than one sheet of data (which are tabs on your spreadsheet, you’ll import them one at a time).
        4. One this page (if your headers were correct) your data columns will automatically match up to the CORE fields.   If they don’t, you can manually select the correct option in the dropdowns.
          1. Once you double check everything is matched correctly, confirm “Import secondary addresses” is checked and click Continue
        5. On this page you may get a warning that you have product captions that have not been mapped to data. This is OK, your customer will be prompted for these captions if they order the products requiring these captions.
        6. Click Continue
      2. You’ll see a progress bar as your data imports and when finished it will tell you the number of names imported
      3. Click on Names & Contact Data on the left menu to refresh the page and see the names you just imported
      4.  Click back on Divisions/Categories on the left menu
        1. You will see all your teams/divisions listed, you will now need to select a style for each division
          1. If all divisions are going to use the same product style designs, click edit/add divisions
          2. Then click bulk update and select a style and save

      Note: Styles are the design to be used on the products, such as, memory mates and trader cards. The modifiers available to select from are assigned on your products within your offer.

      Note: depending on the products you are offering, you may not have any modifiers to choose

      Divisions/Categories

      Divisions/Categories is how your names get matched to their group/class.  Your division names will be imported with your name roster.  If any of the products you are offering utilize a product style, you will need to assign that product style to the default division, so you can setup your titles and logos for that style on the offer setup page later.

      1. Click on Divisions/Categories on the left menu while in the event

      2.  Click the "Add/Edit Divisions" button

      3.  Next to Default Division select the product style you will be using on this event.  If your offer does not contain any products that utilize styles, select None - Prompt on each order and save.

      Offer Setup

      Your “offer” is the set of products you are offering your customer. When you select your product offer for the event, you’ll also be prompted to enter any captions and logos you’d like used when producing those products.  Again, we recommend the CCS Preferred school offer.

      1. While in your event, click on Offer Setup on the left menu
        1. Here you will enter text/captions/logos for all prompts that will be the same for everyone photographed, such as, date or school name.
          1. Note: The prompts you see here are determined by the products you have in your product offering and they style you have selected.
        2. Your customer will be prompted for any captions that are unique to them when they place an order.
        3. After entering captions and logos click Save Changes
        4. If you have unique captions for each division/class you can use caption division overrides to enter those unique captions.

      Division Caption Overrides

      1.  Click on Offer Setup on the left menu

      2.  Select Caption Division Overrides

      a.  You can either select the division from the dropdown, then check custom next to any line you want to override and enter the caption and save

      b.  If you have multiple divisions, you may want to import your overrides via a spreadsheet.  Scroll to the bottom of the division override page for instructions on importing via a spreadsheet.

        PhotoMatch Settings

        Confirming your PhotoMatch settings are setup for your View First event.

        1. While in the event, click on PhotoMatch on the left menu
          1. Make the following PhotoMatch selections and Save Changes
        2. Click on Event Details on the left menu
          1. Under Quick Links, click Event Settings
        3. Scroll down to Proof Card Settings
          1. Confirm your Email Campaign is selected
          2. Next to email campaign start date: Enter the event date
          3. Save Changes
          4. Click back on Event Details on the left menu

        Registration Options

        If your roster does not contain contact information, or you'd like to collect additional information you will setup registration for this event.

        There are two options for registration.

        1. (Recommended) Individual Registration which means you will print a QR scan card that will be sent home with the student asking for parents to scan and register to receive photos.  This option is best if you plan to use QR scan cards and would like to send something home with each student.  The cards can be customized to work like a flyer to send info home with students.  This option also, automatically merges the collected contact data to the names you imported, so there are no additional steps after the event.
        2. Event Registration which means you send everyone to the same link to register.  You will have to match newly collected data to your existing names in CORE after registration is complete.  This is an extra step after the event and can cause some to miss out on the first emails and SMS messages sent.  This is best if the school is willing to email the link and/or share via social media on your behalf before picture day.

        Registration Setup

        Individual Registration Setup (Recommended)

        Note:  these settings can be set on your workflow so you don't have to go through these steps on every event

        1. You'll need to confirm registration codes have been assigned to your imported names.
          1. On the left menu click Names & Contact data
          2. If codes have been assigned you will see those codes in a column labeled "Registration Code".   If you see codes skip to step # 4.   If you don't see codes continue to step # 3.
        2. While in the event, select QR Code Registration on the left menu (if you don't see it, select Add-On Features and then add QR code registration and save) Click on Event details to refresh the page.
        3. Select QR Code Registrations on the left menu
          1. If your names don't have a Registration code yet, click the button "Create QR Codes for Existing Names"
        4. You will need to print some extra placeholder cards for anyone that shows up to photographed that was not on your original roster.   This may include new students and/or faculty and staff.
          1. Click "Create QR Codes for New Placeholder Name"  enter the number of placeholders you think you'll need and click continue. 
            1. Only create what you will need for this event.  Placeholders cannot be used on other events.  Typically 5-10 are enough. 

        Because these codes are unique, we don't want to waste codes that are not going to be used because the codes will continue to get longer and longer.

        1. Select Edit Registration settings on the left menu
        2. Select the following settings and save changes


        Event Registration Setup

        Note:  these settings can be set on your workflow so you don't have to go through these steps on every event

        1. While in the event, select QR Code Registration on the left menu (if you don't see it, select Add-On Features and then add QR code registration and save)   Click on Event details to refresh the page.
        2. Then select Edit Registration settings on the left menu
        3. Select the following settings and save changes
        4. If you plan to share the event registration link via email, sms, social media or signage use this link:  https://regis.viewyour.photos/direct/ACCT#/EVENT#  
          (make sure to replace ACCT# with your CCS account number and EVENT# with your CORE event number)

        Syncing/Enabling Event

        1. While in the event, on the event details page, click the blue “Enable Event on Retail” button
          1. Wait for it to sync to retail
          2. Click the “Enable Campaign Auto Queuing” button in the pink box

              Printing Your QR Registration/Scan Cards

              If you are using Individual QR Registration cards that you will either use to scan names into PhotoMatch and/or send home with students to collect contact data, you'll need to print your QR Cards

              If you have never installed CORE Print, follow these instructions before proceeding.

              If you don't have a QR Card template setup, follow these instructions before proceeding.

              1. Within the event in CORE, click Order on the left menu
              2. Select Queue Print Templates
                1. Under General Settings
                  1. Select the device you want to send the print job to (which computer/printer)
                  2. Template: select your QR Code Registration/Scan card template
                  3. Sort order: Division, LastName, FirstName
                  4. Queue Profile:  Sequence Cards
                  5. Click QUEUE
              3. If you are using a 4-up template which is recommended, go the Queues page (top menu). If not using a 4-up template, skip to step 5.
                1. Select Print Jobs
                2. Location and check your print job
                3. Select your printer again
                4. Select Sort order:  Division, LastName, FirstName
                5. Check Stack Sort
                6. Click UPDATE JOBS
              4. Open the CORE Print Program on the computer you sent the print job to
              5. Find the job in CORE Print (if your template is vertical) right click and print job.  If your template is horizontal, right click and select properties and change the orientation to landscape before printing.
              6. Your cards should be in order within each "stack", meaning the upper left cards are in order from page 1 upper left, next card is on page 2 upper left, next page 3 upper left and so on.  This means when you cut your cards into the 4 different stack, you don't have to resort them, each of the 4 stacks will be in division, lastname, firstname order already.
              7. Separate each division and band them together and keep each division set in alpha order so it will be easy to locate during picture day.

              You are now setup and ready to photograph your View First School Event using PhotoMatch.  

              Picture Day (If using individual registration and/or QR cards)

              Log into PhotoMatch

              1. Each photographer MUST log into a unique folder.
              2. We recommend using date, photographer initials and numbers to create unique folders
                1. Example:  KAK081422 
                2. If during the event the photographer must change batteries in the camera, or change the memory card in the camera, change cameras or change PhotoMatch tablets they need to log into a new unique folder to avoid overwriting images that may have already been taken.
                3. If picture day is a multi-day shoot or you go back for make-up/re-takes, photographer need to use a new unique folder name that was not previously used on this event
                4. If you haven't set your camera to have unique prefix names and to not reset the numbering, please refer to this article's "Preparing Your Cameras" section to make those changes before picture day.
              3. Confirm uploading is enabled so images are uploading as you a photographing
              4. As classes arrive to be photographed give the teacher their stack of QR cards and ask them to give each student their card to give to the photographer.
              5. Photographer will take the QR Card from the student and scan to pull up a name or read to pull up the name in PhotoMatch, then take photos.  Make sure you are uploading while photographing to save time later and optionally be marketing photos immediately if you imported contact data with the student names
              6. Optional:  If you are going to allow your customer to select their yearbook pose online, and you are taking multiple poses and only specific poses/images are eligible for the yearbook, you can mark those images as "yearbook allowed".  Only use this feature if some of your images are not allowed in the yearbook.   If all your images are allowed to be selected, leave all images unchecked.
                1. Note:  if you check ANY images for any person as yearbook allowed, you will need to select "allowed" images for every person
              7. Optional:  You may also mark a single image for each person as the default/yearbook pose.  This image will then be used in the yearbook export unless the selection is overwritten in CORE, the retail website or pictureadmin.com.
              8. If someone does not have a scan/QR code card, use a placeholder
                1. Note:  each placeholder is unique and can only be used by one person
              9. After taking photos, give the student the QR card back and tell them to give it to their parents
                1. The goal is the card makes it home and the parent scans to register their contact information or additional contact information.  Contact data collected in this manner automatically gets match back to the student and their photos
              10. When finished taking photos of this class, remind the teacher that the cards you gave back to the students need to be sent home with the students and given to their parents/guardians
              11. Repeat for each class
              12. If using PhotoMatch and upload while taking photos, all images will be IDd and online automatically
              13. Before shutting down, make sure all the images have uploaded or when you get back to your office open the tablet and log back into the folder to upload

              Picture Day (If NOT using QR cards)

              1. As a class arrives, photographer will select that class from the division dropdown in PhotoMatch
              2. Locate the students name and select to open that name
              3. Photographer takes photos
              4. Optional:  If you are going to allow your customer to select their yearbook pose online, and you are taking multiple poses and only specific poses/images are eligible for the yearbook, you can mark those images as "yearbook allowed".  Only use this feature if some of your images are not allowed in the yearbook.   If all your images are allowed to be selected, leave all images unchecked.
                1. Note:  if you check ANY images for any person as yearbook allowed, you will need to select "allowed" images for every person
              5. Optional:  You may also mark a single image for each person as the default/yearbook pose.  This image will then be used in the yearbook export unless the selection is overwritten in CORE, the retail website or pictureadmin.com.
              6. If someone is not in the roster, the photographer can click add new participant and enter their division, name and contact info.
              7. Repeat for each class

              After the Event

              (If you already have contact data)

              1. Confirm all images have uploaded before logging out of PhotoMatch (or when you get back to your office, log back into the same folder to finish the upload)
              2. If you didn't start your email campaign to market immediately go into your event in CORE
              3. On the event details page, click to start your campaign

              After the Event

              (If you did NOT import contact data and are relying on registration to collect contact information)

              1. Confirm all images have uploaded before logging out of PhotoMatch (or when you get back to your office, log back into the same folder to finish the upload)
              2. Make sure your campaign is set to send an email at least every other day so as new contact data is being added by parents registering, they will get links to their student's gallery
              3. Keep an eye on the data collection to make sure people are registering.  If you are not getting enough people to register to properly market your photos, you should consider printing a proof form to send back to the school to be sent home with the students.  They form can be postcard size and be very similar to the QR card you initially used

              Default/Yearbook Pose

              Before proceeding with service items, you need to make sure each person photographed either has a default or yearbook pose selected.  If a yearbook pose is selected it will be used for yearbook and admin exports.   If no yearbook pose is selected it will use the default pose for exports. 

              Yearbook poses override default poses when it comes to yearbook/admin exports.  It is possible to have the same image marked as default and yearbook.  It is also possible to have one image marked as default and a different image marked as yearbook.  In cases where there are two different images marked, the exports will use the "yearbook" marked image.

              Options for choosing the default pose (default pose will be used if there is no yearbook pose selected)

              1. Default can been selected by the photographer in PhotoMatch
              2. Default can be selected in bulk in CORE for names with no default.  You have the option to mark the first image or last image alphanumerically IDd to names
              3. Default can be selected on the ID images page in CORE be checking default next to the image you want to be marked as default.  Learn more on how to select your default/yearbook poses.

              Options for choosing the yearbook pose (yearbook poses will be used when a yearbook pose exists regardless if a default pose is selected or not)

              1. Yearbook poses can be imported via spreadsheet (Requires NameID and Yearbook Spots column in the spreadsheet)
              2. Yearbook poses can be selected by your customer on the retail website by enabling this feature on the yearbook/image exports page within the event in CORE
              3. Yearbook poses can be selected by you or your client on the pictureadmin.com site (Note: if allowing your customer to select poses DO NOT enable pictureadmin until after you disable retail pose selection and imported those pose selections)  Learn how to create a client for PictureAdmin.com
                1. PictureAdmin.com has the ultimate say-so when it comes to yearbook pose selection, so once poses are selected on that site they CANNOT be changed anywhere other than the pictureadmin.com site.  Learn how to use the PictureAdmin.com site.

              Service Items

              Need to order service items? Click below to learn how to order these items.  You may not need to order until after make-up/re-take picture day.

              • ID Cards - Do you know they style and orientation they need?
              • Stickers - Do you know the number of stickers per student they need?
              • Directories/Albums - Do you know how they need to pages laid out or type of paper?
              • School Admin Exports - Do you know the company they use and the specs for the export?
              • Yearbook Exports - Do you know the company they use and the specs for the export?

                Make-Up/Re-Take Picture Day

                1. Photographer will log into the same event in PhotoMatch
                2. Photographer must enter a new folder.  Do not use previously used folders or you will potentially overwrite images.
                3. As a students arrive photographer will select that class from the division dropdown in PhotoMatch or enter the student name in the search
                4. Locate the students name and click on the name to open that name
                5. Photographer takes photos
                  1. Note:  if you check ANY images for any person as yearbook allowed, you will need to select "allowed" images for every person
                6. Optional:  If you are going to allow your customer to select their yearbook pose online, and you are taking multiple poses and only specific poses/images are eligible for the yearbook, you can mark those images as "yearbook allowed".  Only use this feature if some of your images are not allowed in the yearbook.   If all your images are allowed to be selected, leave all images unchecked.
                7. Optional:  You may also mark a single image for each person as the default/yearbook pose.  This image will then be used in the yearbook export unless the selection is overwritten in CORE, the retail website or pictureadmin.com.
                8. If someone is not in the roster, the photographer can click "add new participant" and enter their division, name and contact info.
                9. Repeat for each class

                After Make-Up/Re-Take Picture Day

                1. Confirm all images have uploaded before logging out of PhotoMatch (or when you get back to your office, log back into the same folder to finish the upload)
                2. If you are within 14 days or the original picture day date or you extended the extended the PhotoMatch auto processing to the date needed, PhotoMatch will automatically ID the newly photographed or rephotographed images
                  1. If you did not extend auto processing, you can go into your event, go to PhotoMatch on the left menu, then select PhotoMatch Orders
                  2. Click the "Import PhotoMatch Data" button
                  3. Click on the Manage Participants and Images button
                  4. After importing, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "PhotoMatch Auto Process (Manual)" button to process the PhotoMatch data
                    1. Note:  If you have previously gone into CORE and saved IDs on the ID Images page, PhotoMatch cannot import and process your new data.
                3. Make sure all newly added names/images have a default or yearbook pose selected
                4. Anyone newly photographed will be added to the campaign automatically and be sent the first email (if your template is set on a PhotoMatch Offset)
                5. Anyone getting a retake will get the next email based on their original photo date offset

                Service Items

                Need to order service items? Click below to learn how to order these items.  You already ordered some items; you may only need to order for those photographed on make-up/re-take day

                • ID Cards - Do you know they style and orientation they need?
                • Stickers - Do you know the number of stickers per student they need?
                • Directories/Albums - Do you know how they need to pages laid out or type of paper?
                • School Admin Exports - Do you know the company they use and the specs for the export?
                • Yearbook Exports - Do you know the company they use and the specs for the export?