Work flow advice...

[Neil Thompson]

Hi there

Starting to get a few more events booked and looking for ideas on improving my workflow.
Currently i shoot to card and download the jpegs into a folder. (changing to teathered/Eyefi this week)

Jalbum updates its galleries in server mode and the viewing stations refresh when someone clicks a button. Using Mikes Eventview template.

I have auto generate print orders on so when someone creates an order i have a folder with their order ready to print. This is all fairly smooth and needs no real intervention (at least it shouldnt once teathered)


Now it gets messy

Keeping track of whats paid, whats waiting to be printed moving the files to print etc.

At present when someone comes to pay i click into their order folder, select the images, right click and print through windows picture viewer. Then drag the order folder into a finished folder.

Is there a way that i could create a script or something that would give me a window to enter an order number or list all unpaid orders with a button to mark them as paid? Clicking the paid button would then automate my manual. process of printing and moving folders etc.

What would you use to do this? I know some basic vba used in MS Excel but wouldnt know where to start with this one.

Cheers for any input

Neil

[richard ham]

I can offer no advice on the script side i'm afraid.

I use similar software to Mikes. When a customer places an order, the image(s) are copied into a new folder which is auto named .....customer,imageName,PrintSize.
I use FastStone image viewer to view and print these orders, so when it's paid for, we simply hit the \ key which will Tag the photo. This tells us that the order has been paid for.

[Andy Haynes]

I'm totally sure that such a script is possible, but my personal opinion is that if you need to ask how to do it (and I would too) then the hassle of creating it is going to far outweigh the benefits. Simple options:

As already suggested tag the paid or not paid in some kind of image browser. The FastStone TAG is OK, but is not read by windows, so something like star ratings that can be read by any software would be more useful.

Alternatively, and this is how I would personally do it:
When you print the order hit F2 (windows shortcut for rename)
Left arrow (takes you to the start of the folder name)
Z_ (or Z space)
Enter

Four keystrokes, takes about a second, and would send all your printed order folders to the bottom of the folder if you were sorted alphabetically. You could also look at one of the many free file replicators (google Karens Replicator for the one I use) and then set them to run every minute and move all the folders starting with z_ to another folder of printed orders to keep everything tidy.

[Neil Thompson]

Thanks very much for the replies :)

Didnt know about the windows shortcuts or file replicators, would definately spped things up for me.

Will try the method marking the images too.

Cheers Neil