• Client
  
• Client-Relative
  
• Employee
  
• Vendor
  
• Prospect
  
• Personal
  

• Client
  
• Vendor
  
• Prospect
  

• Vendor - Photographer
  
• Vendor - Photo Processing
  
• Vendor - Albums
  
• Vendor - Park
  
• Vendor - Venues
  

• Reception
  
• Religious Ceremony
  
• Stag
  
• Bridal Shower
  
• In Studio
  
• Personal
  

• At Event (things to do at the event)
  
• At Studio
  
• At Home
  
• With Client (tasks to do when with a client)
  

• Customer Work
  
• Internal Work
  

• Style Preferences (What kind of photography style they prefer)
  
• Reception Info
  
• Bat-mitzvah Info
  
• Bar-mitzvah Info
  
• Ceremony Info
  
• Studio Session Info
  
• Portrait Info
  
• Corporate Info
  
• Fine Art Info
  

• Wedding
  
• Portrait
  
• Bat-mitzvah
  
• Bar-mitzvah
  
• Article
  
• Corporate
  
• Fine Art
  

• Bride
  
• Groom
  
• Bride Mother
  
• Groom Mother
  
• Bride Father
  
• Groom Father
  
• Lead Photographer
  
• Assistant Photographer
  
• Decision Maker
  
• Competitor
  

• Date
  
• Amount
  
• Who
  
• Method
  

• Make
  
• Model
  
• Pages
  
• Recipient
  

• Make
  
• Model
  
• Size
  

• Inquiry (couple is inquiring)
  
• Quoted (we've given our pricing)
  
• Accepted (they have accepted)
  
• Scheduled (we've scheduled people/events)
  
• Event Week (it's happening this week!)
  
• Proofs (we've sent them the proofs)
  
• Photo Touch Ups
  
• Albums/Frames (we are doing the albums)
  
• Delivered (we've delivered everything we need to deliver)
  
• Final Payment Collected
  
• Thank-you & Referral Bonus Card sent
  

• Recipient Determined (for the bride, groom, parents etc...)
  
• Photo set
  
• Sent to Photo Lab (album ordered)
  
• Album Assembly
  
• Accepted
  

• Photo Set
  
• Sent to Photo Lab (frame ordered)
  
• Frame Assembly
  
• Accepted
  

• Send proof list to lab, +3 days
  
• Review prints received from lab +10 days
  
  

• Confirm Event location and time, - 5 days
  
• Confirm Photographers, - 4 days
  
  
• Gather Cameras, Stands, Lenses -2 days
  
  
• Print Maps and Directions, -2 days
  
  

• Clients
  
• Prospects
  
  
• External Photographers
  
  
• Internal Photographers
  
  

• Clients
  
• Vendors
  
• Prospects
  
  
• External Photographers
  
  
• Album Suppliers
  
  
• Photo Labs
  
  

• Open Inquiries
  
• Events this week
  
• Weddings this week
  
  
• Proofs sent to lab
  
  
• Delivered Jobs (waiting for final payment)
  
  
• Payments Collected (waiting to send thank-you's)
  
  

• Open Internal Projects
  
• Open Customer Projects
  
• Sent to Lab
  
  
• Albums Being Assembled
  
  

• Today with Clients
  
• Today at Event
  
• At Studio
  
  
• At Home
  
  

• <for each internal photographer>
  
• All Internal Photographers
  

quote:

Originally posted by AJ:
DAYLITE USAGE IN THE PHOTOGRAPHY INDUSTRY (A GUESS)

These settings could be used by a photographer. I'm making a bunch of assumptions as I'm not a photographer by any means. I just happened to go a few wedding this summer, observed the photographers in action and remembered my own wedding.

What I'm hoping to do here is get some feedback from the pros and see if we can make a good template for photographers in general.

These settings assume a photographer in the wedding business. I have no clue how a photographer that photographs models or objects works or one that does corporate work. I think might require just a few changes.


CATEGORY/KEYWORDS/TYPE

Contact Categories

• Client
  
• Client-Relative
  
• Employee
  
• Vendor
  
• Prospect
  
• Personal
  

For my categories, I have different types of photography clients, ie. Portrait, Wedding, Pets, Schools, Commercial, Aerial, Industrial, Editorial, etc. This way, I can create a Smart List by category of photography. For example, I want to see all my Aerial clients because I'm going to rent a plane for a shoot and see if there's anyone else in the area I can shoot for while I'm 'up'. I also have Vendor, Personal, and few others like that just because I dump everyone into my DL database, but it needs more diversification. Even a 'Wedding' photographer will do other work.


Organization Categories

• Client
  
• Vendor
  
• Prospect
  

Again, I categorize Organizations a little more... Corporate, Commercial, Vendor, Portrait, etc. for the same reasons above. There are not as many Categories, because things like Commercial work include Aerial, Industrial, Product, Aerial, etc. and I use Keywords to define those down a little more.

Keywords

• Vendor - Photographer
  
• Vendor - Photo Processing
  
• Vendor - Albums
  
• Vendor - Park
  
• Vendor - Venues
  

Not nearly enough! If you want to find a client of a particular shoot, or to find the name of a contact that you did a product shoot of a carpet for, you need more keywords to refine the search. Keywords are used to narrow a smart list to the contacts or organizations you need for a particular reason. As mentioned above, keywords could include things like Product, Factory, Boardroom, Aerial, Industrial, Illustration, etc. The reason to look for a particular contact is to find an image for either a reorder or a portfolio or display. This will coincide with a database of your images. But to find the images, sometimes you need to know the client.


Appointment Categories

• Reception
  
• Religious Ceremony
  
• Stag
  
• Bridal Shower
  
• In Studio
  
• Personal
  

You don't need separate appointments for a wedding's reception, ceremony, etc. Once you start a wedding, you're there for the duration. Appointment categories will be things like; Initial Consulation, Meeting (in general), Order Placement, Order Delivery, Wedding, Family Portrait, Pet Portrait, Commercial, Architectural, Aerial, Bar Mitzvah, Headshot, Executive Portrait, etc.

Task Categories

• At Event (things to do at the event)
  
• At Studio
  
• At Home
  
• With Client (tasks to do when with a client)
  

Tasks will be things like; Order Frame, Book Order Appt, Process Images, Assemble Album, Create Proofs. For things like 'At Event', 'At Studio', etc., I use the location field in Appointment - where is the appt happening.


Project Categories

• Customer Work
  
• Internal Work
  

Project Categories are one thing I'm just starting out on. My categories, are weddings, editorial, fund-raiser, and a few others. For most of my work, I don't need a 'whole' project to track it - maybe just an Activity Set. I've been using projects a little more now for weddings, but need Activity Sets that can be 'programmed' to start/stop on other than a given number of days from the start. (But that's another thread that I've already started).


Note Categories

• Style Preferences (What kind of photography style they prefer)
  
• Reception Info
  
• Bat-mitzvah Info
  
• Bar-mitzvah Info
  
• Ceremony Info
  
• Studio Session Info
  
• Portrait Info
  
• Corporate Info
  
• Fine Art Info
  

Rather than notes, I am creating forms for this information. There are the same 'sets' of information for each of these that need to be handled differently. I'm finding forms very powerful for this. I rarely use notes, although a useful approach may still be discovered.


Opportunity Type

• Wedding
  
• Portrait
  
• Bat-mitzvah
  
• Bar-mitzvah
  
• Article
  
• Corporate
  
• Fine Art
  

For me, Opportunities are more for Corporate work where you may go through a few meetings to actually land the account. For Weddings and other events, you book an 'interview' (an appt) and you either get it or you don't. Not much followup required or tracking. I use Opportunities for commercial work where I have to prepare a quote and respond to requests for proposals.



ROLES
When you link people to your opportunities or projects, you want to know the relationship so to speak and who they are. The contact themselves would have their own category. The 'Bride' would have a 'Client' category and the 'Bride Mother' would have a 'Client-Relative' category. Hopefully the 'Bride Mother' becomes a 'Client' in the future. It is important to keep these separate because a contact with category 'Client' may have many 'jobs' with you. Each one of those is an opportunity or a project and she could play a different role in each.
Contact - Opportunity/Project Roles

• Bride
  
• Groom
  
• Bride Mother
  
• Groom Mother
  
• Bride Father
  
• Groom Father
  
• Lead Photographer
  
• Assistant Photographer
  
• Decision Maker
  
• Competitor
  

Rarely does the Bride or Groom's other family become clients. Maybe in a large city where everyone lives nearby. But today, most relatives, even parents, live 'out-of-town' and will rarely use your services again. That's not saying you shouldn't try, but if they do, it's easy enough to create them later. I use a form to record who the important relatives are. That way the information is always there if I need to refer to it later. Generally speaking, you don't need a separate contact record for even the Bride and/or Groom. I just enter their name as John & Jane Smith/Jones. They are a couple and usually prefer to deal with you as a couple. The main role you need to keep track of is the "Cheque-book Holder"... remember, beauty is in the eyes of the cheque-book holder!!



FORMS
Use forms to gather bits of useful information. While Daylite is not an accounting system, you can at least log the payments received. For every album ordered, you can specify the details as well as for frames. I'm sure there are other uses, but I can't think of any right now.

Like I mentioned, rather than Notes, forms are more powerful in recording data about a particular 'shoot'. Much easier to fill out, especially with drop-down items and check-boxes, and while you're recording the information, much less likely to forget something important. Since DL isn't an accounting package, I leave that type of information up to my accounting program.

Payment Received

• Date
  
• Amount
  
• Who
  
• Method
  

Album Details

• Make
  
• Model
  
• Pages
  
• Recipient
  

Frame Details

• Make
  
• Model
  
• Size
  

PIPELINE AND STAGES
This is where you manage your day to day business (along with the calendar). It is debatable whether you'd want a shorter opportunity pipeline and then more project pipelines. We are fudging pure Daylite theory here by going beyond the 'accepted' stage in opportunity and managing the whole process this way.

The process is that the opportunity is the driving element and that project stem of of it. For example, since each ordered album is quite a bit of work, you can make each ordered album a separate project. You would use the 'create project from opportunity' menu. You might keep all the same people linked or a have a subset (which would make more sense). Theoretically, the events (such as the reception) could also be a project, but I think that is going too fine grained and thus hard to maintain - but that is personal preference.

Opportunity - Event Pipeline (wedding, family picts, head shots, bar/bat ...)

• Inquiry (couple is inquiring)
  
• Quoted (we've given our pricing)
  
• Accepted (they have accepted)
  
• Scheduled (we've scheduled people/events)
  
• Event Week (it's happening this week!)
  
• Proofs (we've sent them the proofs)
  
• Photo Touch Ups
  
• Albums/Frames (we are doing the albums)
  
• Delivered (we've delivered everything we need to deliver)
  
• Final Payment Collected
  
• Thank-you & Referral Bonus Card sent
  

Project - Album Assembly Pipeline

• Recipient Determined (for the bride, groom, parents etc...)
  
• Photo set
  
• Sent to Photo Lab (album ordered)
  
• Album Assembly
  
• Accepted
  

Project - Frame Assembly Pipeline

• Photo Set
  
• Sent to Photo Lab (frame ordered)
  
• Frame Assembly
  
• Accepted
  

Most of these you won't really need a 'whole' project for and will more easily be handled by tasks. For example, Frame Pipeline. They select a frame, you order it, it arrives and you frame it and call them to pick it up. This could easily be handled by one Task... "Frame Order". I have created different categories for my tasks since the 'Status' fields already in DL don't really apply. For Frame Order, I use, On Order, To be Framed, Ready to Pickup. I simply change the category of the "Frame Order" task to reflect the status of that order. Much simpler than creating a whold project for it. The entire portrait or wedding from start to finish may be the project.


ACTIVITY SETS
I could only think of one forward activity set and one reverse.

Forward - Prints

• Send proof list to lab, +3 days
  
• Review prints received from lab +10 days
  
  

Reverse - External Event Preparations

• Confirm Event location and time, - 5 days
  
• Confirm Photographers, - 4 days
  
  
• Gather Cameras, Stands, Lenses -2 days
  
  
• Print Maps and Directions, -2 days
  
  

This is where Activity Sets could shine, except, they are not based on a set number of days or even hours from a 'start' date. Some of these tasks are 'delegated' to third parties. You can't predict how many days they're going to be. We need an Activity Set that is contingent upon one task being complete before the the other one starts. You can set Due Dates, but if the first task isn't complete, there's no sense starting the next task. You'd have to continuously readjust all the Due Dates. Again, I've started a separate thread about this.



SMARTLISTS
The following smartlist would ease your access to specific data. When you go multi-user, you could create the similar smartlist but with the user as an additional criteria. Off-course you could add a whole bunch more smartlists.

Contacts

• Clients
  
• Prospects
  
  
• External Photographers
  
  
• Internal Photographers
  
  

Organizations

• Clients
  
• Vendors
  
• Prospects
  
  
• External Photographers
  
  
• Album Suppliers
  
  
• Photo Labs
  
  

Opportunities

• Open Inquiries
  
• Events this week
  
• Weddings this week
  
  
• Proofs sent to lab
  
  
• Delivered Jobs (waiting for final payment)
  
  
• Payments Collected (waiting to send thank-you's)
  
  

Projects

• Open Internal Projects
  
• Open Customer Projects
  
• Sent to Lab
  
  
• Albums Being Assembled
  
  

Tasks

• Today with Clients
  
• Today at Event
  
• At Studio
  
  
• At Home
  
  

Calendar

• <for each internal photographer>
  
• All Internal Photographers
  

Hope this helps someone and hopefully we can get some feedback on this.