Creating a Session Stage

Commerce

Session Stages are the timeline you will set up for a session. You can determine when the session will be online, when your customer can place orders, and when to pause the session. You can have an endless number and configurations of session stages but you must have at least 1 stage for a session to go live. The three types of Stages are:

• Pre-order: Take pre-payments before picture day.

• Pause stage: This is the production time between Pre-order and Proof stages. Customers cannot order during this stage. 
• Post Pay, Proof Stage/Re-Order: Opens the session for customers to view the images from picture day. You can set up many different versions of this stage with a variety of prices at specific stages.

Jump to:

• Creating a Stage
• Stage Scenarios for public galleries
• Stage Settings in Pre-order/Pre-Payment and Re-order/Proofing
• Pause Stage

Creating a Stage

1. To create a stage you must be within a Session Template or Session.
2. Click the green +Stage button in the top right corner.         
3. The top section of the stage creation page includes both compulsory and optional information. Read the descriptions of each setting before making changes. Setting the Stage Type will determine the options available in the lower section of the page.
   

Stage Scenarios for public galleries

When a stage is marked as public, the following scenarios are supported:

Pre-Order

• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via the Session or Subject access codes if they are configured. This is always the case regardless of the public access setting.
• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via the "Client List" shown on your website Search Page. If your Search Page layout includes the Client List.
• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via its unique URL.

Re-Order

• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via the Session access code if set (public galleries only).
• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via the "Client List" shown on your website Search Page. If your Search Page layout includes the Client List AND Subject Search, it will not be enabled.
• The Shopping Cart will be accessible via its unique URL (public galleries only).
  • NOTE: If a re-order stage has "Public Access" only public galleries will be shown to visitors. Visitors will need to use their Subject passwords to view their Subject Galleries.

Pause

• The holding page will be accessible via the Session access code if it is set (public galleries only).
• The holding page will be accessible via the "Client List" shown on your website Search Page. If your Search Page layout includes the Client List.
• The holding page will be accessible via its unique URL (public galleries only).

Only galleries associated with that Subject will be shown to visitors (along with any subjectless galleries). If only one gallery is found in total, the visitor will be taken directly into that gallery.

Stage Settings in Pre-order/Pre-Payment and Re-order/Proofing

Shopping Cart Forms

A form is generally used with pre-pay stages when a studio does not have the subject information. Press the blue Add Form button to upload a form. Follow the link for more information on how to create a form.

E-Commerce

Within this section, if you are offering pre-pay/proof stages you will turn on E-commerce within the stage and then select the catalog you wish to use. Set the Stage e-commerce setting to On, and then select the catalog from the drop-down menu.

When different options are marked as Yes, their specific settings will appear. Configure each setting to optimize your workflow.

Direct Fulfillment

Orders containing products linked to lab products will be sent to the lab. If set to No orders will not be sent to the lab and will need to be fulfilled by you. Only products with mappings to lab products will be sent to the lab.

 

Yearbook (Re-order/Proofing only)

Activating this feature will allow your customers to select a yearbook pose before entering the shopping cart. This information can be exported to make it easier for you to gather and keep all the data together. You can include customer instructions that can help guide customers through the selection process. Set a minimum and a maximum number of poses a subject can select, and, add tag rules to exclusively allow specific images to be available for selection. 

Welcome Popup Message

When this feature is turned on a popup message will appear right before the customer enters the shopping cart. Pop-up messages can inform customers of promotional items you are selling, ordering instructions, or a simple welcome message.

Shopping Cart Banner

This feature displays a banner at the top of the page throughout the pages of the shopping cart. There are 3 different types of banners to choose from depending on how you would like your information to appear. 

Emails

Customize how the Header and Footer of the order confirmation email which is sent to each customer. Some studios edit this section in the preorder stage to request the customer to print out the order confirmation and send it to school with their child on picture day. These edits can be promotional, instructional, or informational - the choice is yours!

Additional Options

Apply Watermark (optional): Select a watermark from your Commerce gallery.

Hold Digital Downloads: Choose when to unlock digital products to your customer.

Allow Photo Cropping: Choose if clients will be able to customize their photo selection by providing a custom crop for a photo in the shopping cart.

Note: If you intend to allow photo cropping in the shopping cart, all the products offered must have accurate Image Node definitions where image selection is required. If products do not have correct Image Nodes, then the incorrect image crop will be captured as a result. This feature is currently unavailable for Single Pose Packages.

Allow Passwords in Pre-Order: You will need to import subjects and password data before the preorder stage is activated. 
Allow subjectless orders: This allows the possibility of subjectless/public galleries.
Show ID Gate: This is always set to Yes so you can capture email and market to the customer if they abandon their shopping cart or for future marketing campaigns. You can turn this off by clicking No.

Custom Order Completion Instructions (optional): Add custom instructions for customers by clicking in the text box and typing.

Pause Stage

Pause stages do not allow customers to purchase from the store. Typically, this is set during the time the studio is processing the images after picture day and before the images are ready to go online for ordering. These are very simple but effective stages.

1. Set an end date by duration or a specific end date. This is not mandatory and you can always manually end a stage at any time.
2. Check if you want to make this stage Public Access. 
3. Read the details for the options available and set your required updates.
4. Don't forget to click the green Save button to confirm your work.