Seasons, accounts and workspaces
Version 4
Seasons, workspaces and accounts all provide a framework for grouping like jobs. The Timestone Administrator is used to assign various parameters to these groupings thereby providing a consistent working environment.
It is important to understand that seasons, workspaces and accounts are all optional and their use is entirely at the discretion of the user. Furthermore the suggestions for their use as described below are just that - suggestions. Remembering that seasons, accounts and workspaces are simply a mechanism for grouping jobs the user is free to use Seasons, Accounts and Workspaces in a manner other than their "common language" usage.
It is envisaged that most users will make use of least one of these groupings due to the many advantages they bring. School, sports and event photographers for example may define seasons and assign different offers and packages for each season. Labs may use accounts to keep track of their photographers while assigning different price lists for each account. People already using workspaces in Version 3 may continue to do so in Version 4.
Seasons
Seasons represent a calendar grouping of jobs. A school photographer for example may define a season 'Spring2009' for all jobs in that 'season'. A sports photographer could define a season 'YMCA2008' for all jobs photographer for the YMCA in 2008 while a portrait photographer could similarly define a 2010Portraits season.
The following parameters can be set for a season
- Aspect ratios and head guides
- Fields
- Paths
- Offers/packages
Accounts
Version 4 allows the user to define 'Accounts'. It is foreseen the most common use of accounts will be by labs who wish to group their work according to each of their photographer 'accounts'.
The following parameters can be set for an account.
- Pricelist for use with products and units
- Paths
- Offers/packages
Accounts are also used extensively with the Timestone Internet Ordering System especially when labs provide the service on behalf of their photographers. With this in mind three more parameters can be set per account
- EmailAdviceTo - an email address to notify a photographer of a new order
- EmailReplyTo - the 'from' address' in the order confirmation email received by the customer
- TaxRate - the default tax rate to be applied to online orders
Workspaces
People already using workspaces in Version 3 will appreciate the fact workspaces are now centralised in Version 4 through the Timestone Administrator thus eliminating the need to setup workspaces on each workstation. In addition workspaces in Version 4 allow the setting of all paths (images, graphics etc) not just template paths as previously.
The following parameters can be set for a workspace.
- Aspect ratios and head guides
- Fields
- Paths
Using seasons workspaces and accounts
In simple terms the process can be broken down into three stages
- Defining a new season, workspace or account in Timestone Administrator. Each entry requires a code and description.
- Setting parameters such as fields, paths and offers/packages
- When starting a new job selecting a season, account or workspace for the job.
The * wildcard
Whenever defining a parameter such as fields or paths selecting * for the season, workspace or account applies the parameter to all seasons, workspaces or accounts. This can be extremely useful in conjunction the @ described below
The @placeholders
Version 4 introduces three new sets of @
- @seasoncode and @season substitute the season code and the season description respectively
- workspacecode and @workspace substitute the workspace code and the workspace description respectively
- accountcode and @account substitute the account code and the account description respectively
The above placeholders are particularly useful in a path statement in conjunction with the * wildcard mentioned above. Rather than enter a template path for each account for example, the user could instead use the @account placeholder in a path statement and select the * wildcard to apply the path to all accounts. (See Setting template paths in tsAdminstrator)
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