Next Gen: Prepay and Prepay+ Workflow

Next Gen: If you are not yet familiar with our Next Gen Sports Graphic Creation , learn more here. We've developed an online onboarding process for optimal results and expedited turnaround times without complications. If you're prepared to begin, you can start now and complete the onboarding at your own pace here. 

Prepay+: Prepay+ is an additional feature. If you have yet to use it in the past, please call or email us (646-362-5100 or [email protected]), and we will be happy to activate it in your account.

1.1 Prepay Shop Settings: Once the feature is activated, navigate to your shop settings and select your preferred settings under the Prepay tab (Settings tab on top menu > Shop Settings on the sidebar > Prepay).

• Protected Access: Selecting this option requires each of your Prepay jobs to be accessed via a unique code, which you'll specify in your Job Settings. This additional layer of security ensures that your customers have exclusive access to your Prepay shop. Without this option enabled, customers can access jobs using the job name you've designated in GotPhoto, such as "XYZ High School Spring 2023." However, managing multiple jobs for schools or leagues with similar names might lead to customers needing help accessing the right job or placing orders for the wrong job. Using the protected access code will prevent this and enhance security. 
• Title: This field determines the name of your Prepay page, which will appear in the browser tab when visitors access your site and in search engine results.
• Primary color: This setting allows you to customize the primary color theme of your online store, particularly the color of the top banner. While selecting a primary color is optional, we advise against using white. A distinct color helps keep all menu options prominently visible, enhancing the user experience.
• Test mode: Before launching your store, ensure that the test mode option is unchecked. When test mode is enabled, customers can place orders without completing payment. Disabling test mode ensures that all transactions are processed securely and effectively.

2.1 Create a new job:

• Select the tab Photo Jobs, then click Create a New Job, enter the name of the job, your picture day date, and select the type of the job.
• Access type: SelectAccess code for each person, as the system will match the photos to the individual access code.

2.2 Tagging Method: Select QR Tagging with a list of names

Before you upload your roster to the job, please review the following information:

• Make sure to match your team names with the group column in GotPhoto. This is especially important when you request team composites (memory mates).
• The fields First Name, Last Name, and Group (=Team) are mandatory for a Next Gen job. The information uploaded in the group column is critical, as the team name will be used for your composites, e.g., "Hurricanes." 
• When a coach or athlete is involved with multiple teams, it's essential to ensure that the roster includes separate entries for that athlete on each team. Rather than combining both team names within a single entry in the group column for that athlete.
• Adding the division is helpful if you have teams with the same name. (e.g., U6 Tigers, U12 Tigers). If you don't want the division used on the templates, enter the information in the Special Instructions that you will see during checkout, or add a comment when you proof the final graphics.
• In addition to these fields, you can also use the Identifier column and add the Jersey number there. The data in this column will also be transferred to Next Gen. This is just an option, not a mandatory data field.

Click Upload file to upload and review your roster. You can use our template or the one provided by the school. Next, import the names list.

The price profile selected in '2. Price Profile' affects only the proofing phase, meaning, this pricing will be available to those who order after the prepay phase, once you publish the job. Important: In this price profile, you can use the composite photo type, where you can price your memory mates differently from regular same-sized prints. 

The price profile chosen in the Prepay Settings impacts the Prepay store, we will look into it further below.

4.1. Prepay Settings

• Click the checkbox to activate the Prepay section as seen below.
• Set the deadline for the final date of orders taken. Ideally, the deadline is set 1 or 2 days before picture day. This gives you enough time to ensure the names list does not contain duplicate names or wrongly entered data before you create your QR cards.
• Set your prepay access for this particular job. Name it something simple, e.g., for the Springfield Soccer Club League, name the code SSC2024. You will only see this field if you have selected the protected access code in your general prepay settings. Otherwise you parents would need to enter the job name in the Prepay shop
• There is a way to share a direct link with parents so they don't need to type in the protected access code or job name: You can add the Prepay access code or job name to your Prepay shop URL. Here are two samples: 
  • If the Prepay access code is HHS2024 and the prepay shop URL is https://customersuccessus.gotphoto.com/prepay/login, simply add "/" and the prepay access code: https://customersuccessus.gotphoto.com/prepay/login/HHS2024 and include this link in your customer communications. 
  • A sample URL if you are using the job name (e.g., Highland Middle School) as the entry requirement: https://customersuccessus.gotphoto.com/prepay/login/Highland Middle School (leave the spaces).

However, please be aware that you would need to add these links in all notifications for the ordering phase of the job. This also means you would not be able to use the same Prepay communication profile in a different Prepay job. If you handle a lot of Prepay jobs, we would theefore not suggest this workflow.

• Price profile: Assign a Prepay+ price profile.

When you set up your Prepay+ price profile, keep the following in mind:

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  • Make sure to offer single-pose and multi-pose packages.
  • The composite photo type is not supported in the Prepay shop; customers won't be able to order if your prepay price profile contains any products for composite photos. Therefore, ensure that your Prepay+ sports price profile only includes products that are available for group and/or individual photos. The same applies to your à la Carte section.
  • You can add a memory mate print by adding an 8x10 placeholder print offered by all partner labs to your package or price profile. You can rename it to "Memory Mate" so it's clear for customers why they pay more for it than for a regular same-sized print.
  • In the price profile settings (Actions > Settings), you can set the purchase of a package as mandatory. The minimal order value restriction is also supported for the prepay shop.
  • You can offer the Download All package, digital multi-pose packages that include multiple downloads and individual downloads.
  • Your Prepay shop supports extracted images to add Green Screen backgrounds to your Prepay+ price profile. The Individual Download With All Backgrounds product is another upselling option for your Prepay shop.
• Ask parents for...

Here, you can select and customize the fields you show parents in the job. We highly recommend requesting a roster from the league or organization. This way, you can make it easy for parents and ask them only for their kid's name. Our system will automatically find the player and show the parent the list entry for matching names.

If necessary (players with the same names or in multiple teams), you can also request details for the Coach and Team. Please note that consistency in how customers input information might result in additional tasks for you. For Next Gen, it is crucial that the team name for players on the same team is entered identically. For instance, a team's name might be input as "Tigers," "U12-14 Team Miller," "Tigers U12-U14," or "Thursday Practice Coach Miller Tigers." It's important to ensure uniformity in team name entries to avoid errors.

Save settings before you continue. 

4.2 Prepay+ Photo Selection Deadline

The photo selection deadline is the final day for parents to choose images for their prepaid orders. By default, this deadline begins when you change your job status to "Selling" and ends after ten days. You can adjust this timeframe by modifying the preset date. We advise picking a timeframe that spans over a weekend. Throughout this period, the system will send multiple reminders to parents who have yet to select their photos.

4.2 Upgrade to a bigger package

Your customers will be able to upgrade from their prepaid package to a package with a higher value during the photo selection period.

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  • Customers will only see the difference that they need to pay for the bigger (higher priced) package, making it easy for parents to upgrade when they like their kids' photos.
  • The Prepay+ price profile that you select under your Prepay job settings will be applied here.
  • You can activate the Upgrade to a bigger package feature even if the job is already in the selection phase.
  • Customers can only upgrade to a higher-priced package. Customers won't see those packages as upgrade options if the price is the same. If they change their mind and want to keep their initial package, they can switch back to it before confirming their selection.
  • The upgrade feature does not support personalizable products (i.e., products that allow parents to add personalized text, such as the child's name, to the photo). Therefore, parents won't be offered upgrade packages that include such products. In your prepay settings, a hint similar to this one will appear:

4.2 Job Coupon:  Only set a coupon if you plan to use it in the Proofing phase of your job, as it does not impact your Prepay/ Prepay+ orders. We recommend incorporating discounts in the Prepay phase into the prices set on the Prepay Price Profile. For teachers or coaches, you can utilize custom vouchers. They can be redeemed in your Prepay shop.

If you don't check the box for Batch Shipping, your job will automatically be set to direct shipping. When you select Batch Shipping, you will notice that, unlike a proofing scenario, you can’t offer direct and batch shipping in your Prepay shop. The reason is, Prepay works with order collectors, they can either be set to one of the two shipping types.

we recommend setting your batch transfer settings to Manual Processing, as releasing your Prepay orders to the batch is also manual. If you need to set a different shipping address, save settings first, then you will see the option to adjust the batch shipping address. 

Please note:  The Advanced Batch Shipping settings will only be applied in the proofing shop and won't apply for Prepay/ Prepay+.

Once Prepay+ is enabled in your account, you will find the Prepay+ communication profile "MUST USE—Prepay+ (With Access Code and Proofing Phase)" in your Communication Profiles section. Add this communication profile to your Prepay+ job. 

You can adjust the wording of each individual notification by clicking Actions > Edit next to each notification.  

This communication profile includes notifications and triggers for the following events:

• Prepay phase: "Before prepaying deadline." This email template includes placeholders for your Prepay shop URL, the Prepay access code, and the Prepay deadline. Important: If you have not selected the protected access code in your general Prepay settings and customers need to enter the job name instead, please adjust the wording and placeholder in all notifications for this trigger. You would instead use the placeholder for the job name. 
• Photo Matching and Proofing phase of the job: "After a job is set to Selling": For this event, we have created two types of notifications: 
• Emails / Texts that notify parents who have preordered (customer group Prepay Buyers) that they can now select their images for the orders they have placed. This email includes a placeholder for the page where customers can match their photos to the order they have placed. Here is a sample email: 

A "Prepay buyer" is a person who has placed an order that has not yet been populated with photos.

Once the order has been populated with photos (either by the parent in the Prepay+ shop or by you in the admin area), the customer will be considered a "Buyer" and will no longer fall under the "Prepay Buyer" type.

Once your customers click the link, the page will show them the deadline for selecting their images. Prepay+ customers have X days to select their images (the number of days is defined by what you selected in your Prepay job settings). Later in this guide, we will discuss the details and customization options in more detail. 

• Emails / Texts that notify only potential buyers who still need to place an order that they can now view and order their kids' photos in your proofing shop. This email includes a placeholder that takes them directly to their child's gallery.
•  We also added a notification for the trigger "Archiving Date"; those emails will only be sent to potential buyers who have yet to place an order in your proofing store. 
•  Our preloaded Prepay+ communication profile also includes notifications for the trigger "Batch shipping deadline." If your job is set to direct shipping, you don't need to delete these notifications; the system will not simply send them out because they won't be triggered. 

Save the job settings before you continue. 

• In a last step, activate Manual Revision for your job: Under the Job Settings, click Actions > Advanced Job Settings, on the next screen select "Enabled" under Revise orders manually.

Switch your job to Prepay to activate the Prepay phase. Customers can only place orders in your Prepay shop if you set the job to Prepay.

After changing the job status to Prepay, customers can navigate to your Prepay shop and place orders. The URL of your Prepay shop consists of the URL of your proofing shop plus the suffix "/prepay" e.g., https://customersuccessus.gotphoto.com/prepay 

If you want to check the customer's view in your Prepay shop, you can copy the Prepay access code that you set up in your job and navigate to your Prepay shop page:  On the top of your GotPhoto dashboard, find the link to your Prepay shop under "To your Shop...", here click the sub tab "To prepay shop".

10.1 Customer Information

Customers enter the Prepay access code or Job name in your prepay shop to access the store. 

Next, parents/guardians enter their names and contact details. The phone number is optional unless you have set it as mandatory in your Communication Settings.

10.2 Player Information

In the follwoing step, they will be requested to enter their child's data.

If you have uploaded a names list up front, the system will detect the name, even if the data is slightly different (e.g., nickname instead of legal name, middle name missing, wrong grade or teacher); this feature will reduce duplicates in your names list.  Parents will see a pop-up where they can confirm to keep the subject data that is already registered. Parents can keep their data entry if this is a new player or if the original name on the names list had a typo. 

Parents /guardians can also add more children; these players must be in the same Prepay job. If they have received another or several Prepay access codes, they must finalize the order in the first job. Afterward, they will see an option to purchase in a new session for a different event. 

Next, customers click "Confirm and shop products"

10.3 Product selection

The Customer can now add products to their cart. 

• In case you use custom package preview images, they will be displayed in the shop instead of the sample images in the screenshot below. 
• If you have set the package as mandatory in your price profile settings, it will be reflected on top of the à la carte items.
• In the scenario where they purchase for siblings, the system will require them to select the child they want to order for once they select the package.
• If the price profile contains backgrounds, customers can view the available backgrounds and select their favorite. This is only relevant if you plan also to offer the PNGs to your customers. Next Gen will send the extracted images back to your job, and you can then decide whether you want to sell them to the parents or not.  

10.4 Checkout 

After adding products to the cart, customers navigate to the cart icon and can review and adjust their cart content. 

Next, they enter the checkout process by hitting the "Proceed to checkout button.

• After the checkout process, customers will be prompted to this screen.
• View my order will take them to their order overview page

• Order for a different child will log the customer out of the existing session so that they can start a new session and enter an additional Prepay access code. 
• Back to shop will keep the customer logged into the shop. They will be directed back to the product page, where they can purchase more products for the child /children they already registered. This will, of course, create an additional order. 

Under the Prepay Settings of the job, you will now see two additional buttons:

•  View Orders takes you to the prepay order collector for this job. There you can see all orders that have been placed for this prepay job
• Export prepay orders will create an export of all prepay orders for this job. Once created, you can find the export by clicking List exports
• After uploading images and activating the access codes, please do not hit the "Populate photos" button before the selection period you defined in your prepay job settings ends. If it already happened, please use the Unpopulate button before switching the job to selling, so your customers can select their images.

12.1 Names list Check

Before picture day and ideally after the prepay deadline, we recommend reviewing the names list to eliminate duplicates or correct any incorrect data. Also, ensure you have the correct team name for all players, this part if crucial for your graphic creation via Next Gen.

Navigate to the job's Settings page, click Manage Names, and use the Duplicate trigger first. It will find all possible duplicates. If you have duplicates, hit the Show possible duplicates button in the second step, as this will set a filter and only show you the possible duplicates.

Next to each names list entry, you find the option to merge the player with another duplicate. Follow the steps on the screen to merge duplicates into just one entry.

Please note: Afterward, the player will have two access codes on the names list. However, the system will generate only one QR card for the player, the QR code of the entry you kept on the names list. This means you won't have two QR cards for the same player.

12.2 QR Card Creation

Before you generate your QR cards under the job's QR card tab, you can add additional blank cards for new students or additional staff members/ coaches under the job's Settings page (optional).

Next, generate and print your QR cards, and take them to the shoot.

If you are new to the QR Tagging workflow, please check these articles for detailed workflow tipps: Shooting QR Codes: Best Practices

For the Barcode Tagging workflow, we recommend this article Barcode Tagging With GotPhoto

Once everything is set up correctly in Photo Management, every subject has their own gallery under their unique access code, you have also uploaded your group photos (if available), you are ready to switch the job to Selling. 

Please refer to this article, or watch the following video. 

Now, when the Next Gen Graphics are in your GotPhoto job, we need to add an additional step to the regular Next Gen workflow in a proofing scenario, as we don't have the composite photo type available for Prepay:

In Photo Management, click More > "Download original Photos"

Important to mention: You already learned that the composite photo type is unsupported for Prepay+ price profiles. However, all Memory Mates you order through Next Gen will still be marked as composite photos in Photo Management. This won't cause any issues.

Switch the job to Selling. This will trigger your emails to both customer groups, prepay buyers, and potential buyers who have not pre-ordered for their child.

We will here focus on customers who have placed a prepay order and can now select the images for their order. 

In the video, you see that it is essential that the customer selects the memory mate photo solely the Memory Print:

- If you offer the Memory Mate in your à la carte section, it is usually higher priced than the regular same-sized print. 

- Customers may also select the memory mate for a product that is not suitable such as a round button,

Unfortunately, that is a risk when using Prepay+ for the Next Gen workflow. However, besides preventing the issue by giving customers instructions via your job notifications, you can still correct orders afterward. We will look into this process later. 

How do you know if a customer has selected photos for their order? 

• Navigate to the order collector of the job (Job's settings page > Prepay > Review orders) 
• The Photo Selection column will indicate if they have already finalized the selection process. 

Here is a sample collector. One customer already selected the images for their order, while the other did not yet proceed with their selection. After the selection period has ended, navigate to your Prepay order collection. The quickest way to get there is via your job's prepay settings. There, click View Orders.

In the order collection, hit the Populate Photos button to populate the remaining order(s). The system automatically selects the starred index image in the player's gallery.

Then, release the orders by clicking the blue button. Because we selected batch shipping, it says "Add to batch", however, we have activated Manual Revision for our job, hence the orders will first be sent to your Manual Revision tab.  

Orders with missing photos will be moved to a new order collection. Once photos are available, you can either populate them or cancel them. 

We mentioned earlier that customers may select a wrong photo during the selection process, therefore we initially activated Manual Revision for the job. 

Head over to your Manual Revision tab (Orders tab on top menu > Manual revision tab), and follow the steps indicated in this video: 

In the final step, after all orders have been released from Manual Revision

• Navigate to the Orders tab > Batch Shipping and open your job's batch collection. 
• Press Prepare production
• On the following screen, review the shipping settings for future orders and send them to your lab.