[Video Walkthrough] All About Events

 

INTRO: WHAT IS AN EVENT?

Before we get into the specifics, let’s define an Event as something that occurs at a certain place during a specified interval of time.  Pixifi Events show up on your calendar and can be tied directly to a Client, but can also stand alone if there is no specific Client associated with it.  Events can also be single day Events or spread out over multiple days but multi-day Events must be held over consecutive days or else you will be forced to create them as separate Events.  The difference between an Event and a Client is that an Event can have various things assigned to it that wouldn’t make sense for a Client over multiple interactions, such as Event-specific Contracts, Timelines, Locations, etc for each specific occurrence.  

EVENT TYPES (00:55)

Every Event needs an Event type as a way to differentiate it from other Events.  You can create as many Event types as you want and even make some private that only you and your staff will see internally.  If you have multiple brands you can also make certain Event types that are only applicable for a specific brand or available to all brands.  A great example would be a “Wedding" or “Portrait" Event type.

CREATING/MANAGING EVENT TYPES (01:19)

To create or manage your Event types, just go to SETTINGS, LISTS/TYPES, Event Types.  From here you can click on the [+ Add Event Type] button.  A form will appear where you can enter in the name of the Event Type (like Corporate Headshot), choose the Category, which in that example would be “Other", if you want the Event Type hidden from the Inquiry form drop down list and only you and your staff would use that Event type internally.  And then choose a color and a text color and click on the [√ Save] button and your new Event Type is ready to go!  Also in the listing, whichever Event Type you “Star" that Event Type will be the default selected Type in the drop down box on your Pixifi Inquiry form.

 

EVENT CATEGORIES (01:59)

Categories are different from Types.  There are only two (2) possible categories for any (unlimited) Event type; WEDDING(related) or OTHER.   When Events are placed in the WEDDING related category, there will be extra data fields available that actually don't show up under OTHER categories.  You can even create your own added custom fields for data you wouldn't want showing up for every Event type.  For example, let's say your studio photographs weddings and pets only.  You can set up custom data fields under weddings like grandmother of the Clients, number of groomsmen or bridesmaids, etc that you would never need or want to see for your k9 Clients!  This is the purpose and function of categories for Event types and now you can see how they differ from Event types.

CREATING AN EVENT MANUALLY (02:48)

There are multiple ways to create an Event in Pixifi.  The first way and the most convenient way is the little [lightning bolt] at the top where you can select “+ Quick Add" to add the Event.  The second is within the EVENTS module where you can click on the [Actions] button and click [+ Add an Event].  In that same module on the big calendar you can click on any date and it will pop up a little add Event form.  And the final place you can add an Event is within a Client's profile.

For this example, let's add an Event from within the Client's profile.  Now that we're here in one of our Clients profiles let's click on the little [+ Add] button at the top.  The [+ Add Events] form pops up and the Client is already preselected for you; you just choose an Event type that you’ve already created and if you haven't created one yet you can create it right there.  Just click on the [+] (plus button) and another window will pop-up.  Then you want to give your Event a name and a lot of people have different naming conventions and you can do this however you feel works best for you.  Some people will put the Event type and Client’s name so they can see at a glance what the Event is and who it's for.  Some people name their Events almost like a job number so that they can easily search their information later or if they need to have their Invoice numbers match their Event names, etc.  The beauty of Pixifi is that you can do this however you want - we just recommend you stay consistent with whatever you do choose to do so that you can stay easily organized and so that your process is easily replicated by anyone working for you.  

 

The next fields are Event date and start and end time which are not required in case your Event specifics are not confirmed just yet.  This happens frequently with weddings that are several years away from the date of booking.

 

Click on [Create New Event] and it will take you right to the brand new Event.  From within the Event screen, you can see there are so many features to go over.

 

First we will go over how you can edit an Event.  On the main Event screen on the left, you will see a blue dashed underline where you can edit text IN-LINE (meaning you don’t have to open up the edit screen). This can be a huge time saver when you’re just quickly editing a date or a time one field at a time!  To edit multiple fields at a time just go up to the top and click [EDIT] (just like we did for Leads and Clients).  

So you can see when you first land in an Event, you have access to all of the Event information, which staff members from within your company are assigned to work the Event, and which vendors might be connected with the Event as well.  If your Pixifi subscription does not include multiple staff members, you will only be able to add yourself.  If this is a feature you think would be useful in your studio, you might want to consider upgrading your plan.  

 

ASSIGNING A STAFF MEMBER (05:21)

To assign a staff member to this Event, I’m going to click on Assign Staff and you’ll see this pop up form appear where you can select your desired staff member from a drop down box.  Next you can assign them a role for the Event.  If you haven’t created any roles, you can click on that [+] (plus) button and enter a new role value which will then be available for all future Events.  Some sample roles might include a primary shooter, a second shooter, assistant, coordinator, or anything else you come up with!  This is helpful in situations where you have multiple staff members working on different aspects of one Event.  You’ll see a toggle button labeled [Auto-confirm] and what that is useful for is that you can have Pixifi send out an automated confirmation email out to those staff members where they can accept or reject being assigned to an Event.  Once you’ve added the staff member to the Event you’ll also see the option to add a Contract.  This is perfect for primary or second shooter Contracts, non-disclosure agreements or anything else you might want a hired staff member to sign upon acceptance of an assignment.  If you’re worried your Clients or other staff members will see these agreements or Contracts associated with their Event, don’t be!  They are only visible to the administrator and relevant staff member(s).  We will be going over contracts at length in Class 203: Contracts.

ADDING A STAFF MEMBER (06:37)

When you do this for the first time within your new Pixifi account, you won’t see any staff members yet besides yourself.  To add a Staff member to an Event, you will first need to set up your Staff profile in the CONTACTS, STAFF section and then click [+ Add Staff Member].  The first field it will prompt you for is the Permissions Role.  We are going to leave this blank for now because we will be covering all about permissions in the extra credit section of this class.  The remainder of the fields are self-explanatory but it should be noted that the username and password you assign to each Staff member will grant them access to your Pixifi database (which is why learning about permissions is so important).  

ADDING A VENDOR (07:14)

We will go further in-depth about our vendor's database in our Class 205: Vendors and Locations class, but for now, I will just show you how to add a vendor to any Event.  Ultimately, the goal would be to always add an associated vendor so you can track which Events you’ve worked with them, deliver images to them, and even just have their contact information available on the day of the Event in case you need to speak with them.  But as with anything in Pixifi, you can either link it up with an existing vendor profile or add it manually if you need to.  Click [√ Save] and the vendor is now linked to this Event.

I’m just going to breeze right past the Tasks section because we will be teaching you all about how to utilize that feature in Class 205: Tasks.  We will also cover Event Alerts and Event Reminders in the Extra Credit section of this class.

 

LOCATIONS (08:02)

So right now, I’m going to move through these tabs you see at the top of this module.  When we view Locations, you will see that you can add Locations and Track Mileage.  You’ll see that as you add each Location, you can keep it specific to that Event or Create a Master Location for repeat use, such as Reception sites, popular churches, etc.   One really cool aspect about using the Locations feature is that the information you input into these fields can be automatically pulled into your contracts which we will get to soon!  

 

TRACKING MILEAGE (08:31)

To track mileage, simply click [+ Add Mileage] from within the Locations tab fill out the information, and decide whether you’d like Pixifi to create an expense for the mileage, at which point it would calculate the total distance multiplied by the standard mileage rate which will default to the current US Federal rate but you can override this figure by adjusting it manually in SETTINGS and Applications Settings.  When the mileage is logged as an expense, it will be attached as an expense to that Event and also noted in your overall expenses for that year in the FINANCES tab under the money module.  For an overall report of all your mileage (whether created as an expense or not) can also be viewed under FINANCES and then Mileage, exported as a spreadsheet, etc.  

 

EVENT INVOICES (09:15)

Let’s be honest: the whole goal of all of this is to get paid.  That’s why we’re all here right?  (this is our favorite line)

So, let’s create an Invoice!!!  Click on the button [Create New Invoice] and you will see a pop-up box.  It will default to whichever brand is attached to the Event.  You’ll see that the Invoice type is already pre-selected as the Event type and the Event is listed below.  We are going to come back to the “Auto Populate from Package" feature when we get to Class 202: Invoices, because there are some pretty cool advanced things you can do with that.  

For now, let’s talk about Invoice ID.  This is basically the primary way you will organize your Invoices, so you want to come up with a naming convention that you can keep consistent.  You can even go a step further and have the Invoice ID auto-increment each time you create a new one which you will also learn about in Class 202, but for the sake of time we will skip over that for now.  The issue date is the day you create/send your Invoice and the due date is obviously the date by which you’d like the payment made in full.  The subject line is just for searchability reasons, so you can find an Invoice faster when you see the associated Client or Event name in the subject line.  Similarly to an Event name (i.e. Smith/Doe Wedding), you might create a subject line that reads “Smith/Doe Wedding Invoice" as well as Smith/Doe Wedding Contract, etc.  Naming everything in a consistent manner across your Pixifi universe will be something you thank yourself for later.  For example, when I type into Pixifi’s main search engine “Smith….." you’ll start to see the system bringing you all relevantly named items to match your search.  This is all easily searchable because of the consistency of your naming process!   

Notes are anything you want displayed on the Invoice for the Client to see such as how to make a payment via check, or bank-to-bank payments, or even just a thank you message!  

I’m going to skip over Tax and Reminder Templates right now too because we will cover that at length in Class 202: Invoices so we are just going to click [Create Invoice] and it will take us to our newly created Invoice, directly into the edit Invoices tab where we can begin adding line items to build our Invoice.

 

BUILDING THE INVOICE: (11:26)

For an Invoice to actually charge your Clients, you need to add line items with a price.  This can be a simple or as complex as you want to make it, but as you add line items, the amount will total at the bottom.  For example, you could just add a line item that reads “Mini-Session" with $250 as it’s price and send it to your Client, or you could enter multiple line items with an itemized break-down in price that total $250.  To add a line item, you would click [+ Add Line Item] and either auto-populate from a product template you’ve created or you could just manually add it however you want.  Once the line item has been created, you can also add details to any line item from within the Invoice when you want to add itemized indented details and even assign them a price value.

While it is awesome to be able to add all of these line items individually, it is way too time consuming!  What we would love to teach you by the time you get your “degree" is how to create these product templates once (perhaps adjusting them once a year to reflect the most current pricing changes) and then have them auto-fill at every turn.  Those Product Templates will be used for Invoices you send to Clients, package templates you use for easy invoicing and Proposals, Pricing Pages you could list on your website, and even Booking Pages!  These Product Templates that you take the time to create once can be used everywhere which will save you time in so many ways!  Pixifi helps you work SMART, not HARD!

 

EVENT CONTRACTS (12:53)

So now that we have Invoiced our Client, it would be wise to have them sign a Contract and because we created the Invoice first, we can set the Contract to populate line items and even payment terms from the Invoice.  (As a side note, when we teach you how to use the Proposals feature in Class 302: Proposals, you will be able to have the Client create their own Invoice by picking what they want and then those Invoice items will populate into a contract and the Client can sign without you having to manually do all of those steps!  But for now we are going to show you how to build a contract).

Within the CONTRACTS tab of this Event, click the [Create New Contract] button.  The form will appear and the Invoice you just created will automatically be pre-selected in the drop-down box.  The brand associated with the Event will also auto populate on the contract form and the next thing you will need to do is choose the contract template you’d like to use for this contract.  In Class 203: Contracts we will show you how to create your contract templates, but for now I am going to select one of the ones I have already created for this example.  Below you will be able to see where the Clients names and Event information and Invoice line items insert right into the text of the contract.  Then just give the Contract a name (i.e. Smith/Doe Wedding Contract) and hit [√ Save] and you’re ready to send it to your Clients!

 

SENDING CONTRACTS (14:14)

You are taken directly to the Contract edit screen and on the right you’ll see a section labeled “Recipients" and even though only one signature from each party is required, every single person you add to the contract here will be required to virtually sign the Contract before it will be accepted as legal.  When you click on the [+ Add Recipient] button a form will drop down and you will have the option to populate from an existing Client’s data or enter the information in manually.  Each recipient you add to the contract will have a unique system-generated password sent to them for legal and security reasons.  You will never know this password so make sure you tell them to save their Contract email so they can log in again later if needed.  In the section below “Required Payments" you can also add payment amounts such as a required retainer that your Clients are prompted to pay upon the signing of the contract.  Back up at the top you will see a [Send Contract] button.  The Send Contract Form will appear and you will choose your email template to send the contract to your Clients.  You’ll see a checkbox that is a terms and conditions agreement; by checking this box, you will be allowing the system to pen your virtual signature to the contract automatically.  Hit [Send Contract] and this is what your Client will see on their end in their email.  On the previous screen where you saw variable or tokens you now see that the Client’s personal information has been populated and the email is complete with their system-generated login information and a link to view and sign their Contract.  So now let’s see what your Client will see once they login with the information you’ve provided them.  You’ll see the Contract will have your branding at the top and will be named whatever you chose as the name and all of the Client and Event information has been populated.  On my example, there are also checkbox fields and initial fields wherever you decide to put them.  At the very bottom your recipient will be required to type their full name and then draw their signature.  This can be done from any desktop mouse or laptop trackpad, but works beautifully with any mobile device!

 

EVENT FILTERING (16:15)

Let’s go back to the main Events module by going to THINGS TO DO and selecting EVENTS.  In this first Event Calendar tab, you’ll see the Events Calendar which is great for seeing at a glance what is going on each month.  You can also switch to weekly view or daily view, but what if you want to see all Events booked last month or all Events from last year?  This is when you would want to use the Events Listing tab and filter your Events.  By default, you will land on “This Week’s Events" but if you click on the [Filter Options] button you have the ability to view exactly what you need to see.  A side navigation bar will pop up on the right where you can search by any parameters you want and Pixifi will bring you all the Events that match the information you input and at the top you can even choose the Listing Type to control how the information is presented to you.  

 

EVENT STATS (17:05)

One other thing you can do while you’re in this module is take a look at the statistics of all of the Events you have.  Again, the way to get the most valuable data for features like this is to consistently label all of your Event types correctly so that you can get measurable, actionable data, view booking trends, and track all of your Events by type, month, year, etc.

CLOSING REMARKS (17:26)

Thank you for taking the time to learn all about Events.  In this video, we covered what an Event is, how to create Events manually, assign staff and vendors, how to build Invoices, enter Locations, track Mileage, and create and send Contracts.  We also learned how to filter Events and track Event stats!  If you’re feeling exceptionally erudite and want to learn more about Events, check out the EXTRA CREDIT section for this video where you will learn how to set up your Google Calendar to a two-way sync, set up Event reminders and Event alerts, create custom fields, and even create Event Timelines!  Put a hat on because your brain is going to explode with goodness!  

If all that excitement sounds like it’s too much for you to handle right now, check out the next video, Class 104: All About Projects

 

 

EXTRA CREDIT

Welcome to extra credit for “ALL about Events."  All of the things we are going to cover in this video aren’t required to function within the EventS module, but if you learn how to implement them, you won’t regret it!  You’ll be a Pixifi Event Ninja in no-time!

Extra Credit: Google Calendar Sync (00:21)

It’s great to be able to log into Pixifi and see what you have scheduled within your Pixifi calendar but it’s even better to be able to see all of your Pixifi Events in your personal Google Calendar and vice versa!  This gives you the most updated information in both locations of your true availability and an accurate picture of all your upcoming Events.  

If you go to SETTINGS, and EXTERNAL INTEGRATIONS, on the External Calendars tab, you’ll see two different sections.  The first External Calendars section is a way to integrate with any non-google calendar to be viewed (but not updated) within Pixifi.  The second section is specifically for Google Calendar integration.  Just click the [Link Pixifi to Google Calendar] button which will open up a new window prompting you to log into your Google Account.  Once you login it will ask for your permission to grant Pixifi access to your Google Calendar.  Click [Allow] and it will redirect you back to Pixifi and then you’ll see a listing of brands that you can sync over to Google.  At the bottom, there’s a drop down that will ask you which of your existing Google Calendars you want to view within Pixifi.  Now we can go back to our Events calendar and see that our Google Events have been integrated into our Pixifi calendar.  It should be noted that the two-way sync is “read only" on both ends so you cannot make changes to your personal calendars within Pixifi and you cannot make changes to your Pixifi Events within Google Calendar.  If you do make any changes this way, the changes will be lost when Pixifi re-syncs so make sure you make any changes to your Pixifi Events IN PIXIFI!

Extra Credit: Event Alerts (01:54)

You can set your Events to alert you by clicking [+ Add Alert] button from within the Event Info tab.  These work similarly to Google’s Notifications where you can select the number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks before the Event that you want it to pop up on your phone.  The “Optional Short Message" feature is only available for certain calendar apps that support it.  You can always perform a quick test to see if your calendar of choice supports it or not.

Extra Credit: Event Reminders (02:20)

The difference between Event Alerts and Event Reminders is that Event Alerts will just pop up a little notification on your phone whereas an Event Reminder is an actual email that can be sent to your Clients, any vendors associated with that Event, and any staff members assigned to that Event.  You can even create Event Reminder Templates so that you don’t have to manually schedule each reminder email.  This will be covered a little more in-depth when we cover E-Mail Templates in Class 105.  For now I’m going to show you how to schedule a reminder manually using an email template that I’ve already set up.  Click on the [+ Add Reminders] button and a pop-up will appear where you will select “Create from Template" and these are Event Reminder Templates that I will be selecting from.  Click [√ Save] and you’ll see that my one Event reminder template generated 3 different emails that will all be sent on different days and times.  That’s the beauty of creating an Event Reminder Template; you set it up once and you won’t have to create each of those three emails for each Event - you’re not only saving time on this Event, but every Event like this in the future!

Extra Credit: Event Availability Calendar (for blocking off whole days) (03:28)
You can block off dates in your Pixifi calendar as “bookable dates" or “busy/booked" so that your Clients are able to see your availability when looking at your availability calendar and so that you won’t accidentally book an Event on a day you don’t want to, either because you are already booked or have other arrangements of a personal nature.  Maybe it’s just your birthday and you want to eat cake!  This will tell Pixifi not to let your Clients book you up on that day because you’ve got big plans.  If you were to try to book an Event on a day you had previously marked off, Pixifi will notify you that you already have an Event booked on that day or during that time, which helps you avoid any double-booking situations.  If you want to be able to book multiple Events in one day, you will want to set the “All-Day" setting to “NO" which is perfect for scheduling mini-sessions back to back or multiple consultations in one day, etc.  

To block off dates in your Pixifi Availability Calendar, go to THINGS TO DO, EVENTS, and click on the Availability tab.  Once inside this tab, you’ll see a Calendar where you can just click on the dates you want blocked off as unavailable (one click).  You can also click and drag multiple consecutive dates in a row to toggle them on and off as unavailable or available.  You can also click on the header for any day of the week and it will highlight all the dates for that month in that day of the week for you to check as available or unavailable.  The two arrows above the calendar let you go between the months!

Extra Credit: Event Custom Fields (04:54)

If you find that there are data points you’d like to create about your Events that aren’t included in our typical fields, you can create your own!  Let’s say you’d like to know if your Client would like to have the bridal party present for the first look or not, or if a Client is bringing multiple outfits for their senior portrait session.  You might gather this information from a questionnaire but what do you do with that information after you gather it?  It’s so much more helpful to be able to see all the information pertinent to the Event while you’re functioning within the EVENTS module, especially when you’re on the go pulling up your Pixifi app on your mobile device!    

So, let’s take a look at how to do that now.  When you go to THINGS TO DO, EVENTS, and you’ll see a tab for Custom Fields.  It’s important to remember when adding custom fields that these new fields will apply to ALL the Events within the filters you provide.  So, if you only want to add the custom fields to Events within one of your brands, you would select which brand before adding and then click “Add Custom Field."  Likewise, if you only wanted these custom fields for your Event type, you would filter as such before clicking “Add Custom Field."   Keep in mind, if you ever change an Event’s “Event TYPE" from one type to another, the custom fields you added will also change and drop any data that was previously input within the old Event type.

Extra Credit: Event Timelines (06:15)

Event timelines are typically only used for weddings because of how involved weddings are, but you could use it for anything you want if the feature proves useful to you!  Event timelines give you a way to itemize the day based on different start and end times for each section of the day.  The best way to start using this feature is to create a Timeline Template and to do this you go to THINGS TO DO, TIMELINES  and click over to the Templates tab.  Click “Add Template" and we’re going to name this particular template “Full Wedding Day" and give it a little description “Wedding Days that cover Pre-Ceremony through Reception."  Take note!  This is NOT where we want to start building our timeline!  This is just a description section!  Click [√ Save] to begin building your timeline for this template!

Next you will be able to add items to your timeline!  Don’t stress too much about the order because you can always reorder them later!  For the sake of time I am going to take us back out to a timeline I’ve already finished creating so we can see how it works!  You’ll see I am picking this template from a list of templates I’ve created.  You can also click “Duplicate Template" to create an identical template to one you’ve previously built and begin tweaking it from there (don’t forget to rename it!).  

So let’s go back to an Event you might want to use a timeline for.  First click on the Timelines tab within that Event and then click the [+ Add Timeline] button.  I can either begin creating a timeline manually, or select one of the timeline templates we just created from this drop down box, which is what I’m going to do because the less we have to do manually the better!  You’ll see that I can customize my template start and end times to reflect the specific times of the various Events going on within this day.  I can do this by clicking the name of the timeline item on the left which will produce a pop-up edit form where I can adjust the times and locations which will only appear if they’ve been added to this Event’s Locations tab.  The second way I can adjust the time is by grabbing the block and dragging it up and down to change it’s position in the day.  I can also grab just the bottom of the box and expand the duration of the day as well.  One cool feature I want to show you is that if you want to see the time by different intervals you can adjust the view up here.  It’s almost like zooming in and out on the timeline in that you can either see more of the day at once or see certain portions of the day in more detail.  

Now, this all might seem like unnecessary busy-work, but here’s where I’m going to show you why you might want to use our Timelines feature to help save yourself some headache, stress, and even time on the day of this Event.  Once you’re done tweaking the timeline to reflect the nuances of your Event, click [Export] and it will generate a PDF for you which includes the times of each sub-Event, Locations, and the descriptions which could have shot lists, reminders about family dynamics, phone numbers you may need of important people at each part of the day, etc.  

You can also email this timeline directly to your Clients for confirmation, to any staff assigned or any vendors associated with the Event!  Any time you can get a valuable tool into the hands of another vendor with your branding on it, you are not only speaking volumes for your professionalism, but you are also helping to put yourself in their minds as a great vendor to recommend to their future Clients.

Extra Credit: Staff Permissions (09:28)

We want to go over staff permissions with you briefly to explain their purpose and show you how to set them up.  Sometimes you will want to allow other staff members within your studio to make changes to Pixifi but you don’t necessarily want to grant them full access.  You can “lock down" specific modules within Pixifi such as giving them access to information about Events that they are scheduled to work, but you don’t want them to be able to view any financial data.  We can show you how to do this!

 

Go to CONTACTS, and then STAFF and you’ll want to make sure you have a few people added already.  Now that you have them added, click on the Roles tab and we will add our very first Role.  These roles are different than Event Staff roles that we set up earlier in this video in that these roles are permission-based.  Click on the [+ Add Role] button and give it a name and you will see a breakdown of all the modules within Pixifi along with a dropdown box next to each distinguishing the level of access they will be permitted for that specific module.  There’s also a “Batch Apply to All" just under the name of the role in case you know the level of access you want to grant for all modules so you don’t have to go through adjusting each one manually.  This way you can still go back and change just a few if necessary.  You can give your Staff full access where they can do anything you could do including delete capabilities, write access which only allows them to edit the Event but not delete the entire record, and read access which is view only.  You can also further customize your permissions by allowing them that access level for all Events or only allowing them to interact with their assigned Events to the permission level you have granted.  Click [√ Save] and then navigate back to your Staff Members  tab and we are going to assign one of your Staff members to that role.

To assign a Staff member to a role, click on that Staff member’s profile and in this section labeled “Credentials" choose the new role you just created from the drop-down box.  Click [Update] and the next time they login they’ll be locked down!  

Thank you for taking the extra time to explore this EXTRA CREDIT section!  We hope that these little extra tools and tips help you to acquire the skills and confidence to continue killin’ it!