Exporting Orders To Lab?

I am currently going through and printing my Sytist orders, then manually inputting them into my lab's ROES software. Am I possibly missing a more automated way of doing this? With the events we post, the volume of orders is sometimes daunting. Anything suggestions to help automated would be appreciated. Thanks!

- Chris

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There isn't an automated way to do this. I am planning on trying to create an XML output of the order that could be used to send to a lab. Not sure when it will happen.

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Tim, that would be PHENOMENAL! Most of us (probably) use ROES or a similar ordering software, and a csv (easily produced from a xml) would be off the chain!

By the way, email me...regarding Sytist promotion at our speaking events (we spoke earlier). Got a big one coming up in a month. Need to get something in-hand (cards/flyers) if you decide to go that route. I think this company, its product and its support is great...and we want to promote it! tpsportraits@gmail.com

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If you use Lightroom, why not use the export feature and upload the results to lab. Takes seconds.

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This is more about entering order data than about importing images. The images part is pretty easy.

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Hey Tim

Was this option of uploading to ROSE ever completed.

Thom

Edited Thu Jul 05, 18 6:33 PM by Thomas Roemischer

No, I have contacted a couple of labs to see what it would take to send orders to them, but didn't get anywhere. Bay Photo being one and they just gave me the runaround. I haven't really looked into ROSE that much.

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Tim-
You might check in with Photolynx.com and their software FLOW. They are very open to working with any and all vendors of independent volume solutions. If you could export an orders xml or csv file that could be imported into FLOW that would be incredible. FLOW is a software for volume photographers (school or sports). Simple portrait session orders are not a big deal to re-enter, a 1000 order school is a big deal to re-enter manually. LOL Photolynx is already working with several online cart software companies to do this import.

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I plan to use photolynx also and would love to see this integration!

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Hey y'all,

Our studio ran into this problem several years ago, and we developed some proprietary software that completely automates order fulfillment from XML. The only issue is that it was developed for a different shopping cart (we just started using Sytist). Would any of you be willing to give it a try if an XML export were possible from Sytist?

The way it works is that when a shopping cart receives an order, that order data is sent to our office in the form of XML. You install our software application (PC or Mac) on your computer, and then it is constantly calling our office asking if the lab needs any files for orders. If there's a new order, the application displays the files it needs in a queue, and you just right click one to tell the software where that file lives (this would be like your local hard drive or an external). Our software uploads the file and then automatically generates a lab work order inclusive of drop ship info and lab billing. We even built a feedback loop that calls back to your shopping cart from the lab once an order has been fulfilled to update your order status to shipped and add tracking information.

I travel a lot for my photography, and we built the software suite with the idea that if we needed it, others would too, and I could transition from being on the road constantly (I have a two-year-old daughter) to printing other people's work instead. We've been printing our own work for the past five years and have the same photo printer that WHCC, Bay, and ProDPI have all used: a Durst Theta 76. We use Canon PRO line for inkjet. We don't do our own sublimation yet (metal prints), but we specialize in face-mounting to acrylic and can make our own frames and gallery wraps from scratch.

Thoughts?

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You can export orders to CSV file now:
https://www.picturespro.com/sytist-manual/orders/exporting-ordered-products/

I'd be interested in seeing one of your XML files. Send me one so I can take a look at it.

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OK so I have a question.... Even if I have the orders and could import them..... How would they match to the Subject? I would have to have some field that would be a POSITIVE identifier in both the order CSV and the Order software data fields. Unless every subject has their own password/ticket code at the time of ordering I don't see how it could work. Names on school data don't match exactly as parents enter them. If I have to get a password to the parents in advance of picture day it kinda defeats the purpose of easy online ordering. Keep in mind this is for PRE-PAY. It would be easy with proofing as the image file name would be the identifier. But then again you would have to have a password out to the parents to access only their child. Other than answering 100's of emails with passwords how can this be done? BTW- Sending home papers with the child with a password would not work as half the papers sent home never make it. LOL

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You could use the additional information / fields at checkout option and ask for student name, grade, teacher, student ID, etc... to narrow it down.

See on this page under Additional Options & Information
https://www.picturespro.com/sytist-manual/articles/pre-order/

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The problem is then I would still have to manually match them. Evidently everyone has MUCH smarter clients than I do. None of my parents even realize their child has a school student ID. LOL And to be quite honest I get parents calling me that are not even sure what grade their child is in. On leagues when I ask for the coaches name I get blank stares from parents. I have schools that use the child's legal name and parents that decide to call them something else. Even last names have not matched sometimes. (Divorced and remarried moms loved to make the name hyphenated, but that is not the legal name the school has) Really am I the only one that runs into this? Unless there is some kind of AI program that could take the data they entered and make an educated guess as to who the student actually is I fail to see where the time savings would occur when using PRE-PAY.

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Part of the answer to the problem is a unique file name for each image.
We use DRUMS software and each student has a unique file name. www.drumsuser.com
It starts with a unique Job/school name which is used as the start of the file name.
So every image I have on line in Sytist does match the image I have on the server.
I could use this if I was so inclined, as a basis for having my orders generated.
We won't be doing that anytime in the near future as we have our own lab and I think customizing software down to that level could be expensive.
As well while our online order presence is growing rapidly it still isn't a high enough percentage to justify such a commitment of time and energy.

DRUMS does provide us with a couple of options for sending our orders to our Noritsu 1005 printer and we are happy with that.

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Brian, couldn't you just use the extra order fields in the price list and ask for student first name and last name?

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Is there a way in pre pay to make the parents of multiple students enter each one individually, so each child would have a separate order and then a separate line in the csv file?

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For multiple students, they would need to make separate purchases.

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