Release 3 debuts a number of new features for Spectra 2012.  Be sure to check out the added value contained in this new service release, and how this release may affect your existing operations by reading the Release Notes.

As usual, there are a number of key points to remember when updating your software and upgrading your data:

• Always do a backup before running the update.
• Plan your updates carefully to minimize down time and preferably choose a time when StudioPlus Tech Support is available to assist if there are issues.
• Note that if you run the update on just one computer and have any problems, you can always restore to the backup you created and the rest of the computers will still function on the old release. You can then re-install on the failed update computer to get it back in business.
• You can review release notes by clicking here.
• Click here if you need to contact Tech Support. Please give us many details as possible to speed the process.

The next service release has been posted to our web site and is available to update Spectra 2012.

Here are a number of key points to remember when updating your software and upgrading your data:

• Always do a backup before running the update.
• Plan your updates carefully to minimize down time and preferably choose a time when StudioPlus Tech Support is available to assist if there are issues.
• Note that if you run the update on just one computer and have any problems, you can always restore to the backup you created and the rest of the computers will still function on the old release. You can then re-install on the failed update computer to get it back in business.
• You can review release notes by clicking here.
• Click here if you need to contact Tech Support. Please give us many details as possible to speed the process.

You have made an excellent choice for your studio in making the decision to switch to StudioPlus Spectra. With our knowledge of PhotoOne and the conversion to Spectra, it is our recommendation that you start with almost fresh data in Spectra. Over the years, many PhotoOne users have wished they could revamp their price lists and how they classify their clients, but the task always seemed so daunting. With your switch to Spectra, now is the perfect time to bring together our knowledge of the software and your knowledge of your business. This gives you the perfect opportunity to set up Spectra the way you wished you had set up PhotoOne.

A couple of my favorite features in Spectra are the Dashboard Reports and the Filter Builder. These features really give you the keys to analyze your studio business, giving you insight on how to focus on the sessions that give your studio the highest profit. To fully utilize the Dashboard’s powerful reporting to give you that kind of insight, it’s important you start with consistent data that can be accurately reported. With PhotoOne, you didn’t have the ability to distinguish the events on your calendar that were sessions (the things you do with a camera in your hand) from those that were appointments (all the other things you do without a camera). During the conversion, if an order in PhotoOne is not clearly either a session-based invoice or tied to a session-based invoice, the orders may not get converted into Spectra as needed for accurate reporting.

Our recommendation is that you consider converting just your clients and relationships from PhotoOne into Spectra. You may even want to take some time to clean up your client list before bringing it over to Spectra. Why bring someone over who has been a prospect since 2008 and hasn’t been in yet? If a client hasn’t  placed an order since 2007, are they ever going to come back? Why clutter up your Spectra data with names that are not likely to bring in any future money? (We do recommend you keep a permanent copy of PhotoOne for reference, whether or not you decide to convert all the data.) Also, by converting just your clients and relationships, you’ll have the luxury of learning Spectra on your own schedule. You can continue to use PhotoOne until your staff is confident using Spectra. You will then have little to no down time during the conversion process.

The Spectra Filter Builder is used in many different ways, but my favorite is for marketing purposes. While PhotoOne’s marketing section required a higher level of programming knowledge, the Spectra Filter Builder is much less intimidating.

However you decide to approach the conversion process – convert just your clients and relationships or convert everything — we are right here to help you, every step of the way. With Spectra’s up-to-date documentation, online training videos, product specialist, knowledge base, user forum, technical support (available by email, live chat, and phone), our learning blog, and this support blog, you’ll be a pro in no time!

With the launch of our new web site at the beginning of this year, we also introduced some new capabilities for finding help for StudioPlus Software products. However, I’ve run into a few customers who weren’t aware of the help resources available even in the older versions. Often, an answer is right there at your fingertips. A studio owner recently emailed me a question one evening and pointed out that he could have had the answer the night before had he just known it was there.

User Guide – With every install of StudioPlus Spectra, a User Guide is added to each computer Spectra is installed on. You can get to that document by going to Start> All Programs> StudioPlus [Spectra] 20XX> User Guide. This User Guide is in PDF format so you can copy it to another computer or to some portable media to have it printed for you.

F1 Help – In Spectra itself, you can always hit the F1 to open the Help window directly to the topic related to the screen you’re looking at. That’s what the Dynamic Help choice under the Help menu will do as well. In case the topic doesn’t address what you’re looking for, there is also a Table of Contents, Index and Search tool in the help window to assist you. I know we don’t always speak the exact same language or use the same terms, so if there is a word that you looked for in the Index or Search and don’t find what you want, please let us know. There is also an online version of this User Guide with the same functionality on our website. We will be adding User Guide updates to the Spectra releases, but we often publish changes immediately on the website. So, the online version is often more current than what you may have installed.

Help Menu - The Help menu In Spectra provides a number of other resources. One of the issues we often run into is that we do not receive enough information to give a good, complete answer. The more information you give us up front, the better – and perhaps even sooner – we can provide the answer. With customers around the world and in many different time zones, that back and forth can sometimes take days. The menu choices for contacting us can also send critical information about your StudioPlus software like what version, volume, and release you are working with. If you email tech support or a suggestion or even start up a chat from the Help menu, that critical information will automatically get passed on to us.

StudioPlus Website – On the new web site we are updating resources and building up knowledge base articles to provide better assistance. Try out our new web searches there to help find what you need almost instantly. If you do need to contact us, use the Tech Support Contact form and be sure to fill it out with as many details as possible.

Videos – With some of the newly updated videos, you can hover your cursor over the video and a table of contents will appear that can bring you directly to the part of the video you want to see. Again, as we update these videos and online resources, use the feedback forms to let us know how we can improve the documents and videos.

User Forum – Don’t forget your fellow StudioPlus Spectra users. The user forum is a place Spectra users can post a question that other users may be able to help with if you cannot find your answer elsewhere.

One of the new features in Spectra 2012 is the ability to receive emails and create tasks. The task functionality has been greatly enhanced and because we use Spectra to manage our business as well, we are using these new capabilities. You may notice that an email response from us has a number in the subject line. This helps our automated process match up your response with the task we are using. That will speed along the process. We are growing our staff to keep up with our growing customer base, so anything that helps us be more efficient ultimately helps us serve you better. And that functionality is available to you!

There are a number of ways StudioPlus Spectra can help you with emailing. You can:

• Email a single client or even family member from a client record.
• Send out a mass email as part of a marketing campaign.
• Have emails sent out through triggers when records status changes.
• Contact Technical Support directly from within Spectra from the Help menu.
• Get troubleshooting emails from the Control Center or Google synch that may help in solving an issue.

However, you do need some settings from your email hosting service (Internet Service Provider or ISP) and you will need to plug that information in to the Workstation settings on the each computer you’ll use for sending email. So, what do the three choices mean?

• With the first choice selected, SMTP, Spectra prepares the email and then makes contact with the email server directly for sending out the email. This is the option that most users will need to select.
• When using the second choice, MAPI, Spectra still prepares the email for sending, but then hands it off to whatever you have selected as your Windows default email client (program). Most people these days use some kind of a web mail client and not a separate program like Thunderbird, Windows Mail or Outlook Express. If you are using a web mail client, that is, something that you go into a web browser to use, you cannot have Spectra send directly to the web page. However, most services have an option to use third party email client program. You would need to know how to configure that program and your Windows default to use this choice.
• The third choice, Microsoft Outlook, is similar to the MAPI choice, but it looks specifically for Outlook (not Outlook Express) to hand off the message for sending. If you have Outlook 2007 or later, you can set it to trust Spectra so you don’t get a warning message with every email: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/i-get-warnings-about-a-program-accessing-e-mail-address-information-or-sending-e-mail-on-my-behalf-HA001229943.aspx

Since StudioPlus version 2011 introduced Google calendar syncing, there have been a lot of inquiries as to what Gmail settings to use with StudioPlus Spectra. You can find information in this article from Gmail help: http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77689 .

You will have a different email address and whatever you want for display name, but your Spectra settings should something look like this:

Once you have all these settings plugged in, you can test them by sending yourself an email. It is often handy to have a client record for yourself in your data for various purposes. You can then use that or another test record with an email address from an account you can check. Simply click on the envelope icon next to the email address and send a test. If you get an error, double check your settings to make sure you do not have a typo. If you didn’t get an error, but it looks like you didn’t get the email, check in your junk folder or with your email filtering software or service to make sure it didn’t get blocked or shunted off to the junk folder. Some services may take a while to send it through.

To get more information on how to mass market using Spectra’s emailing capabilities, go to the Help topic on the Communication Wizard here: http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Application_Tools/Email_Wizard.htm

There is also a video: http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv6-104.aspx

Under the Help menu, there is a selection to Email Tech Support. When you set up the Control Center or Google Calendar syncing, there are choices to have emails sent for troubleshooting. These are often critical for narrowing down the cause of a problem.

http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Help_and_Support/How_to_get_more_Help_with_Spectra.htm

http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Database_Utility/Control_Center.htm

http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv7-110.aspx

http://www.studioplussoftware.com/help/current/webhelp/Mobile_Devices/Mobile_Devices_and_Spectra.htm

http://www.studioplussoftware.com/training/sptv2-201.aspx

In the near future, Spectra 2012 will also be introducing new communications features. You will be able to sign up to send and receive SMS texts and import incoming emails into client records. For more details, click here to go to our Spectra 2012 page.

For most photographers, there are digital image files that you want to safeguard against loss and, in fact, are the cornerstone of your business.  If you lose your digital images, you can’t get them back; you can only do them over.  That may not go over very well with your customers. While image files are not stored in the StudioPlus Spectra database, Spectra can help you manage your images against loss.  We will soon have a service available to you help better protect your image files.

The other type of digital information you want to safeguard is the data you enter into StudioPlus Spectra.  Most likely, you are entering information into StudioPlus Spectra almost every day.  Some of it is more critical like payment information and orders.  Other times, it may just be the addition of some small tidbit like a nickname.

So, what would happen if your computer crashed, was stolen, or is destroyed in something like a fire?  The computer hardware itself, while not necessarily cheap, is easily replaced.  Software is often easily re-installed from readily available sources on the Internet.  However, the information you collected with help of the software is usually kept locally on your system and needs to be protected from loss separately.

The good news for Spectra users is there are a number of different ways within the software to backup that critical business data.  I have been frequently asked how often you should backup the Spectra data. My answer is; how much do you want to lose?
Putting aside unlikely major disasters like a fire or tornado, the computer equipment itself should be more of a concern.  Through my years of support, I have come to the philosophy that it is not IF your computer is going to fail, it’s WHEN.  Hard drives seem to be more like light bulbs; they aren’t designed to last forever.

Spectra, by default, creates a subfolder of where your data resides to store your backup. That’s because it is a path it knows exists and the program has access to.  I often have customers perform a quick backup in preparation for an update or upgrade or when you are going to do some major work on the data like a client import.  So, if something goes wrong, you can always just restore that.  However, that is on the same hard drive as your data.  If that drive fails, you lose your data and your backups.  That is why the backup process itself advises you make a copy and store it somewhere separate from the computer.  Network users can simply specify another mapped drive location that goes to another computer’s hard drive.  The likelihood of both computers completely failing is much smaller.

But what about the big disaster like a virus that infects all of your computers or that fire?  It is best to also periodically make a copy of a backup to a removable media like a CD, DVD, or jump drive.  You can then take this media with you and store it somewhere offsite.

If you are only using Spectra to enter sessions or just clients (but why would you – Spectra has so much more to offer!), you may not worry about losing a week’s worth of data.  But if you put in dozens of invoices and payments each day, you would not want to lose more than a day’s worth.  For network users, I like to recommend daily backups.

So, how can StudioPlus help you preserve your data?  This is what I would recommend:

• First, use the Database Utility to perform a quick backup in preparation for some big change like an import, update or upgrade.
• Second, sign up for the StudioPlus DataSafe service and use the  Control Center to send your backups offsite to our secure server.  It’s automatic, and it gets the backup to a safe and secure location that is not a part of your local environment.
  Learn more about DataSafe here.
• If you don’t want to sign up for DataSafe, then use the Control Center to automatically perform a daily backup.  Direct the backup to another hard drive, preferably even on another computer. The Control Center job can be re-directed to a different location than the Database Utility is using.  You can also use the Database Utility to make a backup to a removable media once a week and take it home with you.

Today, we are introducing the new StudioPlus Support Blog. If you’re a current user of one of the products or services that our company offers, then I’d encourage you to subscribe to this blog. Here, Julie Thrasher and I, Mark Jeske, both Support Managers, will be posting information that is vital to you properly maintaining your products.

When critical bugs are found that may affect you, we’ll let you know. When new releases become available, we’ll let you know. We’ll share “best practices” with you to ensure your software is running optimally. When we publish new resources or find existing resources from other sites that would be helpful to all clients, we’ll post them here.

Make sure you take some time to tour the new StudioPlus website. We’ve built some great new features into the site to better provide the support resources that you need 24/7. The Technical Support Center page is a great place to start. If you’re having an issue with a StudioPlus product, check out this page – maybe you’ll find the answer you’re looking for in the “Top Issues” section. Or try out the new search feature. The search engine will search for your topic among the entire StudioPlus site, including knowledge base articles, FAQs, tutorials, videos, user documentation, and blogs. (Even though the new site is live, it may take another day or two before the full indexing is complete and the search features are fully functional.) If we have information on our site regarding your issue, then you’ll find it.

Finally, we’ve implemented a new Contact Technical Support page that allows you to submit new issues to us direct from the web. Doing so online will automatically create a ticket in our support system, and will route it to the correct department to ensure that we are following up promptly with the best possible support person for your issue. You are always welcome to call, chat, or email us an issue, but we think this new system will prove beneficial for all.

We’re excited to have this greater level of two-way communication with all of you, so we encourage you to take advantage of it. More information coming soon!