Did you know that each week we release new versions of the PhotoDay product?
This is pretty typical for a technology company that's moving fast to develop product features that meet and anticipate the needs of its users. In fact, we have a backlog of hundreds of new features and updates that wait in the wings until we're ready to tackle them. Many of the things on this list come directly from the excellent suggestions we get every day from our users.
Deciding what to tackle nextcould be overwhelming if we didn't have a methodology to guide us. That's why we use a method called Agile Development. Agile Development is serious stuff - it actually has its own manifesto and 12 guiding principles. But to summarize, its highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
What this means for our users is that it allows us to quickly react to feedback and deliver more features faster. But, it's also the reason why some of the features may feel disconnected or incomplete at times. Oftentimes we make the decision to roll with a small feature that's part of something much bigger...and cooler.
HOCKEY?
I like to think of Agile Development like a hockey game. You can never predict before the game exactly where the puck is going to go or who is going to score - but you do know that lots of passes and shots and defensive plays will all come together to make up a winning game. The same goes for agile product development - we're adjusting our plays all the time but we always have our eye on the goal!
So, now that you have an idea of how we get stuff done around here, here's a list of highlights from this week's product release, version 1.4.1:
INSIGHTS AOV
Lots of studios who have tried PhotoDay this fall photo season are reporting significant increases in average order values. So, to save the step of making the calculation, we added this important stat to the Insights Sales page - so you can see the AOV for each job.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
We're constantly making updates to the entire customer ordering and checkout experience. Here are some improvements from this release:
- In the web gallery shopping cart, we're showing the individual crop with each product so that the customer can see the cropped photo exactly as it will appear on the product.
- We've also improved the way we match up photos with products that have spots for multiple images, based on each photo's orientation.
STUDIO PANEL IMPROVEMENTS
The faster you get around your Studio Panel, the better, right? So, we made a couple tweaks that we think will help.
- The Clients section now shows number of jobs for each client AND you can click on that number to go right to that client's jobs.
- The Jobs section now contains important info about each job like access code, price sheet name, and expiration date.
SYSTEM STATUS
We know that the studios who use PhotoDay are trusting us with their business. We think they deserve to know, in real-time, how our systems are functioning. That's why we added a system status page that is constantly updated to report any operational issues or service interruptions.
Believe it or not, that was just the highlights! If you'd like to see everything that was part of this release, check out our version updates page - where we keep a running list of all of the latest PhotoDay product releases.
