Templates

Business → Paperwork → Templates. The things you write once and use for every client, in one place. It has a tab for each kind:

• Shoot templates: a plan for one kind of shoot (a timeline, a checklist, a shot list and notes) that you put onto a booking.
• Client guides: a page for clients, such as "What to wear", that you share with a private link.
• Email templates: an email you send to one client, or start an automation from.
• Questionnaires: ready-made questionnaires to add to your own.
• Contracts: your contract templates.

Templates are part of the Studio plan.

Ours and yours

Each tab has Ready to use, from Meridian at the bottom: 8 shoot templates, 9 client guides, 14 email templates and 9 questionnaires that we wrote. They are read-only. They stay as we wrote them, and we may improve the wording from time to time.

To change one, make it yours first:

• press Use (or, on a shoot template, Copy to edit). Your copy appears under Your shoot templates, Your client guides or **Your email templates, and it is yours to change. Ours is marked In your templates**.
• Preview shows one of ours in full before you decide.
• Hide takes one of ours out of the list. Hidden at the top of the list shows what you have hidden, with Bring back.

On your own: Edit, Duplicate and Delete. New shoot template, New guide and New email template start a blank one.

The buttons along the top (All, Weddings, Families and so on) show only the templates for one kind of session.

Shoot templates

A shoot template has a Name, what it is For, How long, in minutes, and under The plan:

• Checklist: gear and prep, one per line.
• Timeline, one step per line: the time from the start, what happens, and how many minutes, split by upright lines, like 0:30 | Family photos | 20. Use a minus for before the start, like -0:15.
• Shot list, one per line. Start with a group and a colon to keep them together, like Details: Rings.
• Add posing ideas from a saved shoot (optional): the poses and prompts from one of your Posing shoots.
• Notes, for you, not the client.

Using one on a booking

1. Press Use on a booking on the template (yours or ours).
2. Under Which booking, choose the booking. Confirmed bookings from the last

two days onwards are listed.

1. Press Add to this booking.

What it adds:

• the timeline to the booking's plan for the day, each step at the right clock time from the booking's start;
• the shots to the booking's shot list, with any posing ideas under "Posing ideas";
• the checklist and notes as one private line on the plan for the day, an hour before the start, which your client never sees.

Nothing already on the booking is changed. A template can go on each booking once; after that, change the plan for the day and the shot list on the booking itself.

Client guides

A guide is a page for clients on your own website: "What to wear", "Preparing for your newborn session", "Your gallery: what happens next" and so on. Press Use on one of ours to make your copy, then change the words under **What it says**.

To share it, open the guide and press Share this guide. It gets a private link on your website: nobody can find the page without the link.

• Open, or print it opens the page. Clients can press **Print or save as PDF** on it.
• Email the link starts an email with the link in your own email program.
• Stop sharing stops the link working. Sharing again makes a new link, and the old one stays dead.

The page shows your studio name, and your reply-to address for questions.

Email templates

An email template has a Subject and a Message, with placeholders that fill themselves in for each client:

Choose the guide under Guide for {guide_link} (optional). Some of ours come with a matching guide; pressing Use makes a copy of that guide for you too. A placeholder that is not on the list is refused when you save.

Writing to a client

1. On one of your own email templates, press Write to a client.
2. Choose the Client and press Show me the email.
3. If the email uses the date or the place, choose the booking under **Their

booking (for the date and place) and press Show me the email** again.

1. Read the email under What (their name) will get. It is exactly what

will arrive.

1. Press Send, or Open in my email app instead to send it from your own

email program.

If a placeholder has nothing to fill it for this client (no gallery delivered yet, say), it says so and does not let you send. Edit the template, or choose a different client. Replies come to your studio's reply-to address.

In an automation

When you add an email step to an automation, choose one of your email templates under Start from an email template (optional). Automations fill {first_name}, {client_name}, {studio_name} and {when} only; the list tells you if a template uses any of the others.

Questionnaires

Press Use on one of ours and it is added to your questionnaires, open to edit. See the questions shows what it asks first. Answers and sending goes to your questionnaires.

Contracts

Your contract templates. New contract template starts one from our standard agreement; Edit changes one; Send one sends a contract made from it. See contracts.

Who on your team can do what

See your team.