out of the blue
You can now access live studio management on the road, in your hand as Light Blue upgrades and adds hosting so that your data is updated by mobile devices, not just uploaded to them for reference. Richard Kilpatrick reports.
L
aunched in January, Light Blue V3 represents a seri- ous upgrade to the popular studio management application; with several refinements to the marketing and flexibility and an update to a FileMaker Pro 11 core, existing Light Blue users can upgrade for a reasonable £95+VAT; the price for a new single-user licence is £295+VAT and includes embedded File- Maker Pro 11; additional licences are part of the hosted setup. For readers unfamiliar with
Light Blue, it’s a studio manage- ment solution built around the popular FileMaker Pro database application, which offers cross platform support (Windows and Macintosh), is a mature plat- form and very versatile. Light Blue V3 includes equipment and inventory tracking, calendar syn- chronisation with iCal or Google and the ability to take your data “on location” through support for FileMaker Go! on iOS devices like the iPad or iPhone. Should FileMaker produce versions for Android or Windows Mobile platforms, they’ll be included in this due to the straightforward way Light Blue have chosen to implement that support. One of the strengths of Light
Blue is the encouragement it offers to work in a disciplined fashion. As a photographer, as a creative professional, the whole messy business of invoicing, booking, actually selling the work seems to be counter-intu- itive; your art is standing right there... what’s this about book- ings, and follow ups? Of course as an MPA member, you know how vital marketing and billing is in the real world – Light Blue is here to help.
Once set up – which as a user familiar with FileMaker Pro, took surprisingly little time once I’d realised that all of the usual shortcuts and key commands
MASTER PHOTOGRAPHY 32
The Mac/PC based version and the mobile iPad version of Light Blue – clean machines
work exactly as if I’d built a da- tabase myself – Light Blue pulls shoots and bookings together to provide customisable workflows. It doesn’t edit your photos or post your invoices, but it does prompt you to do these in a timely manner whilst following “best practice” for a photo- graphic business. Or at least, a successful one; typical practice might leave out the follow-up marketing email and calls, and perhaps take two months for delivery of prints! If your ears are burning (and trust me – mine are as I’m writing this!) then Light Blue will be genuinely useful and could make running your business a lot less stressful.
Remote hosting
Substantial changes over Light Blue 2 see multi-user and Go! compatibility refined and simpli-
fied, under the umbrella of the hosted version. At £25+VAT per month you’re looking at an annual cost of £300/£360, plus the cost per licence for your Light Blue us- ers – each licence comes with a full version of FileMaker Pro 11 (albeit one that doesn’t qualify for upgrade pricing from File- Maker; upgrades for multi-user installations should go through Light Blue when the software is updated rather than FileMaker). This gives you the freedom to create your own databases should you wish, or use any of the many free templates, utili- ties and business applications provided with the FM pack- age.
The hosted version is secure, password protected, capable of handling access by multiple users at once (making it ideal for FileMaker Go! use on iPad/
iPhone) and backed up - for the additional cost, given that this is where your bookings, invoices and customers should be it’s worth it for the peace of mind and security. It takes the data out of your office, removes it from your nickable laptop or tablet, and keeps it on a remote server with all the usual crash- proofing of such services. There’s no restriction on the number of users accessing the database via iOS devices, and it will tell the user if someone else is accessing the record at the same time.
With hosting, your version
of the Light Blue application is updated automatically and backups are taken every night – should your studio catch fire, your laptop be stolen, your hard discs fail, all you need to do is set up a new installation and your data is there.
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