Create a perfect automated gallery publish timeline for your clients and their guests with the Rolling Publish app. Instead of giving your Main Client access to a full gallery as your initial invite, set up the app to send a curated preview scene first and then the rest of the gallery.
Once the gallery is published and shared and after the Main Client views the gallery, an Early Bird Promotion is triggered for all gallery visitors, and the prices in the store are marked out, showing the discounted new price. The app allows you to adjust the time between each gallery invite email, compose your emails and the discount for the promotion.
Please Note: The discount will begin at the preview stage. Despite the first preview email not mentioning it, the discount applies from the start of the gallery preview and continues through to the end of the promotion.
Add Rolling Publish App
1. To get started, click on the Sales & Automation tab.
2. Under the Automations tab select + More automations to add a new app.
3. Choose the Rolling Publish App. Change the name and click Add Automation App.
Wait Before Starting
4. First, set up the waiting period before the app starts. This will give you an extra amount of time before the actions of the app begin automatically.
Gallery Preview
5. The app consists of 3 stages: gallery preview, full gallery publish, and the early bird promotion.
Start with modifying your gallery preview information. You can toggle the gallery preview stage on or off.
Gallery Preview Timeframe
6. Then modify the Gallery Preview Timeframe, this amount of time will determine how long the preview will last before the full gallery is released to the main client. The counting period for the "Gallery Preview Timeframe" starts from the time the client logged in to the gallery after the preview email was sent.
Please Note: if you delete the value from the timeline, your preview phase will not expire and the gallery will not be released to the fully published phase. However, you can manually release your gallery to fully publish in the advanced settings. The advanced settings are discussed at the end of this guide.
Gallery Preview Email
7. Now you can start editing your Gallery Preview Email. This email will be sent to your Main Client once you add them to your gallery and assign the app and the Gallery Preview scene. We will go over how to assign the app to the gallery and how to choose your preview scene later in this tutorial.
Please Note: The preview period begins when the Main Clients are invited to the gallery. For example, if a third Main Client is added a week later, the first Main Clients will have already viewed the full gallery, while the third Main Client will still be in the preview phase.
8. In the text of the default template of the Gallery Preview Email, a gallery-sharing link is automatically included through the dynamic token {invitefriendslink}. When your main clients receive this email, they will be provided with a link that they can share with their others to preview the gallery.
9. You can use various dynamic tokens within your emails. Please note, that the {exp-days} token is relative to the Early Bird Promotion discount. If you use this token in your gallery preview email, it will display the number of days the Early Bird Expiration will be valid.
10. Editing emails is easy. To start editing the email, begin by adjusting the banner image. Click Change Image.
11. You can upload your own image, choose to use the cover photo of the gallery, or choose one of the pre-made images provided by Pic-Time.
12. Once you choose your banner image, you can modify the email subject, message title, email message and button text. Once you have reviewed your text, click Apply to save your changes.
Full Gallery Publish
Main Client Invite Email
13. To modify the Full Gallery Publish phase, begin by setting up the Main Client Email. This email will go out to the Main client once the Gallery Preview is expired and the full gallery is opened. If you add the Early Bird Promotion to your galleries, then we recommend that you announce your Early Bird discount in the invite email.
Guest Invite Email Delay
14. Then adjust the delay for the guest invite email. This delay period will give your Main Client a chance to review their photos before the guests, and even hide some photos if they would like. Only the Main Clients will be able to view the images during this period. The scenes will remain hidden to other guests for the duration of the delay.
Please Note: This delay period only begins after the Main Client views the gallery.
Please Note: This delay period is also taken into account with the Main Client's Campain Duration. For example, if you set the Campaign Duration to 10 days, and the Guest Invite Email Delay to 5 days, the Main Client would see 15 days as their number of remaining days to use the discount in their emails and banners.
Guest Invite Email
15. Modify the email that will be sent to Guest Invite Email. This email will be sent to the guest to invite them to the full gallery.
Please Note: this will also include any relevant Photographer Invited users.
Early Bird Promotion
16. The early bird promotion will start once the Main Client is invited to the gallery. If you would like to offer an early bird promotion to your gallery visitors as well, you can toggle it on or off.
Non-Discounted Price List
17. This campaign uses the price strikethrough method, which means the gallery store displays the discount price of the item next to the struck-out original price. Choose your original price list for the gallery.
18. The prices from the original price list will be crossed out.
Discounted Price List
19. Then create the discounted price list.
20. Choose the original price list you would like to clone and add a discount amount for the new price list. For example, if you choose to clone the default price list with a 20 percent discount, then the default price lists will be duplicated and the prices for all products will be lowered to 20% off.
Please Note: Once the discounted price list is created, it's disconnected from the base price list. So any change made on the base price list (price, adding/removing products, etc.) will not affect the app's price list.
Once the Early Bird Promotion ends, the prices in the gallery store will revert to the original price list.
Pro Tips regarding the Price Lists for Active Rolling Publish apps:
If you change prices in the Original or Rolling Publish Price List, the displayed prices will likely be incorrect amounts, so you will want to either Duplicate your existing app or install a new one after updating prices.
If you add products in the Original Price List or Rolling Publish Price Lists, these items may not display correctly, so you will want to either Duplicate your existing app or install a new one after adding products.
If you change the discount percentage in the app, the prices in the Rolling Publish Price List will automatically update as well (you may need to refresh the page to see the changes).
Campaign Duration
21. Now you can set your Campaign Duration. Choose the number of months or days that the Early Bird Promotion will be live and active.
Early Bird Emails
22. Now modify your reminder emails for the Early Bird Promotion.
Early Bird Banners
23. Once you are done with emails, you can modify your banners. There are various banners to choose from and you can modify the colors and styles of each banner.
24. Add any internal notes to yourself that you can reference later and click Save.
Your app is now saved, and each time you apply it to the gallery all of the app actions will start automatically.
Custom Price List
Once you create your app, you can also edit the individual prices in the new discounted price list. Click Settings from your Main Dashboard.
In the Store Pricing tab, select the price list (the price list name will appear the same as the app name), hover over the item and click Edit Price.
Edit the prices and click Apply when finished.
Assigning the App to a Gallery
1. First, upload your photos in the Photos tab. Create your preview scene and upload your photos or a video. Then you can upload the rest of the photo all at once, or at a later time. Be sure to upload the rest of the photos within the preview timeline that you have set up in the app. You will also receive a reminder email to upload the rest of your photos (just in case you haven’t) two days before the full gallery is published.
2. In the Gallery Setup tab, make sure to Request emails before entering so you can collect guest emails if your Main Clients decide to share the gallery with their family and friends.
3. You will also need to add the Main Client information in the Share tab. Be sure to enter the Name and Email but do not click Send to Client. You do not need to send an invite to the Main Client since the app will do it for you automatically. Just make sure the gallery is Online.
4. Now you can apply the app to your gallery. To apply the app to the gallery go to the Automations and Discounts tab and click + Add Automation.
5. Choose your Rolling Publish App.
6. Set your app start time by adjusting the wait period before starting. The date is automatically generated by your settings within the app, but you can move it to an earlier or later date.
7. Then, mark your preview scene. This is the scene that will be released to your Main Client as a preview first. The rest of the scenes will be available when the full gallery is published.
8. Then you can personalize the preview email and the full gallery publish for the Main Client. The default template is generated from your created app, however, you can add some personal touches if you would like.
9. Click Apply. And that’s it!
Please Note: If your gallery is offline, the app will not automatically bring it online. After you switch your gallery to be online, then the app will begin.
Advanced Options
When the app is assigned to the gallery, some advanced options are available. You can access the advanced options by selecting the menu dots on the assigned app.
Stop auto release can be used during the Gallery Preview phase. The trigger permanently stops the gallery from being fully published and leaving it in the Gallery Preview phase.
Release to full gallery publish can be used during the Gallery Preview phase to bypass the wait time of the preview and release the full published gallery immediately.
Start app now can be used to bypass the waiting period and start the app. This option will display once you assign the app to the gallery, during the wait period before all the actions from the app are applied to the gallery.