[h3]Major Features:[/h3]

  • ColorFlow. ColorFlow is a new workflow management system that gives labs complete control over photo processing.  ColorFlow is designed to be flexible so that it can work with any third party color correction station or software, including minilabs and PJP.  As online and kiosk orders are harvested, ColorFlow applies the rules set up for your operation to decide which photos should be sent out for correction.  ColorFlow then monitors for completion of the job and pulls the corrected photos back into Lab 50 to resume the fulfillment pipeline – rendering creative products and exporting to printers and other output devices.  ColorFlow offers tremendous customizability, allowing labs to configure different workflows for different product types or different order sources.  For example, a manual review and retouch workflow could be set up for premium photo book products, while all other photo books are sent through an auto-enhancement station. (Documentation)

  • APM Render @ Lab 50.  In combination with the APM 8.0, Lab 50 supports rendering folio products from APM kiosks.  This not only cuts the time a customer is held waiting for their order to submit on the kiosk by up to 90%, but also enables the full range of fulfillment processing options in Lab 50 – manual photo edits, built-in auto photo enhancement, full 3rd-party color correction via ColorFlow, text edits, typo corrections and more.
Advanced Invoice Printing

Advanced Invoice Printing

  • Advanced Invoice Printing.  Lab 50’s Advanced Invoice Settings allow you to configure multiple separate invoices types.  These invoices can be printed on-demand for a given order, or configured to print automatically as orders are processed with various criteria.  Configuration options include the ability to select a specific printer for a given invoice, to print multiple copies, to adjust the margins, and to choose which orders the invoice should be auto-printed for.  For example the Advance Invoice system could be configured to automatically print a standard invoice on your office laser printer for each order, and also print a mailing label on a Dymo label printer for orders that need to be shipped.

  • Order Rerouting.  It is now possible to re-route an entire order or specific items from within an order to a different store within your chain.  Simply right-click on the order itself, or one of the items in the Details list, and select “Re-route” then choose from the list of available store locations.

  • FolioServer Performance.  FolioServer rendering times have been improved by up to 75% over version 7.5.
    • [h3]Other Features & Fixes:[/h3]
    [h5]Printing & Fulfillment[/h5]
    • Dealers with sub-accounts can once again print all orders directly from their primary account.
    Add Borders Option

    Add Borders Option

  • Support for printing bordered prints from the web.  Borders is an order option that can be offered to customers on your site’s checkout page.  The Borders option can be enabled for your site in Store Manager > Application Settings > Ordering.
  • New option on the Print dialog to “Show Hidden Order Items” which allows a Lab 50 station to print items that are not currently available to it, based on its order filtering settings.
  • Support for rendering and printing creative products from the web with folio borders.
  • Support for printing “Fit-to-Page” web orders. (This feature will be launched online shortly.)
  • New <retailer> tag in the order XML with details on the originating retail site to facilitate fulfillment by 3rd parties.
  • Improvements for “Unable to save” errors after printing.  Order status updates back to the server now employ an advanced connection retry logic.
  • Fixed the <payment> tag in the order XML so that it correctly reflects whether an order was paid online. This is important for dealers who use Lab 50 as a front-end to their own fulfillment systems.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the last page (the back) of 5×7 Folded Cards to be flipped when printed on the Noritsu D502 and D1005 printers.
    • [h5]Invoice Printing[/h5]
    • Two new invoices are included with Lab 50 – “Product Label” and “Shipping Label”.  Shipping Label is a template for a mailing label to print on mail orders, containing the customer’s address and dealer return address.  The Product Label is designed as a small label sticker for an order box or envelope, and includes the customer’s name and basic details.
    • Newly added !PAPER_SURFACE! macro that outputs “Glossy” or “Matte”.
    • The !COMPANY! invoice macros now work correctly.
    [h5]Discount & Promotions[/h5]
    • Support for setting exact start and end times for promotions and coupons, rather than being locked into midnight Eastern Time.
    • Product discounts are no longer limited to quantities of 100 or fewer.
    [h5]Payment[/h5]
    • Lab 50 and Photo Finale now support PayPal, offering online payment processing in over 190 markets.  Contact your account representative for additional setup information.
    • The new “Auto-Charge” system allows you to forget about having to manually charge each order.  Each night, any orders that have been printed or completed in the previous day will be captured and settled with your payment provider automatically.  Auto-Charge can be enabled in the Account Management screen, under the Payment Processing tab.
    • New “Authorize & Capture” option for online payments will not only authorize the charge at the time of order, but also go ahead and capture payment as well.  This option is particularly recommend for retailers that offer PayPal payment, because PayPal does not guarantee funds.
    [h5]Product Catalog[/h5]
    Category Options

    Category Options

    • The Category Options screen (accessible by right-clicking on a category in your product catalog and selecting “Options…”) will now show an improved, SEO-friendly Direct URL.  These URLs can be used for links from your corporate site, emails, newsletters, online ads, etc.  The URL will also now work for print categories, and even takes into account dealers with custom domain names other than Photo Finale.
    [h5]Reporting[/h5]
    • The Reports screen ties into an updated reporting engine powered by SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2.
    • New “Daily Online Sales Summary” report, showing the past month’s online sales, day-by-day, with discounts broken out.
    • Improvements to the “Order Sales (Detailed)” report — separated columns for subtotal, discount, tax, shipping and total.
    [h5]Orders Screen[/h5]
    Orders Screen

    Orders Screen

    • Right-clicking on a photo in the Photos list for an order will offer new options to show the original file in Windows Explorer and to copy the online URL of the photo to the clipboard.
    • New setting added in the More Options tab of the Filter Options dialog to automatically exclude free membership signups from the Orders screen.  (This setting will not apply to free memberships which include an award of print credits, to allow operators to monitor for fraud.)
    • Orders that consist of only products fulfilled by a supplier will now be shown in the retailer’s Lab 50 for tracking purposes.
    [h5]Members Screen[/h5]
    • The members screen search feature has been greatly improved.  Operators can quickly search for customers and members using the following fields: First Name, Last Name, Email, Company,  Customer Number, and Nickname.
    • The member details screen now accepts international phone number formats.
    [h5]Email Communications[/h5]
    • New macros are available for the Order Received, Order Printed and Order Ready for Pickup email events — {%store_name%}, {%store_number%}, {%store_phone%}, {%store_address%} and {%store_hours%}.
    [h5]Languages[/h5]
    • The Languages store management screen has been removed.  All Photo Finale sites now offer the full array of consumer languages available.  The current list includes English, Spanish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Japanese.
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