How To Use The Dashboard

The Headshot Tools shooting Dashboard is where you spend most of your time while shooting a job. This interface contains the “Queue”, “Recent” list and the ability for you to manage both. Also, Pool Mode when enabled.

Similar to the auto upload utility and signup forms, the dashboard is specific to an instance of a job. When opening the dashboard, ensure that you’re opening the dashboard for the correct corresponding job.

The dashboard is unlike many web pages you may have used before. It contains a persistent always-on connection to Headshot Tools. With this connection always being open and established, Headshot Tools can push the latest participants from your signup form instantly to you without you needing to refresh the page. Simply wait for the page’s connection status bubble at the top of the page to turn green and you’re all set to start.

How To Access The Dashboard

You can access the shooting dashboard by either:

1. Navigating to the jobs list.
2. Clicking the “Dashboard” link to the right of the job.

-OR-

1. Navigating to the jobs list and clicking your job’s name
2. Clicking the list icon in the "Shortcuts" Panel.

Using The Queue Tab

The shooting queue shows you all the participants in your job that have not been worked with yet. The list is in the order participants signed up. Whoever is at the top of the list is most likely your next shoot. You may have situations where your participants arrive in a different order. In this situation feel free to scroll through the list looking for that participant or instead use the quick search box to find them.

When you find the participant you’re looking for, simply double-click on their name and start shooting. You repeat this process for each participant you shoot. Double-clicking on a participant does several things for you:

1) Renames Files With Your Tethering Software – Double-clicking copies this participant’s unique File Prefix into your clipboard. When your tethering software is configured to read the contents of your clipboard, images will be renamed as you shoot.

See our Capture One, Smart Shooter 5 + Lightroom or Smart Shooter 6 + Lightroom setup videos to get configured properly.

2) Send Email (Optionally) – If your job is set to “Instant” delivery mode, double-clicking on the participant’s name will also send that participant an email to their gallery. Please note that this is the ONLY time “Instant Delivery Mode” will send an email for you automatically in the entire system! Any other emails you wish to send to a participant must be sent manually or via the Mass Notify tool.

3) Move Participant To Recent – Upon double-clicking, Headshot Tools will move this participant into the recent list. This signifies that you have worked with this participant. Think of this like “checking them off your list”.

4) Changes Their Shoot Status to “Shooting / Processing” – In the Job Detail’s shoot list, the status column for the participant you double-clicked will now transition from “Waiting” to “Shooting / Processing”. Prior “Waiting” was to signify that this participant was waiting in line to be photographed. Now that you double-clicked them, the system is assuming you are either shooting this participant or processing their images by exporting or uploading them. Please not that Headshot Tools is not “processing” anything for you at this time, so please do not wait for something to happen. To learn about each status, see our "How Do The Shoot Statuses Work?" page.

Pro Tip: While searching the queue and the results of the search only show one participant, hitting enter will perform the same operation as double-clicking on that participant.

Using The Recent Tab

The recent list shows you your double-clicked participants. The general uses for this recent tab are checking who you worked with recently, restoring a participant back to the queue when you clicked by mistake or for performing reshoots on already double-clicked participants.

To restore a participant to the queue, click the restore arrow to the left of the participant's name. You generally only want to do this when you accidentally double-click the wrong person.
Please Note: Using the restore arrow will reset the time that this shoot was considered complete.

To perform a reshoot for this participant, simply double-click their name. This will load the participant's File Prefix into your clipboard just like when you initially double-clicked them. See more about performing reshoots here.

Pro Tip: If you accidentally double-clicked the wrong person when Instant delivery is enabled, restoring that participant back to the queue within 10 seconds will cancel sending them their gallery email.

Removing Someone From The Queue

You might find yourself in a situation where you want to remove someone from the queue. Maybe they signed up twice by accident or decided against getting photos. You can do this by clicking on the three vertical dots icon to the right of the participant's name in the queue, then clicking "Delete Shoot".

You can also remove someone from the queue by navigating to the shoot list on the Job Detail page, clicking on the participant’s name, then clicking the big red “Delete Shoot” button. We recommend this method of removing participants when possible as it allows you to confirm they are the correct shoot and don’t have any important data or files.

Please keep in mind that either of these options will remove a participant from the queue/job and completely delete all data stored for them! So please make sure they’re the right person before you do this! If you’re unsure, it might be best to wait till the end of the job to investigate this participant more.

The "Delete Shoot" button is not present for participants who have scheduled slots. To remove these participants from your queue, please first cancel the booking and delete the shoot.

Hiding Someone From The Queue

You may find that some participants sign up but need to leave the line before they can be photographed. Rather than deleting these shoots from the queue, you can hide them and retain their information for if they come back later.

To do this, simply click the three dots icon to the right of the participant’s name, then click the “Hide Shoot” button. This will hide the shoot in your dashboard but still allow the participant to be located by searching the Queue. Perfect for keeping your queue clean and designating who you didn’t work with in a job.

Later if this participant comes back, simply use the Queue's search box to locate their shoot and double-click just like normal! Hidden shoots will be marked with an icon within the search results. Once the hidden shoot is double-clicked it will move to the Recent tab and no longer be hidden (even if restored).

Unhiding Someone From The Queue

While generally not needed, shoots can also be unhidden. To unhide a participant:

1. Navigate to the shooting dashboard for your job.
2. In the main queue tab, search for your participant by typing a few letters of their name. Your hidden participant will show up with a icon beside their name.
3. Click the three vertical dots icon to the right of their name and click "Unhide Shoot". If you're just unhiding this participant so you can shoot them, all you need to do is double-click. No unhiding needed!

You will never find hidden participants within the recent tab. Always search for hidden participants in the main queue tab.

Clipboard Sounds

You can enable/disable the shooting dashboard to play sounds upon double-clicking or updating the clipboard. This is perfect for situations where you might be forgetting to double-click or just want some additional assurance that you double-clicked correctly. This setting also has several sounds, perfect for differentiating stations in a multi-station type job.

To enable or modify this setting:

1. Navigate to the shooting dashboard for a job.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the dashboard.
3. Click the "Sound" link on the bottom right to toggle through the sounds or disable sounds entirely.

Once set to your desired setting, the sound will persist on specifically your device across jobs. Other devices will be able to have different settings.

Common Issues

• The dashboard is disconnecting/reconnecting frequently.

  The dashboard is unlike many web pages you may have used before. It contains a persistent always-on connection to Headshot Tools. If your internet connection is flaky/unreliable, you may see intermittent connectivity and reconnects. We recommend trying to find better reception for WIFI, plugging into ethernet, or hotspot tethering if possible.
  
  We do not recommend using the Dashboard on a VPN connection.
  
  The dashboard will reconnect automatically after 10 minutes of inactivity to keep the connection fresh. In all situations the dashboard will always attempt to auto-reconnect but, feel free to give the page a refresh if you like.

• I forgot to double-click on a participant. How can I fix this?

  See our guide on how to fix forgetting to double-click here.

• My Recent Tab is missing!

  No worries! You just have Pool Mode enabled. You can turn this feature off if you like but in Pool Mode, all of your participants (double-clicked or not) will always be in your main list.

• I can't find a hidden shoot!

  A really simple way to see all the shoots located in the dashboard is to click on the Queue's search box and press the spacebar. This will show you all shoots within the Queue, hidden or not. Hidden shoots will be marked with an eye icon.

• What does the blue line on the left of a participant mean?

  The blue accent mark means this participant has a Shoot Note. Click the 3 dots on the right of their name to see what the shoot note says. Use this feature to identify VIPs or special requests.

Other Questions?

If you have any other questions, please contact Support@HeadshotTools.com