Setting up a workflow

The thing that remembers your client journey so you don’t have to. Build it once, and every session after that runs itself.

About 10 minutes to read · 20 minutes to build your first one

FirstWhat a workflow actually is

You already have a workflow. It lives in your head, and it goes something like: they book, I send the contract, I take the retainer, I send the prep guide a fortnight out, I text the day before, I shoot, I send the gallery, I chase the order.

Every studio has one. The trouble is that it only exists in your memory, so it works beautifully when you have three clients and falls apart when you have thirty — usually in the same week, usually the week you’re most tired.

A workflow in MSB is that list, written down once. You attach it to a session, and every step lands on your to-do list on the right day, with the emails already written.

Step oneMake the workflow

Go to Workflows in your sidebar, under Setup & more. Make a new one and give it two things:

1. 1A name. Name it after the kind of session, not after what it does. Newborn Session, Maternity, Wedding. You’ll be picking it from a list later and you want to know instantly which is which.
2. 2A session type (optional). Set this and the workflow gets suggested automatically whenever you create a session of that type. Leave it blank and you can still apply it by hand to anything.

Step twoAdd your steps

A step is one thing that needs to happen. It has a title — write it as an instruction to yourself, like Send the welcome guide — and then three decisions.

What kind of step is it?

Type	What it does
To-do	Appears on your list on the right day. For the things only you can do — cull the gallery, order the album, buy the newborn a hat.
Email	Writes the email for you, with the client’s details filled in. You can send it by hand, or set it to send itself.
Invoice	Creates an invoice for that client when the workflow is applied. Leave the amount blank and it uses the session’s own price. One per session — applying the workflow again won’t make a second.

When should it happen?

Four choices, and this is the part worth understanding properly, because it’s what makes one workflow fit every booking.

When	Counts from
When booked	Straight away, the moment you apply the workflow. Contracts and retainers live here.
Before session	Counts backwards from the session date. Prep guides, directions, what-to-wear.
After session	Counts forwards from the session date. Galleries, thank-yous, ordering nudges.
After booking	Counts forwards from the day you applied it. Useful for a follow-up that isn’t tied to the shoot — a second retainer reminder, say.

Then set the number and the unit: 2 weeks before, 3 days after, 1 month after. Nothing is a fixed date, which is the whole point — a September session and a January session both get their prep guide a fortnight out without you doing the maths.

Should it move the client along?

Each step can carry an optional instruction: when I tick this off, move the client to… and then a stage — Inquiry, Consult, Booked, Past client, and so on.

This is the quiet one that people miss. Tick off Send the gallery and set it to move them to Past client, and your pipeline sorts itself out as you work. No separate tidying-up job, no stale board full of people you photographed months ago.

Step threeEmail steps, in more detail

When a step is an email, you get three more things worth knowing about.

Merge fields

Under the message box is a row of fields you can tap to drop in — {client_first}, {session_date}, {studio_name} and the rest. Tap one and it lands where your cursor is. Click into the subject line first and it goes there instead, so your subject can read “Your session is coming up, {client_first}”.

Attach a contract

An email step can carry an agreement. Pick one from the contract dropdown on that step, and when the workflow runs, that contract is placed in your client’s portal and she gets an email with a button to open it and sign.

Send it automatically

There’s a toggle on each email step: send this automatically when it’s due. Leave it off and the email waits on your to-do list, written and ready, for you to check and send. Turn it on and it goes on its own.

Step fourUse it

Open a session and apply the workflow. That’s it. Every step becomes a to-do dated correctly, every email is written and waiting, any contract goes out, any invoice is created.

A worked exampleA newborn workflow

Steal this and change it. It’s a reasonable shape for most newborn studios.

When	Step	Type
When booked	Send the agreement & welcome note	Email + contract
When booked	Retainer invoice	Invoice
4 weeks before	Send the newborn prep guide	Email
1 week before	Check in — has baby arrived?	To-do
2 days before	Directions, parking & what to bring	Email
1 day before	Warm the studio, check props are laundered	To-do
3 days after	Cull & retouch	To-do
1 week after	Gallery is ready	Email
3 weeks after	Ordering nudge — gallery closes soon	Email

Nine steps. Built once. Every newborn session you book from then on arrives with all nine already scheduled.

HonestlyWhat it doesn’t do yet

Worth knowing so you build around it rather than into it.

Steps don’t trigger each other. You can’t yet say “when the invoice is paid, send the contract.” Steps are placed by date, not by what has happened. A step can wait for an invoice to be paid or a contract to be signed before it unlocks on your list — but it unlocks the task for you, it doesn’t perform it. Proper if-this-then-that automation is the biggest thing on our list and it isn’t close.

One workflow per session. Applying the same one twice won’t duplicate the invoice, which is deliberate. But you can’t layer two different workflows onto one session and have them merge sensibly.