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Versatile is a commercial photography and video production company that works on jobs ranging from quick turnaround shoots to full-scale productions. They partner with an extensive network of trusted professionals. And they have delivered projects on budget and on time to clientele, such as Microsft, Air France, CBS and Calvin Klein. While they’re busy providing the ultimate production experience, we ensure their team has all the information and tools they need on a centralized platform so they can work quickly and effectively in their fast-paced environment.
Production teams do an immense amount of pre-production work to make sure everything falls into place on shoot days. Workflows vary across teams, and various platforms are used, leading to decentralized information.
With Versatile Hub, we brought all company and job information onto a single platform, eliminating the need for multiple log-ins and increasing transparency across teams and departments.
Versatile team members constantly travel and work across different locations and time zones. Making sure everyone was in sync and accessing the most up-to-date information was a priority for Hub functionality.
Our first task was to build databases for storing their records of clients, vendors, locations and jobs. Custom linking features allow the records to be connected to each other, such as employees to companies and locations to jobs. We included filters and a global search function to make the data easier to navigate.
Managing the many items and assets involved in production jobs is a huge task. Along with key documents such as the estimate and invoices, there are also endless amounts of forms, receipts, spreadsheets, etc., that must be collected and organized.
Along with tracking the primary job information, job records also include components for budgeting, building calendars, organizing the crew list, generating and sending call sheets, managing team tasks and storing files. These components can be templated to be reused in other jobs, helping the team to save time and build consistency.
All jobs progress through 4 key stages, “Bidding,” “Working,” “Wrap,” and “Done.” These stages are color-coded to be easily identified when skimming the jobs database or viewing the company calendar. To provide more details, phases are broken into stages, so viewers always know exactly what’s happening within a job.
Since Dropbox and Google Sheets were two of Versatile’s most used apps, we integrated them with the Hub to provide familiarity and flexibility. These platforms give the team additional ways to access files on the go and share files with external users.
Using the Sheets integration, Versatile can track all sorts of data that doesn’t have a pre-built component in the Hub, such as travel grids and equipment lists. With Dropbox, templated folders are created for each job, so every file has its place. “Save to Dropbox” features make it easy to export files from the Hub to their respective Dropbox job folder.
The Hub includes calendars in two places, at the dashboard level and at the job level. When viewing the dashboard, managers can see all jobs throughout the company and filter by departments. On the other hand, job calendars have a month, week and agenda views for detailed pre-production planning. They can also show holds on crew members and dated team tasks for easy scheduling.
A call sheet lets everyone on a shoot know where they need to be and when to show up. Once a crew list has been created, the Hub can automatically generate call sheets and send them to the recipients via email or text. A call sheet tracker then lets the sender see if a delivery was successful, who viewed the call sheet and who’s clicked the confirm button.
Before the Hub, Versatile was building estimates via spreadsheets, filing expenses in folders and manually assembling the job wrap in a presentation document. As this was the most tedious and time-consuming part of their work, we included features in the Hub to automate the entire process.
At the start of a job, a producer loads a customizable catalog to build an estimate. Once an estimate’s approved, an advance invoice is generated. The team can then start tracking expense amounts and receipts against line items. At the end of a job, a wrap PDF including every job cost and a final invoice is generated, and accounting has a custom view of the expense list to balance numbers and ensure all vendors get paid.
The Hub is the home base for everyone in Versatile, no matter where they’re working from. A custom dashboard view lets them know what jobs they have assigned and what tasks are pending. At the same time, notifications keep the team informed about important job updates and upcoming due dates.
To manage the internal team, an admin can assign roles, limit access to certain parts of the Hub, invite new users and deactivate anyone who’s left the company.
