Greetings!

I am the Customer Service Manager for the Prints Department, and these weekly updates are designed to keep our Print Artists more informed about changes, problems and general goings-on within the Prints Program.

Key System Explanation

As you can see at the very bottom there is a Key System. The way this will work is simple. If you have a specific inquiry or suggestion for a specific department, begin your comment with the appropriate Key Code, that way we can search the page and compile them and address them in next weeks update.

Quality Control Update

Template Redux

A few minor changes have once again been made to the print templates. These changes were not drastic, but were made at the suggestion of some of our Print Artists.

You can download the latest versions of the templates here.

Calendar Clarification

• The new source requirement of 8x10'' is printed on 8.5x11" calendar pages, so no bleed edge is required within the source images for this product. This means any elements of the image such as borders, text and other parts can be placed right to the edge of the image.
• No typical calendar elements (days/weeks/months/holiday) should be included in calendar images. You may optionally include the month and year, but these will also be printed on the grid side at the top center of the page.




Product Changes: Slight Extension



In the last update we stated that your sourcefiles for the products listed in our first weekly update needed to be updated by October 17th (yesterday), to avoid the removal of any affected products from sale until you are able to update them. Our technical department has not yet removed these items, so you still have another few days to make these changes before you will have to submit them again from scratch.



FTP: Friend to Prints



If you are not already doing so, please remember that uploading your prints via FTP is the most stable method of transferring your sourcefiles to us. Utilizing FTP upload greatly reduces the chances that your print file will come through to us corrupt and saves you the headache of uploading images several times over. For more information on how to utilize our FTP upload service, please see FAQ154:Why isn't my source file uploading correctly? Also see Download.com for a list of FTP programs and their ratings.



Customer Service Update






The Location is Fab-u-lous Dahling.



Please make sure that you are sending your print-related inquiries to the Prints Help Desk, and not the Community Help Desk. Doing so will ensure that you are assisted fully in the timeliest manner possible.



A Note on Urgent Orders



Please remember that if you are planning on ordering prints for an upcoming gallery showing, trade fair, birthday, or any other time-sensitive situation that you order at least 2 weeks in advance of when you need the shipment for the event. This will ensure that if there is any problem processing your order that there is ample time for the problem to be solved. Choosing an expedited shipping method does not ensure that you will get your prints overnight or the next day, it ensures that your prints will arrive in that time frame after they have been processed and shipped. We do attempt to expedite any orders coming through on upgraded shipping timeframes, but especially in the case of large orders, getting these items processed quicker than normal is not always possible.

For International Customers: Please remember that shipping time frames are subject to change, as some countries will hold the shipment up in customs for closer inspection.



Current Issues



• Source File Corruption: The technical department is working earnestly on resolving the remaining corruption issues. Please keep an eye out for further updates.
• Submission Issues: Steps have already begun to improve the submission process for our print artists. We are streamlining the process to make it less confusing and resolve the remaining bugs.




Resolved Issues



• Order Issues: We experienced a technical issue last week that caused several orders to become delayed in processing. This issue has been resolved, and the orders that were affected by the issue are being handled on a case to case basis.





Hey, Man, I Gotta Suggestion!





Pulled straight from the forums!




The following suggestions are in consideration for implementation:



• A bookmark product offering.
• Print view counts.



The following suggestions are not currently implementable:



• Ability to see a print's price history alongside sale statistics for profitability comparisons at different price options. This is something that we want to add, but will have to wait until after the Holiday Season as it involves work with the accounting system and could cause instability at our busiest time of year.
• Even more detailed statistics across the board for our Print Artists. There are hints of something big in this regard coming after the Holiday Season as well.



The following suggestions are being actively discussed for implementation:



• Check box style listing of prints on one page (possibly more than one for users who have large numbers of prints) for multiple price updates at once.
• Quality Control and Auto Reject responses listed in the Print Management section and/or Message Centre so emails are not lost, and an artist can easily see the results of their uploading efforts all in one place.
• Listing of all order status which include prints from your store.
• Listing of print wishes in the Print Management section and/or Message Centre for easy review of which pieces are more popular.
• :shop###: capabilities on dAmn



The following suggestions have been implemented:



• Editing your prints no longer triggers a devwatch notification to your watchers.




On Money Orders and Wishlisters



• Money Orders: We cannot currently accept money orders for print purchases because we simply do not have the resources to do so. This is something that may be doable in the future, but not at this time.
• To further clarify on why wishlist additions are kept private: A wishlisted item has the possibility of becoming an exchange of product for monetary compensation. In other words, there could be money involved, and deviantART cannot give out the identities of customers or perceived customers under any circumstances.




That’s a Wrap!


Questions? Comments? Concerns? We’re here and listening.

While you’re waiting on the next update, please don’t forget to check out the links below. They are filled with useful information for all of our print artists, be they n00b or veteran. If there are any specific things you would like to see a tutorial or reference written up on, please make sure to let us know.



Print Artist Guides

• The Printing Press
• Basic Print Program - Print Submission Guide
• Premium Print Submission Guide
• FAQ Exploration - Part 1 - Crop
• FAQ Exploration - Part 2 - Borders
• FAQ Exploration - Part 3 - Getting Creative
• Getting the most out of your keywords
• Prints Knowledge, Issue #1
• Prints Knowledge, Issue #2 - Artist Store Administration
• Prints Knowledge, Issue #3 - Stock Photography in Prints
• Keeping the Quality - Part 1



Print Artist Interviews

• Tegan Coddington
• Directors Cut
• Dan Meyer
• Bradley W Schenk
• Jason Engle
• Tom Wilcox
• Phillip Prescott
• Stephanie Dodson
• Rick Pirman
• Joseph Arruda
• Tobias Zeising
• Nicholas Rougex
• Lia Saile




Thanks for reading this week's update. We look forward to reading your feedback and to answering your comments and suggestions in our next update.

To direct your comments towards the right administrator, optionally prefix your comments with the following acronyms:

PREFIX LEGEND


PG:	for Prints General
CS:	for Customer Service
QC:	for Quality Control