Add images and promotional video
Pictures make your offers recognisable on the booking site, and a short promotional clip can bring a session to life. This page lists every place in go flow where you can set a picture or a promotional video, where customers see it, how it is cropped and displayed, how to replace or remove it, and the limits that apply. It also explains how pictures reach your emails.
The examples use an invented pottery studio, Clayworks Studio, with a session called Wheel throwing for beginners.
Before you start
- You need the right to edit the item the picture belongs to — for organisation, treatments, products, promotions, templates and feedback forms that is Manage access to Configuration & settings.
- Choose pictures without important text in them: the booking site crops pictures to fit each frame, and text belongs in the item's Texts, where it is translated and readable on every screen.
- For a promotional video, have the public web address of an MP4 video file ready (see Promotional video).
Add a picture
Every editor that takes pictures has the same Images box. It reads No images until you add one.
- Open the item's editor and find Images (for most items on the first tab, see the table below).
- Click the plus button (Add) at the top right of the box and choose the picture type from the menu.
- Click Select or drop an image and choose a picture file, or drop it onto the dialog. A file that is not a picture shows "Please select an image file!".
- Adjust the crop: move and resize the frame, or move and zoom the picture behind it. The frame keeps the shape of the chosen type (any shape for Logo).
- Click the save icon in the crop dialog. The cropped picture is uploaded at once; if that fails, a message "Upload failed -" appears and nothing is added.
- Save the item. Customers see the change only after this save; if you close the editor without saving, the upload is discarded and the previous pictures stay.
Check the result: the small picture at the start of the item's row in the list is the picture the booking site uses on cards (see The first picture). Then reload the booking page. Right after an upload the tile may briefly show a crossed-out picture icon while the file becomes available; reopen the item a little later.
Picture types
| Type in the Add menu | Crop shape | Saved size (longest side, at most) | How many |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile | square | 200 pixels | one; adding another replaces it |
| Pan | wide panorama, 4:1 | 800 pixels | one; adding another replaces it |
| Session | landscape, 16:9 | 800 pixels | several |
| Logo | any shape | 400 pixels | one; adding another replaces it |
| Feedback banner | landscape, 16:9 | 800 pixels | one; adding another replaces it |
| confirmation | landscape, 4:3 | 800 pixels | several (the booking site uses the last one) |
| Video | — (a web address) | — | one; adding another replaces it |
The saved picture can never be larger than the crop frame as it appears on your screen — at most about 440 pixels wide and 360 pixels high — and is then reduced further to the size in the table. Pull the frame out to the full width of the crop area for the sharpest result. The booking template's picture type appears in the Add menu under its untranslated name confirmation.
Where each picture appears
| Item | Where you set it | Types offered | Where customers see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organisation | Configurations > Organisation, Profile tab | Logo, Profile, Pan | The Logo appears in emails whose header is set to Logo (see Pictures in emails). Profile and Pan are currently not shown on the booking site or in emails. |
| Resource or aggregator | Configurations > Resources, Resources or Aggregators tab, editor tab Profile | Profile, Pan | First picture on the resource's card in the list of offers, as the small round picture above the free times when the chosen treatment has no picture, and as the round picture in the waiting room of a video appointment. |
| Session | Configurations > Resources, Sessions tab, editor tab Profile | Profile, Pan, Session, Video | First picture on the calendar's hover card (on computers with a mouse), in the day view, on the session's card in the list of offers, as the small round picture on the session's page and as a thumbnail in the cart, order summary, confirmation and the customer's profile. The session's detail sheet shows the video, or else all its pictures one after another. |
| Treatment | Configurations > Treatments, editor tab Treatment | Profile, Pan | First picture on the treatment's card, and as the small round picture above its free times. |
| Product | Configurations > Products, editor tab Product | Profile, Session | First picture as a small square on the product card at checkout, in the order summary and on the confirmation. Further pictures are not shown. |
| Announcement | Configurations > Promotions, Announcements tab, Add announcement | Profile | Fills the whole announcement banner at the top of the calendar and of the list of offers, darkened, with the text in white. Only the first picture of an announcement is used. |
| Booking template | Configurations > Templates, Bookings tab, editor tab Profile | confirmation | Beside the "booking confirmed" message on the confirmation page, and on the page where a group member answers an invitation. |
| Feedback form | Configurations > Feedback forms, editor tab Settings | Feedback banner | Across the top of the feedback page that customers open from a feedback link (180 pixels high). Not shown in the short feedback question on the confirmation page. |
| Email header | Configurations > Templates, Branding tab, email header | Logo or Banner | At the top of every email that uses the header (see Pictures in emails). |
How each item is set up is described on its own page: Resource details, Treatments, Product details, Promotions, Edit a booking template, Edit a feedback form and Email header.
How pictures are displayed
The first picture
Wherever the booking site shows a single picture for an item — a card, a round picture, a thumbnail — it uses the first picture saved on that item, whatever its type. Pictures are kept in the order you added them; the editor groups them by type, so the order is not visible there. The small picture at the start of the item's row in the dashboard list is that same first picture.
To control which picture appears on cards, add it first. A Profile picture suits cards and round pictures best. A picture you remove and add again moves to the end; replacing a single-type picture (adding a new Profile over an existing one) keeps its place.
Cropping on the booking site
Frames on the booking site have their own shapes, and each picture is cropped to fill its frame: a narrow card shows the middle of a wide picture, and a round picture shows the middle of a square one. Keep the subject in the centre of the crop. The session detail sheet shows pictures in a wide area up to 350 pixels high (at most 30 % of the screen height); the confirmation picture fills half of the confirmation card.
Several pictures on a session
The session's detail sheet shows all of the session's pictures — Profile, Pan and every Session picture — one at a time, crossfading every 15 seconds, without arrows or dots. The session heading serves as the description of each picture for screen readers. There is no separate ordering control; do not rely on a particular picture being shown first in the sheet.
When there is no picture
Cards, thumbnails and round pictures are simply left out, and the text takes the space. The detail sheet then has no picture area. The confirmation page uses the first picture of the first booked session when the template has no confirmation picture, and no picture at all when neither exists. An announcement without a picture uses its Background color and Border color instead; on the booking site the text is then black or white, whichever contrasts with the background, and the Font color is used only when no background colour is set — the dashboard preview always shows the Font color, so the booking site can differ from it. Sessions that a customer may not book (shown as locked cards) never show their pictures.
Replace or remove a picture
- Replace a Profile, Pan, Logo, Feedback banner or Video: choose the same type under Add again. The new one takes the place of the old one.
- Remove a picture: click the delete icon (Delete) on its tile. To change one of several Session or confirmation pictures, remove it and add the new one.
- Replacements and removals take effect when you Save the item; the replaced or removed file is then deleted from storage. Closing the editor without saving keeps the previous pictures.
- Treatments copied with Import from another organisation share their picture files with the originals; see Treatments.
After replacing the organisation logo. An email header set to Logo keeps pointing to the logo file that was current when the header was saved. When you replace or remove the organisation Logo, that file is deleted, and emails show a broken picture where the logo was. After changing the logo, open each email header that uses Logo (Configurations > Templates, Branding tab) and click Save; saving takes the current logo, and Save is enabled for this even without another change. The header preview always shows the current logo, so it does not reveal which headers still need saving.
Limits
- File types. Any picture file your browser can open, for example JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or SVG. go flow saves the cropped result as a PNG picture, so an animated GIF becomes a still picture and an SVG becomes an ordinary pixel picture.
- File size. The dashboard shrinks the picture before uploading it, so large originals from a camera are fine.
- Number. Up to 50 pictures and videos per item.
- Video. Only sessions take a video, one per session; the address can be up to 500 characters long.
- Visibility. Pictures are stored in go flow's file storage at public addresses that do not expire: anyone who has a picture's address can open it. Do not upload pictures that must stay private.
Promotional video
A promotional video is a short clip that plays in a session's detail sheet on the booking site. go flow does not store the video itself; you enter the web address of a video file that is hosted elsewhere.
- Open the session (Configurations > Resources, Sessions tab) on its Profile tab.
- Under Images, click Add and choose Video.
- Enter the address in Video URL (it starts with
https://). It must be the direct address of an MP4 video file that anyone can open without signing in, for examplehttps://media.example.com/clayworks/wheel-throwing.mp4. The address of a viewing page on YouTube, Vimeo or a social network does not work. - Click the play icon beside the address to preview the clip in the dialog, then click the save icon, and Save the session.
On the booking site the detail sheet plays the video automatically, without sound, in a loop and without playback controls, cropped to fill the same wide area as the pictures. The video takes the place of the pictures in the detail sheet only; cards and thumbnails still show the first picture, so keep a picture on the session as well. Customers cannot switch the sound on, so put everything they need to know into the session's Texts.
If the clip does not play, the detail sheet shows an empty area — the pictures are not shown instead. Check the address with the play icon in the dialog and in a private browser window; the tile's open icon (View) opens the address in a new tab. To change the address, choose Add > Video again (the current address is filled in); to remove the video, click the delete icon on its tile and save the session.
Promotional video or video appointment?
These are two different things that share the word "video":
- A promotional video is a clip on a session that plays on the booking site, as described above. It does not change how the session takes place, nothing is sent to the customer about it, and the booking site does not call such a session a video appointment.
- A video appointment is a live call between a client and a resource, booked for a treatment whose appointment type is Video (or Both, with the client choosing video). It needs the Video module with its credentials, and both participants join through a link. See Run video appointments.
Pictures in emails
Only the email header carries your pictures. Choose it per header under Configurations > Templates, Branding tab (see Email header):
- Logo shows the organisation Logo, 60 pixels high, aligned Left, Center or Right.
- Banner shows a picture uploaded with Upload banner image in the header editor, cropped to a wide 6:1 strip across the full width of the email and at most 100 pixels high.
Footers and signatures hold text only, and the email texts themselves contain no session or product pictures. Receipts, credit notes and voucher cards are PDF documents made from the Word templates you upload; to show your logo on them, put it into the Word file.
go flow sends email pictures as links to their public address. Recipients see them when their email program loads remote pictures; some programs ask the reader first. Because the email links to the file, replacing or removing a picture later also changes or breaks it in emails that were already sent. This delivery setting applies to the whole go flow platform and cannot be changed per organisation.