Some Volume Portrait photographers use one shared gallery containing all the photographs from a school, daycare or event instead of creating a unique collection and login for each student. This can be a simple way for families to browse, but the gallery and price-list settings need a little extra care—especially when packages are available.
When a shared gallery may suit your job
A shared gallery can work well when:
• The school or centre is comfortable with families browsing the complete gallery.
• You do not need to restrict each family to one student's photographs.
• The number of images remains manageable.
• The gallery is clearly organised so families can find the right photographs.
If individual privacy or restricted access is important, use unique student collections and logins instead.
Use categories to organise the photographs
Categories help divide a large shared gallery into useful groups. For example, you could create a category for each classroom, year group, team or session. Clear category names make it much easier for families to find the correct photographs without scrolling through the entire job.
Plan the category structure before uploading or organising the full gallery. Keep names familiar to families—for example, Room 3 – Kōwhai or Year 6—and use the same naming pattern throughout.
Important: packages cannot use photographs from different categories
A package must be completed using photographs from the category in which the customer started shopping. Photographs from different categories cannot be mixed within the same package.
This matters when siblings, individual portraits and group photographs are placed in separate categories. For example, a parent cannot begin a package in one classroom category and then fill another package item with a sibling's photograph stored in a different category.
Before deciding on your categories, consider how families are likely to buy:
• If packages normally contain photographs of one student, classroom categories may work well.
• If families are likely to combine siblings or photographs from different sessions in one package, placing those images in separate categories will prevent that combination.
• If you need categories for navigation, explain the package limitation clearly in the gallery instructions or product description.
Change the Package Image Population setting
By default, Workspace can populate a package with the current photograph followed by surrounding photographs from the gallery. In a shared school gallery, those surrounding images may belong to other students. This can cause confusion and increases the risk of a customer ordering the wrong photographs.
For shared galleries, we recommend changing Package Image Population to:
Populate the first package item with the current photo, then leave the remaining items for the client to choose.
This places the photograph the customer was viewing into the first suitable package item, but leaves the rest of the package for them to complete deliberately. It avoids automatically filling the package with nearby images that may show another child.
You can find this option in your Shopping Cart or price-list settings under Package Image Population. Apply the setting before testing the customer experience.
Check Class Photos and School Photos
Mark Class Photos and School Photos with the correct image type using Edit. This ensures Workspace offers the matching products and applies the appropriate digital-download rules.
Think carefully about where these shared images sit within your category structure. A Class Photo placed in one classroom category is easy for that class to find, but it cannot be combined in a package started from another category.
Test the gallery as a parent or caregiver
Before release, open the gallery from the customer-facing page and complete a realistic test.
• Check that the category names and order make sense without inside knowledge of the job.
• Confirm each category contains only the intended photographs.
• Start shopping from an individual portrait and open a package.
• Confirm only the first package item is populated automatically.
• Choose the remaining package photographs and confirm the process is clear.
• Try to locate and combine photographs of siblings stored in different categories so you understand what the customer will encounter.
• Check the available products for Standard Images, Class Photos and School Photos.
• Review the gallery on both a phone and a computer.
Shared-gallery checklist
• The school or centre has approved the shared-gallery approach.
• Families do not require unique student access.
• Categories are named and organised clearly.
• The category structure reflects how customers will build packages.
• Customers have been told that packages cannot combine images from different categories.
• Package Image Population is set to populate only the first package item.
• Class Photos and School Photos are marked correctly.
• The complete gallery and ordering journey have been tested before release.
A shared gallery can be straightforward for families when the structure is simple and predictable. The most important decisions are how you divide the images into categories and how packages behave within those boundaries.
