Before you release a Volume Portrait gallery to families, test the complete customer journey. With a large school or daycare job, a small setup or file-matching problem can affect many students and orders at once. A successful upload is only the first check; the gallery, logins, products, pricing and ordering experience should all be reviewed together.
Build a representative test
Use a small but realistic sample that includes the different situations in the full job. Include individual portraits, siblings where relevant, a Class Photo and a School Photo. If the job contains several classes, rooms or year groups, test more than one of them.
Your test should use the same file-naming method, CSV structure, price list and gallery settings planned for the live release. This is more useful than testing with simplified placeholder data.
Check the CSV and image ranges
After creating the collections, compare the result with your source records rather than assuming every row matched correctly.
• Confirm the number of students and collections is what you expected.
• Open several collections from the beginning, middle and end of the CSV.
• Check that Image Start and Image End include the intended files and do not cross into the next student's images.
• For a student with one portrait, confirm the same filename is used for both the start and end of the range.
• Check students with similar names, siblings and any manually corrected filenames particularly carefully.
• Confirm shared Class Photos and School Photos appear only where intended.
If another application renamed the files, compare the final exported filenames with the CSV. The names in the CSV must match the uploaded files, including their sequence and any leading zeros.
Test the student login experience
Use the actual gallery login page and test several student credentials as though you were a parent or caregiver.
• Confirm each login opens the correct student's collection.
• Check that one student's login does not reveal another student's individual portraits.
• Test a sibling or multi-student scenario if you offer one.
• Try the experience on both a phone and a computer.
• Confirm the gallery name, studio branding and instructions are clear.
Record which test logins you used so any corrections can be checked again before release.
Check image classifications
Review the image types in Workspace before testing products. Class Photos are identified with a blue highlight and School Photos with an amber/gold highlight.
• Confirm individual portraits remain Standard Images.
• Confirm each group image intended for a Class Photo product is marked as a Class Photo.
• Confirm each whole-school image intended for a School Photo product is marked as a School Photo.
If an image is marked incorrectly, select it, click Edit, and assign the correct image type before continuing.
Review products, crops and prices
Open the gallery as a customer and add products from each image type to the cart.
• Confirm Standard Images show the intended individual portrait products.
• Confirm Class Photos and School Photos show their matching products.
• Check every price, package and product description.
• Review portrait and landscape orientations. A size shown as 6×4 is produced as 4×6 when the image has the other orientation.
• Inspect every crop. Pay particular attention to children near the edge of a group, feet, borders, logos and name panels.
• If a Class Photo uses a different aspect ratio from the individual portraits, confirm it uses a product designed for that finished format.
• Check that laminated products are described clearly so families understand the protective finish.
Check digital download rules
Test downloads separately from physical products.
• Confirm the intended download options appear for Standard Images.
• Confirm the Class Photo download setting matches your policy and account configuration.
• Confirm School Photos cannot be purchased as digital downloads.
Do not assume that one successful download test covers every image type.
Complete a test order
Place a representative order before opening the gallery to the full school or centre. Include an individual portrait product, a Class Photo product, a School Photo product where applicable, and any package you expect families to use frequently.
Check the cart totals, delivery method, customer details and order record. For a new product, layout or export workflow, order physical test prints and review the finished result before processing the full job. Screen review alone cannot confirm crop position, colour, sharpness or the finished laminated presentation.
Final release checklist
• The collection count matches your records.
• Sampled image ranges begin and end on the correct files.
• Student logins open only the intended collections.
• Class Photos and School Photos are marked correctly.
• Products, packages, prices and descriptions are correct.
• Crops and aspect ratios have been checked.
• Digital download restrictions behave as intended.
• A representative customer order has been completed.
• Required physical test prints have been approved.
Only release the gallery once any correction has been retested through the same customer journey. Keeping a simple record of who checked the gallery, when it was checked and which sample logins and products were tested makes high-volume work much easier to manage.
