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Challenge

Real-Time Tracking

To plan production efficiently, you need to know, in real-time and with as much detail as possible, what needs to be done vs. what has already been done. This is why tracking is an important – and challenging – aspect of any studio operation.

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Common Obstacles

What's the problem (and our solution)?

Questionable accuracy and timeliness
If you rely on manual processes to track production progress and studio performance, you can't always trust the data's accuracy – but you can trust it won't be available to you in real-time.
Our solution: Complete and automated tracking
In Creative Force, every action, every step, every item is tracked and logged automatically and in real-time, guaranteeing accuracy and timeliness. And when you can trust your data, you can take action.
Making tracking accessible
Having data is all well and good, but how you can – or cannot – access your data makes all the difference. Keeping track of production with spreadsheets, emails, or a range of disparate tools and metrics makes it difficult to gain actionable insights.
Our solution: A single source of truth, updated in real-time
Our cloud-based platform provides up-to-date progress tracking throughout production, including detailed information about which steps were completed, for which samples or products, when, and by whom.

A closer look

Tracking in Creative Force

Production View

The Production View in Creative Force is a high-level overview of production status that can be filtered, customized, sorted, arranged, and ultimately saved into views easily accessed with one click.

You have control over these views and can save as many as your team needs. This makes it easy to run reports, e.g. in advance of meetings. And because Creative Force is updated in real-time as production occurs, reporting is always complete and timely.

Gamma Production Tracking

Kanban View

A recurring theme in Creative Force is easy access to information. Whether it's assets, samples, or production status, information on the platform is simple to find and understand.

Few Creative Force tools model this as much as Kanban View. It's a simple but powerful way to visualize the state of production in your studio.

Kanban View in Creative Force has three columns: to do, doing, and done. The information in each column is pretty much what it sounds like: samples that are to do, in progress, or completed for a given task.

Gamma Production Tracking

Kanban View is updated in real-time, reflecting up-to-date production status for each task in your studio, making it easy to get a high-level sense of the workload for each task as well as sample-specific information.

For tasks such as photography, Kanban View is informational. For tasks such as final selection, Kanban View is how you access the function on the web app: simply select sample records to work on, and once you've picked image sets to review, click to begin the process. If you started but didn't finalize your selects, the sample record will stay in the doing column, where you can resume your work by clicking the record.

This view in Creative Force is symbolic of how we strive to make your creative production as easy and streamlined as possible. Important information is available quickly and easily, so you can focus on things that add value to your team and stakeholders.

Reporting and Insights

To effectively operate a content production studio, you need to know what's going on in the process at any given time. Many studios rely on team members to self-report, or they wait for data transfers to complete and then run tedious reports. In these instances, mistakes can happen, information can be outdated or no longer relevant, and worst of all, processes that are intended to gain insight can be cumbersome, becoming a burden for your creative teams.

Because of the extensive automation in Creative Force, insights into your production are just a few clicks away, and you can be sure they are accurate and up-to-date. As the work naturally progresses through the studio, performing each function automatically updates the production status.

A result of this automation is the ability to get reports and insights in real-time for almost any aspect of your production process.

One of the many reports available is the Kanban Flow Report. This report gives you a Kanban-style view of each step in your production process, with visual cues for things that may require your attention, such as samples that are still in production but were checked in more than the usual number of days prior.

Another example is the Post-Production Vendor Report, where you can get real-time data on asset throughput, rejection rates, and turnaround time of any of your vendors who are integrated with Creative Force.

HubSpot Video

Feature Focus

The Insights Tab

While the processes that power our detailed data insights are running automatically and out of sight, the Insights tab is accessible with a simple click from our web-based application, Gamma.

To translate all the data collected throughout production, we've created a number of useful standard reports (such as flow reports, progress reports, sample reports, and vendor reports), but can customize reports for any business need or KPI.

Here, Daniel Jester shows you just a few examples of actionable data in the Insights tab.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How does Creative Force work?

To simplify things a bit, Creative Force enables and elevates what we call flow production – a collaborative and continuous way of producing content at scale, where assets are moved individually through the many stages of production, as soon as they're ready.

This is in contrast to traditional batch production, where a single production stage is completed for all assets before they advance to the next step. Flow production eliminates bottlenecks and hold-ups, and Creative Force supercharges that concept with automation, metadata enrichment, integrated review tools, and so much more.

How is Creative Force different?

Let's first differentiate between studio software and studio management software. Creative Force is studio management software that optimizes the processes around specific areas of studio operations, like sample management or post-production management – in some cases by integrating directly with studio software your team uses daily, such as Capture One or Photoshop.

Other studio software solutions do a fine job of solving problems within particular, well-defined areas of operation. But only Creative Force takes a holistic approach to studio operations and provides the tools to effectively increase productivity and visibility across the entire content creation process.

Read more about how Creative Force compares to some alternatives out there →

Who can use Creative Force?

Creative Force is built to meet the needs of brands, retailers, and commercial studios engaged in high-volume content creation for eCommerce or editorial projects. If you work professionally with any of the above, chances are you'd see remarkable improvements to your workflows with Creative Force.

Every team from studio intake to styling to capture to post-production and beyond will benefit from the extensive workflow automation, increased production visibility, and many collaboration tools.

Read some of the many great Creative Force reviews here →