Assigning Shoots to Your Team
How photographer assignment works in Spatiko — per-session assignment, eligibility by services and coverage, and Client picks vs Studio assigns.
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Every session on an order — not the order as a whole — has its own assigned photographer. That means a multi-session shoot, like a daytime session plus a separate twilight session, can go to two different team members if that’s what makes sense for your schedule.
Assignment is per session
Reassigning who’s shooting is a calendar action. If you need to move a session to a different photographer, add a session, or split a shoot into multiple sessions, see managing shoots for the mechanics.
Changing who’s assigned normally requires order management permission. A narrower reschedule-only permission lets someone move a session’s time, but it does not let them reassign the photographer — see roles and permissions for the full breakdown of what each permission level allows.
Who’s eligible to be assigned
When you open the assignment picker, Spatiko lists team members who have a linked account, are active, and are accepting orders. A client’s self-service booking page is stricter: it only offers members who are fully set up, with a saved location and at least one working day on their availability schedule.
From there, two separate checks apply:
- Service capability. If a member hasn’t had any specific services or packages configured for them, they’re treated as able to shoot everything. Once a member has at least one capability configured, a client’s self-service booking page only offers them for the services and packages they’ve been given. The assignment picker doesn’t hide them, so check capabilities before you assign someone yourself.
- Coverage area. Members are generally offered based on whether the shoot address falls within their coverage. That depends on how the member prices travel: on radius rings, it’s anywhere within their maximum travel distance. On custom travel zones, it’s anywhere inside one of their zones, plus the area beyond them when their Everywhere else rule charges a fee (up to their maximum travel distance). When you’re creating or editing an order yourself, you can still manually assign someone outside their usual coverage as an override. On a client’s self-service booking page, only members whose coverage includes the address are offered at all.
These two checks are independent — a member’s service capability doesn’t affect their coverage eligibility, and vice versa.
Once the shoot has an address, each member in the picker carries a short note:
- Travel fee: $X — what that member’s trip would cost, from their own travel settings (including $0.00 when it’s free).
- Travel not configured — the member covers the address but has travel fees switched off.
- Out of coverage — the address is outside the member’s coverage.
- No location set — the member has no home base yet.
Members who cover the address are listed first, lowest travel fee first, with ties going to whoever is closest. Members with travel fees switched off come after them. Anyone out of coverage or without a location sinks below a divider.
Client picks or Studio assigns
Who chooses the photographer on an online booking is one business-wide setting: Photographer on all forms, at the top of Settings → Services & Forms → Team Capabilities. It applies to every order form and to bookings clients make while signed in to their portal. Orders you create yourself aren’t affected — you still pick the photographer there.
- Client picks — “Clients choose a photographer, then a time.” The form preselects the closest photographer who covers the address and can do the services booked, and the client can switch to anyone else it offers.
- Studio assigns — “Clients pick a time, and the best-placed free photographer gets it.” The photographer choice disappears from the form and the client sees one calendar combining everyone eligible. The review step reads “Photographer assigned by our team”, and the client sees who’s coming once the booking is confirmed.
Team Capabilities, and with it Studio assigns, is a team-management feature on Pro and up — see pricing. On other plans every form works as Client picks. Changing the setting needs Manage catalog & packages. With only one photographer accepting orders, Studio assigns waits: the card notes it “Applies once a second photographer is accepting orders.”
How Studio assigns picks
Each start time goes to the free photographer who ranks best for that address:
- Lowest travel fee — what that member’s trip would cost, from their own travel settings.
- Closest home base.
- Lighter day — when two are about equally close (the same fee, homes within a couple of miles of each other), the one with fewer hours already booked that day gets the slot. Booked shoots and slots being held at checkout count; busy time from Google Calendar doesn’t.
The client pays the travel fee of the photographer who gets the slot, and you can still reassign the session afterwards like any other.
Members with travel fees switched off count as having no fee, so they rank as the cheapest and get every slot they’re free for. When some of your bookable photographers have travel fees off and others don’t, the card warns you and names them, with each name linking to that member’s Travel tab if you manage the team.
Assignment and pay
Reassigning a session’s photographer automatically updates the order’s payout to match the new assignee’s configured rate. See photographer payouts for how those rates and payouts work.
Reassignment also reprices that trip’s travel fee: each session carries its own travel fee, priced from whoever is assigned to it, so handing a session to someone based farther away changes what the trip costs. The exception is an order the client has already paid something on — the billed fee stays as it was, and simply follows the new photographer for payout. The travel-fee pricing itself is covered in the travel time & travel fees guide below.
For an overview of team member setup in general, see team and roles.
Go deeper
- Travel time & travel fees — set the home base, coverage area, and travel fees that drive eligibility and the picker’s ordering.
- Managing shoots on your calendar — add, split, or move sessions, which is where reassignment actually happens.
- Order forms — the public booking page where clients pick a photographer, or just a time.
- Setting up photographer payouts — configure the per-service rates a reassignment switches an order’s payout to.
- Team performance & payout reports — the report showing how assigned work and revenue spread across your crew.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't a team member showing up in the assignment picker?
The picker only lists members who have a linked account, are active, and are accepting orders. Coverage then shapes the list. A member outside their coverage, or with no home base set yet, drops to the bottom with a reason instead of a travel fee. Service capabilities limit who a client's booking page offers.
Can I assign a shoot to someone outside their coverage area?
Yes, when you're creating or editing the order yourself — an out-of-coverage member drops below a divider in the picker with a reason instead of a travel fee, but you can still select them as a manual override. A client's self-service booking page won't offer them at all.
How does Spatiko choose a photographer when a client books online?
It depends on the Photographer on all forms setting. With Client picks, the form preselects the closest photographer who covers the address and can do the services, and the client can switch. With Studio assigns, on Pro and up, the client only picks a time and each time slot goes to the free photographer with the lowest travel fee, then the closest home base, then the lighter day.
Does reassigning a session change what the shoot pays out?
Yes. Reassigning a session's photographer automatically updates the order's payout to the new assignee's configured rate for those services, and reprices that trip's travel fee from the new photographer's travel settings — unless the client has already paid something, in which case the billed fee stays as it was and simply follows the new photographer for payout.