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Case study · Photography · Wedding studios

Took over Photofolio's unfinished codebase and shipped a platform for wedding studios.

Scope your takeover

How did InApps help Photofolio?

Photofolio is a platform for photography studios to manage clients, events, assets and workflows, with printing and framing services in the same ecosystem. It came to InApps with a codebase from a previous vendor that was incomplete, undocumented and carrying significant technical debt. InApps, a software company in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, took over the code as a project-based engagement, stabilised and refactored it, redesigned the studio workflows, and built a web platform where wedding studio owners store and manage the photo and video libraries of each wedding, connected to Photofolio's printing and framing services.

Photofolio Studio management for wedding photographers
Industry
Photography Weddings & Events
Engagement model
Project-Based
Main technologies
React Laravel PHP WooCommerce

About Photofolio

Photofolio helps photography studios manage their clients, events, assets and workflows on one platform. Around that platform it offers printing and framing, so a studio's photographs can become physical products without leaving the Photofolio ecosystem.

The challenge

The platform had been started by a previous vendor and left incomplete: no documentation, significant technical debt, and an interface that did not fit how wedding studio owners work day to day. It also had to connect cleanly to the printing and framing services Photofolio already ran, rather than stand alone as a gallery.

No new feature could responsibly ship until the inherited platform was stable.

The solution

We agreed the scope, deliverables and milestones upfront, from takeover through MVP, instead of an open-ended retainer. Then we audited the inherited code, refactored it to clear the technical debt, and only built new features on the stabilised base. We redesigned the studio workflows for the people who use them, built the library where studio owners store and browse each wedding's photos and videos, and connected it to Photofolio's printing and framing services, so an order can go from the digital library to a physical print.

How we take over an inherited codebase
One project team
  • Project manager
  • Frontend developers
  • Backend engineers
  • UX/UI designer
  • QA engineer

The stack

React Laravel PHP WooCommerce
Printed photographs of wedding flowers and details laid out on a wooden table

The outcome

An MVP wedding studios could put to work, on a codebase that can take new features.

  • A stable codebase, audited and refactored after the previous vendor left it incomplete.
  • One library per wedding for each studio's photos and videos.
  • From library to print: connected to Photofolio's printing and framing services.
  • Studio workflows redesigned for the owners who use them every day.

Source: InApps project records. Photographs are stock, not the client's.

Questions about this project

InApps took over Photofolio's inherited codebase as a project-based engagement, stabilised and refactored it, redesigned the studio workflows, and built a web platform where wedding studio owners store and manage the photo and video libraries of each wedding. The platform connects to Photofolio's printing and framing services. It is built with React, PHP and Laravel, with WooCommerce for the commerce side.
A platform for photography studios to manage clients, events, assets and workflows, with printing and framing services in the same ecosystem. The part InApps built is for wedding studios: a library of each wedding's photos and videos that connects to print and frame ordering.
Stability comes first. InApps audits the inherited code, documents what it finds, and refactors the parts carrying the most technical debt before any new feature work starts. On Photofolio no new feature was built until the inherited platform was stable.
Because the goal was a defined one: take over the code and deliver an MVP. Scope, deliverables and milestones were agreed upfront, from takeover through MVP, instead of an open-ended retainer, so both sides knew what would be delivered and when.
The library was integrated with the printing and framing services Photofolio already offered, with WooCommerce on the commerce side, so a studio can move from a wedding's digital library to ordering physical prints and frames inside the same ecosystem.

Inherited a codebase nobody documented? Scope the takeover first, like Photofolio did.

Scope your takeover [email protected]

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InApps engineers at their desks in the Ho Chi Minh City office