Everything ShelterSync does, on one page.
This is the full parts list: the daily activity goals at the center of the platform, the mobile app volunteers and fosters carry — built for iPhone and Android — the admin portal staff run the day from, and the tools that move your data in and out. Skim a section or read it all.
Want the story before the parts list? Explore ShelterSync.
Daily activity goals
Everything else in ShelterSync hangs off one idea: set a daily minutes target per species, per category — "dogs get 30 minutes of enrichment a day" — and then watch it get met, animal by animal.
- Minute targets you define per species and per activity category — your standard of care, written down
- Per-animal exceptions that replace the species default, with the reason kept on record — the senior dog who needs rest, the adolescent who needs more
- One definition of "met" — completed minutes against the target — that reads the same on the dashboard, in the reports, and on the volunteer's phone
- "Today" means your shelter's day — your timezone and your reporting-day start, not midnight somewhere else
- Animals with unmet goals surface on the dashboard, priority animals first, so the easiest animals to miss are the hardest to miss
The volunteer & foster mobile app
Built for iPhone and Android — and for a phone in one hand and a leash in the other. Logging a session takes seconds, and the app always shows which animals still need their day.
- Scan the QR code on a kennel card and that animal opens, ready to go
- Goal pills on every animal — amber "Needs activities," green "Goals met" — plus needs-activities and priority filters that point volunteers where they're needed
- Start an activity and a timer counts the minutes toward the animal's daily goals
- A short post-activity survey — the one your shelter built — wraps up every session
- Fosters can log a session after the fact, with sensible guardrails: nothing in the future, nothing before the placement began, nothing over twelve hours, no overlaps
- Structured observations from home — using the observation form your shelter sets up — that land on the animal's behavioral record
- Multi-factor authentication, a six-digit PIN for shared tablets, and admin-approved devices
The admin portal, day to day
The whole shelter on one live screen, for the people answerable for all of it. Here's what staff actually work with.
The dashboard
One screen that answers "how is today going?" the moment you open it — built from live cards, not last week's export.
- Animal counts and activity minutes logged today
- Goal progress by category, across the whole shelter
- Pending surveys and in-progress activities as they happen
- Animals with unmet goals surfaced front and center, priority first
The animal roster
Every animal in one list, with two kinds of badge so nobody has to guess whether a walk is possible right now.
- Lifecycle status on one axis, availability on the other
- Availability that reflects real life: available, in activity, at the vet, quarantine, medical or behavior hold
- Photos on every profile
- Printable QR kennel cards — the same codes the mobile app scans
Group activities & events
Some of the best minutes of an animal's day happen in groups — ShelterSync treats them as first-class records, not workarounds.
- Group activities for playgroups and group walks
- Group types you define in your shelter's own vocabulary
- Adoption days and orientations, scheduled by staff
- Events appear on volunteers' calendars in the mobile app
Volunteers & notifications
Manage the people side from the same portal — and keep everyone informed without adding another inbox to check.
- Volunteer and foster accounts managed by staff
- Restrict an account when you need to — access ends, history stays
- In-app notifications keep staff and volunteers up to date inside ShelterSync
- No user-to-user messaging, by design — one less channel to moderate
Behavioral tools, with honest limits
Structured assessments, a handling tier your whole team can read at a glance, and a builder that puts your shelter's own questions into the product.
Structured assessments & the handling tier
Turn behavioral observations into a consistent record — and into a clear signal about who should be handling which animal.
- Five assessment templates included to start from — or build your own
- Scoring and dimensions that roll answers up into a result
- A green/yellow/red handling tier — a signal for who can safely handle an animal, one input among many, not a validated predictive test
- Staff can override a tier, and every override is recorded in the audit log
- Foster observations land on the same behavioral timeline as shelter assessments
The survey, assessment & observation builder
A full-page editor — question palette, canvas, and live preview side by side — for activity surveys, assessment templates, and foster observation forms. No developer, no support ticket.
- Single and multiple choice, yes/no, 1–5 ratings, numbers, short and long text
- Show-when conditional logic driven by earlier answers or the animal's own properties and tags
- Scoring, dimensions, and tier thresholds for assessments
- Merge fields like {{animal.name}}, previewed live with sample personas so questions read naturally
Data in, data out
ShelterSync works beside the records you already keep. It syncs from your system of record, imports from anything that can export a CSV, and lets your data leave whenever you want it to.
ShelterLuv sync
Sync your animals from ShelterLuv automatically, as often as every 15 minutes — or on demand with Sync now. Paste your API key once (it's stored encrypted and never shown again); animals, photos, and attributes arrive as tags, departed animals are offboarded for you, and a 90-day history shows every run. It's one-way into ShelterSync — we never write back to ShelterLuv.
CSV import wizard
Bring in animals, volunteers, fosters, and your location tree from any system that can export a CSV. Columns map automatically, every row is previewed with its warnings and errors, and nothing is saved until you confirm.
Reports that leave with you
Five report types — activity summary, animal daily activity, welfare indicators, compliance, and security — filtered by date, location, and category, and exported as CSV, PDF, or Excel. All of it on your reporting day, in your timezone.
The features your board will ask about
Security isn't a page in our terms — it's a set of features, and they belong on this list like everything else.
Your data is yours alone
Every organization's data is isolated, and that isolation is enforced server-side on every single request — one shelter can never see another's records.
Five roles, real boundaries
Role-based access for global admins, admins, staff, volunteers, and fosters — enforced at the API, in the interface, and down at the query layer.
One log for everything
A combined activity and security log: every record change with before-and-after detail, plus sign-ins and failed attempts — read-only, with a per-person view.
Restriction, never deletion
Animals are offboarded, people are restricted, events are deactivated — but history is never destroyed. The record your board relies on stays intact.
Built for the shelter floor
An unapproved device gets a restricted session until an admin approves it, and shared front-desk tablets get a quick six-digit PIN per person.
Multi-factor sign-in
Authenticator-app MFA with backup codes and an opt-in SMS fallback, plus per-role MFA and sign-in policies you control in settings.
Encrypted, hosted in the US
Encrypted in transit and at rest, hosted in the United States, with your data staying in the US — and twice-daily backups behind a tested, timed restore exercise.
Minors, safeguarded
A 13-and-up age floor, under-18 volunteers private by default and kept out of shared lists, reports, and exports — and no user-to-user messaging, by design.
Controls built toward SOC 2 Common Criteria, CCPA and GDPR expectations.
Try every feature on this page today.
Your free trial is a dedicated organization, provisioned by our team and pre-loaded with a complete sample shelter — animals, activity history, and surveys to explore.
Want the case before the checklist? Read the ShelterSync pitch.