Pepsi Refresh Idea – $10k for RescueGroups.org

As we mentioned previously, DogTime had submitted a Pepsi Refresh Idea for November. The idea finished just a couple spots away from the top 10, and Pepsi has automatically reentered the idea for the month of December!

Vote Every Day During December!

If the Pepsi Refresh idea is in the top 10 ideas for the category at the end of voting in December, $ 10,000 of the grant is going to RescueGroups.org so we can provide service grants! That's over sixty grants to help organizations with their websites, data management, email and domains!

So, we need everyone to vote daily for the DogTime Idea -- the links are below!

Click to Receive a Daily Reminder!

Your daily vote could make the difference in us winning the grant. We'd be happy to send you a daily reminder email to vote -- just click here and click Send to be added to our daily reminders list!

Use the Links Below to Vote

Facebook users can vote here:

http://apps.facebook.com/pepsirefresh/idea/view/id/2245b434-06d0-102e-be05-0019b9b9e205

Non-facebook users can create a login and vote here:

http://www.refresheverything.com/saveoilspilldogscats

Text messages: Text* 103717 to Pepsi (73774)

Thank you so much for your support. Please be sure to click the link above to be added to our daily reminders list, and forward this message to everyone you know! And don't forget to vote every day!

Please Support DogTime’s Pepsi Refresh Idea!

If you haven't heard, Pepsi is giving away over $1,000,000 this year to fund great causes through their Pepsi Refresh Project.  DogTime has entered the contest and for the month of November, we are are looking for your help to spread the word!

Our cause is to find homes for 500 Gulf region shelter dogs/cats at risk of euthanasia and provide much-needed food for the shelters in that region.  At the end of each month, the top 10 ideas in each category receive funding, and with your help we have a great chance of getting there.

Part of the grant will be given to RescueGroups.org to provide service grants of data management, website and other services.

You can read more about our cause here:

http://blogs.dogtime.com/editors-notepad/2010/11/prevent-euthanasia-for-500-gulf-animals-vote-every-day-in-the-pepsi-refresh-challenge

Vote for our Pepsi Refresh idea here:

http://pep.si/bc9RKy

Invitation for a Dog Evalutation Techniques Survey

The following message is from the Center for Shelter Dogs (a program of the Animal Rescue League of Boston):

You are invited to participate in a national survey of animal shelters sponsored by the Center for Shelter Dogs to find out how dogs are evaluated for admittance and adoption.  Your answers will help us better understand how different evaluation techniques are implemented as well as challenges to using such techniques.  To thank you for your time we would be happy to share with you a summary of the study’s results.  It will take just 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Please be assured that your responses will be held in the strictest confidence. No identifying information will be shared and all results will be presented in a summarized manner only.

To be eligible to participate, you should be knowledgeable about your shelter’s policies and practices for admitting and evaluating dogs.    Please click the link below to get started!

http://www.arlbsurveys.com/html.pro?ID=35

Coming Soon: Email Marketing Service

Hello shelters and rescues!  We're working on a new service I wanted to tell you about -- and we're asking for your ideas and suggestions!

We'd like to provide an Email Marketing service that would integrate with your other RescueGroups.org services.  This new service would send out text/HTML emails to members of your Campaigns and help with the administration and reporting related to the Campaigns.

Here are a few of the ideas we have for this new service:

  • Visitors can sign-up for your campaigns from your RescueGroups.org website or any other website
  • Visitors can manage their own campaign memberships and opt-out
  • Add campaign members manually, from a file, or from your RescueGroups.org contacts/groups
  • Create HTML emails including templates, backgrounds, images, links and file downloads
  • Schedule emails to run daily or at a specific day and time
  • Report on effectiveness metrics like open and click rates
  • Automatically handle and report on email bounce backs
  • Automatically handle and report on spam complaints

This new service will be a huge leap ahead of our current Campaigns feature which is text-only and doesn't include any automatic list management or reporting.  Due to spam and opt-in rules it's very likely that the email functionality our current Campaign feature will be replaced by the new Email Marketing service.

If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, please contact us.

Also, if you are interested in trying the new Email Marketing service, please let us know.  A few select organizations will have the opportunity to use the new service before it is available to everyone else!

Exciting Enhancements Coming Early November

We're excited to announce the next set of updates that are coming in early November!  The enhancements are mainly focused on animal intakes, outcomes, reporting and general usability of our Management interface.

As always, our work is focused on helping our partner rescues and shelters to work more effectively.  If you have suggestions for new services or enhancements, please contact us!

The updates will include dozens of new features and enhancements; the major ones include:

Dashboard *

We're introducing a new Dashboard to the Manage interface.  The Dashboard will include links to the most frequently used pages like Animals and Contacts.  The Dashboard will also include links to the User Guide and Support, and to the Message Center.  We'll be enhancing the Dashboard in the near future to include a lot more time saving features!

Menu Updates *

We've rearranged the Manage menu to make things a little easier to find.  Reports will now be it's own menu item.

Animal Add/Edit Single and Double Column Pages *

The animal add and edit pages now have a single-column layout.  The default is the double-column layout, but if you find it easier to look up-and-down without also finding fields right-to-left you can switch to the single-column layout.

Animal Intakes *

Tracking animal intakes will allow you to record and report on information specifically related to the origin and condition of the animal when they entered the care of your organization.  The Intake will record when the animal was received, how/why (stray, surrender, etc), who the animal was received from, and the animal's condition (healthy, treatable, etc).

Although you are not required to add an Intake when adding an animal, we will strongly encourage the use of Intakes for complete and accurate reporting.

Animal Outcomes *

Tracking animal outcomes will allow you to record and report on information specifically related to the disposition and condition of the animal when they exited the care of your organization.  The Outcome will record when the animal left your organization, how/why (adoption, return to owner, etc), who the animal was released to, and the animal's condition (healthy, treatable, etc).

Although you are not required to add an Outcome when an animal leaves your organization, we will strongly encourage the use of Outcomes for complete and accurate reporting.

Contact Types

Contacts are now organized by type, including: Individual/Family, Company and Rescue/Shelter.  Contacts added to the Rescue/Shelter contact group will automatically be set to the Rescue/Shelter contact type.  Certain drop downs will show contacts from different types, like Animal Transfer To will show only the Rescue/Shelter type.

Anonymous Contact

Each organization can now select an Anonymous contact for things like Intakes, Donations, etc.

Advanced Datatables *

All of the major datatables (like Animals, Contacts, Donations, Adoptions, etc) will now allow you to display fields, filter and sort by any field across related data types.  For example, on the Animals datatable you could display, filter or sort by any related animal data like Foster, Adopter, Location, Colony, etc.  Currently you can only work with the fields directly on Animals.

Shared Custom Views *

You'll now be able to share your custom views so that other people in your organization can use the same custom view.

Advanced Reporting *

You'll now be able to create a custom report on any data in our system.  This means you can create a custom report on Adoptions, and similar to the enhancements to the Datatables, you'll now be able to include fields from any related data types (like Adopter, Foster, etc).

Shared Custom Reports *

When you create a custom report you'll be able to share the report so that other people in your organization can use the same custom report.

Asilomar Reporting *

By using the data provided in the Animal Intakes and Animal Outcomes, an Asilomar Advanced Statistics report can be generated for any date range.

 

Items noted with an asterisk * are only available in our Management interface.

ASPCA Website Provides Much Needed Exposure for Adoptable Pets

We are excited to announce that the ASPCA is now showing your adoptable pets on their website!  All RescueGroups.org shelters and rescues are benefiting from much needed exposure thanks to an exclusive partnership among the ASPCA, DogTime and RescueGroups.org.

You can visit your pets on ASPCA at the following URLs:

http://www.aspca.org/adoption/cats.html
http://www.aspca.org/adoption/dogs.html

The DogTime iframe pet search being used by the ASPCA is very unique in that it provides social media integrations and viral tools that significantly increase the exposure for adoptable pets, including Facebook, Twitter and email features.  These same tools are powering the Save-a-Dog and Save-a-Cat Facebook applications and as a result we have noticed a dramatic increase in pet views!

DogTime and RescueGroups.org are proud to provide the first and only data feed and adoptable pet search tools to pass the ASPCA’s very stringent requirements for data quality.

Also, we’re very happy to include adoptable pet data from the ASPCA’s New York City shelter in our data feed.  Now adoptable cats and dogs from the ASPCA’s shelter will be seen across the Internet, helping them find a home even faster.

We’d like to thank the ASPCA for providing this additional exposure for homeless pets across the country, and we’re looking forward to our continued partnership with DogTime and the ASPCA!

Upgrades Scheduled for Wednesday 8/25

RescueGroups.org Supporters:

We have a group of updates scheduled for the morning of Wednesday August 25th.  All of the RescueGroups.org services will be generally unavailable from 3 AM to 9 AM eastern time Wednesday morning.  We do not expect the updates to take the full six hours, and some services, like Voice Mail, should be available during the entire window.

Please read below to learn about the features, updates and fixes that are included in this release!  As always, please contact us if you have any feedback, questions or concerns.

Account Number will be required

When logging into the Pet Adoption Portal and new Management website an account number will be required.  Everyone who has a volunteer or administrative account with us has received two emails with their account numbers.  The account number will be required when logging in, resetting your password or when contacting support.

Unique User Names

Each organization will now have their own set of unique user names, and user names will not be shared across RescueGroups.org organizations.  This will reduce confusion, and issues regarding available user names.

Delete Contacts

In the Website and Data Management services you will now be able to delete a contact and it will no longer appear in any of your Contacts lists.  When using the Management website you will be able to recover deleted contacts from Data Recovery.

Contact info will not be automatically added/updated in your Contacts list

When someone submits information to you from your RescueGroups.org Website service we will no longer automatically add Contact records to your Contacts list.  This means that you have full and complete control of your contacts list and the Website service will not update or delete your records.

This affects the following features of the RescueGroups.org Website service: Online Forms, Users, Calls and Meet Requests.  When viewing a Submitted Online Form, User Login Account, Call or Meet Request you will have the option to add or merge the contact to your Contacts list.

You will continue to review alerts when a Call, Meet Request or Online Form is submitted.  When you view that object, you will need to decide if you want to have the submitter become part of your main Contacts list.

Optionally you will be able to allow your RescueGroups.org to automatically add these Contacts by changing the option under Settings & Options > Contacts.

Merge Contacts

You can now merge any contacts, even if more than one of the contacts has a User Login Account.

Site Options and User Options Clarified

All of our Site and User Options have been reworded to be less confusing.

Ear Types

Uncropped added as a new ear type.

Online Form Preview

An Online Form can now be previewed from the Management interface.

Updated HTML Editor

The HTML Editor in the Pet Adoption Portal and Website service has been updated to resolve various minor issues.

Important: Updates Coming 8/25/10

RescueGroups.org Users:

We have an upcoming set of updates currently scheduled for August 25, 2010.  We wanted to let you know about the updates because they will impact the way you login and manage your RescueGroups.org data.  We would like to describe the changes, and explain why they are necessary.

Account Number will be required when logging in

We will be requiring that you use an account number when logging into the Pet Adoption Portal or the new Management website.  The Account Number is how we will know which RescueGroups.org account you would like to manage.

You will receive an email with your organization’s account number prior to the updates on 8/25.  If you manage more than one RescueGroups.org account you will receive multiple emails and multiple account numbers.  Starting on August 25th you will be required to use the appropriate account number to login to your RescueGroups.org account on the Pet Adoption Portal or Management website.  The account number will not be required when logging into the RescueGroups.org Website service.

A couple notes: You will not need to use an account number when logging into your RescueGroups.org website, however you should always keep that number handy in case you need to contact support or would like to login to one of the other services.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

We realize that entering an account number will make logging in a little more difficult -- but there’s an upside!  Here’s how we were able to improve our services by requesting an account number when logging in:

You will have full control of your organization's contact records.

You will now be able to delete contacts from your contacts list.  You will also be able to merge any contacts if you have duplicates.

Contact records will not be automatically added to your Contacts list from your RescueGroups.org Website service.

Previously, when someone submitted information from your RescueGroups.org Website service a contact record would automatically be added to your organization’s Contacts list.  Starting with these updates, that will no longer happen automatically.

After our updates, if someone completes an adoption application on your website you will see the Completed Form in the list and you can view the form and the contact information associated with the form.  However, the contact will not automatically be added to your Contacts list.

You will need to click “Add to Contacts” or “Merge with an Existing Contact” when viewing the new contact before that person will be in your main Contacts list.

This applies to the following website features: Online Forms, Calls and Meet Requests.

This will not affect the way alerts are sent out when information is submitted from your website.  For example, Online Forms alerts will be sent the same way they always have been.  You will also receive Calls and Meet Request alerts the same way you always have.

User accounts are now separated by organization.

Each organization now has their own user login accounts, and the user names are not shared across RescueGroups.org accounts.  So, user name “Bob” with organization A is a different user account than “Bob” with organization B.

In the past, when a visitor registered with one RescueGroups.org service, that user account was valid for any RescueGroups.org organization.  However, visitors were getting confused because their user name was already registered if they had already with a RescueGroups.org organization.

Now, if someone wants to register with two different RescueGroups.org organizations they would need to register twice.

The downside is that each volunteer will need to logout and back in to “switch” from managing organization A to managing organization B.  If you manage just one organization this doesn’t affect you.

To summarize the account number requirement:

  • Starting on August 25, 2010 you will be required to use your organization’s Account Number to log in
  • The account number will be required on the Pet Adoption Portal and Management websites, but not with the Website service
  • The account number you enter will be remembered on the login page
  • Every volunteer will receive an email from RescueGroups.org with the account number(s) they need prior to the update on 8/25
  • If you manage more than one RescueGroups.org account you will have multiple account numbers (one for each organization)
  • Your account number will also be requested when contacting support

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.  We'd be happy to answer any questions you have concerning the account number or updates to our services.

New Quick Start Guide

Thanks to Michelle, one of our support volunteers, we have a new Quick Start Guide available.  The Guide will help acclimate you to our new Management interface, and includes some basic setup instructions for new accounts.

You can view the Quick Start Guide PDF by clicking the link from the Support web page:

https://www.rescuegroups.org/support

Please let us know what you think.  This is just the first of many steps we'll be taking to make our services even easier to use!

Updates to all Services Coming Thursday 7/29

We're happy to announce that we will be updating many of our services this coming Thursday morning.  Read below for a list of the enhancements and improvements!

We will be performing the updates on Thursday morning (7/12) between 6-9 AM.  There may be brief times when the website is unavailable, especially between 6-7 AM.

A lot of these enhancements were ideas submitted by our users.  We have a long list of ideas, including big ones and small ones, that were all submitted by the community.

Please note that some of the updates are only available when using our new Manage interface.  You can read about the new Manage website in our blog here, or please contact us for additional information.

Enhancements and Updates in this Release:

Website Service Updates

  • Added new animal fields: ear type, eye color, tail type, distinguishing marks, exact birthdate, reason not house trained (fields are described in our User Guide)
  • Created new layout for the animal detail page (previous/old layouts can be selected from Animals Settings)
  • Public animal fields and qualities added to the public animal page
  • Private animal fields are now shown in a box marked as such
  • "Adoption pending" now appears next to animals on the animal browse and list pages

Pet Adoption Toolkit

  • Public animal fields and qualities added to the public animal page

Manage Website Updates

  • Exact animal birthdate checkbox added and public animal page will say "born on"
  • Animal setting to disable the "best estimate" for animal age (see Animal settings)
  • Animal sponsorship statuses can be selected (see Animal settings)
  • Name and Rescue ID values are not automatically kept when cloning an animal
  • Pictures of the original animal can be cloned
  • Videos can be uploaded to the organization's YouTube account (see Animal Export Settings)