It’s time for better animal picture handling

Written March 15, 2014 by
Categories: Random Thoughts and Ideas, Updates
1 Comment »

So right now, RescueGroups.org takes an uploaded image and creates two new images:

  • A "fullsize" version that is a maximum of 500px wide
  • A "thumbnail" version that is a maximum of 100px wide

The 500px wide limit was originally put into place (back in 2002) because that was what Petfinder limited their pictures to.  I'm not really sure why we followed their lead and resized all of our images instead of thinking for ourselves -- oh well, can't change the past.

That method is obviously not going to work in the long run, and we're in the process of changing it.

When the updates go live, we will start to have three versions of animal pictures:

  • The "original" image file (not resized or changed, although we may decide to always convert to jpg format)
  • A "large" size image that is a maximum of 500px wide
  • A "small" size image that is a maximum of 100px wide

Any current/old pictures would obviously just have two actual picture files, since the "original" image would have been resized.

Also, we're moving the animal pictures into a different directory structure in preparation for some new features in the future.  This task is going to take weeks because we have millions of animal pictures, and each picture has to be copied individually.

Once things settle, we'll be able to start using the different image sizes in various places and give our users (like the website service, Toolkit, etc) more options to use larger images (or smaller/medium sized images in some cases).

We're hoping to update our production systems within the next week.  We're hoping to minimize any inconvenience, but if you experience any problems, please contact support.

DogsInDanger now receiving data from RescueGroups.org!

Written March 10, 2014 by
Categories: Newsletters
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Update 3/19/14: In order for your adoptable dogs to be exported to Dogs in Danger you must enable the sharing of the Euthanasia Date and Euthanasia Reason under Animals > Exports > Settings, and also set the Euthanasia Date and Reason on each dog.

Hello All,

We're excited to tell you that DogsInDanger.com is now receiving adoptable dog information from RescueGroups.org!

As you may know, DogsInDanger.com helps municipal shelters save dogs. More than 1,000 adopters visit DogsInDanger.com every day looking for dogs and since 2007 they have helped save 70,000 dogs from death.

The DogsInDanger export was added to your list of Exports last week.  You can enable/disable the export to this website just as you do all of your other exports.  You can access your exports by going to Animals > Exports in your Manage account.

Remember, DogsInDanger is dedicated to dogs facing death in municipal shelters. Only dogs with a Euthanasia Date and Euthanasia Reason will be uploaded to DogsInDanger. Dogs without these two pieces of information will not be uploaded.

If you’re not already registered with DogsInDanger, you’ll need to create an account with them. Remember registration is limited to municipal shelters and animal control agencies. Click here to register: http://shelter.dogsindanger.com/admin/register1.jsp

Please contact shelter@dogsindanger.com with any questions about DogsInDanger.

Updates coming February 11, 2014

Written February 7, 2014 by
Categories: Updates
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We've been working on a few updates, and we're planning to release them on Tuesday morning, between 6-9 AM Eastern.  We are not expecting any significant downtime because of the release.

Here's what is included in these updates:

Datatable Usability

We are updating the datatables in our Manage interface with a few usability improvements.  Primarily, your web browser's back button should take you to the previous page, view, or search.

Renaming the Ear Type "Uncropped" to "Natural/Uncropped"

"Natural/Uncropped" will now appear as a choice for animal Ear Type.  It will be replacing the choice "Uncropped."

Link from Contacts to Animal Intakes

Contacts will now have a link to their associated Animal Intakes.

Drag & Drop Feature for Website Menus (Beta)

This is a beta feature and currently does not replace the existing method of moving menu items around within a Website Menu.  This new feature will allow you to add and move menu items by dragging them.

If you have any questions or issues after the updates, please contact RescueGroups.org support.

Three things we’re especially thankful for this Thanksgiving

Written December 2, 2013 by
Categories: Uncategorized
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I know this post is a little late, since it’s already the week after Thanksgiving now.  I had written it, but with our upgrades and typical holiday madness, I didn’t get a chance to post it.

So here are a few things we're especially grateful for this Thanksgiving.

The Sync App developer

We’re thankful for the volunteer developer who created the Sync App to update Petfinder.  It has saved thousands of organizations and volunteers an immeasurable amount of time performing mundane tasks.

If you’d like to thank the Sync App developer yourself, shoot him/her an email or even donate to help cover their hosting fees.

https://sites.google.com/site/petfindersync/

Community focused for-profit partners DogTime, AllPaws, and 911PetChip

When it comes to adoption listings, Monopoly should stay just a board game.  Your adoptable pets need to be shared across the Internet, freely and without any strings.  Lives depend on it.

RescueGroups.org is thankful for partners like DogTime, AllPaws, and 911PetChip, who provide community-focused services.  You can feel the difference when working with partners like these -- they are always looking for ways to really impact the rescue and shelter world, and not just make a buck.

Support from the community

The support of the rescue/shelter community is invaluable to us.  Currently we have over 3,700 active organizations, and tens of thousands of volunteers and staff using our services, and we're growing by leaps and bounds.

A quick and easy way you can help us is by writing a testimonial.  Here’s a blog post on how to do it:

https://www.rescuegroups.org/help-us-by-writing-a-testimonial/

We’re really dependent on the community for financial support.  Our income comes only from our low service fees and the donations we receive.

It would be great if you can donate to help -- perhaps we made your life easier, or increase your adoptions and donations?  But your pets are always first... they always take first priority.

Regardless, we're not changing our services.  Our free services are remaining free… in fact, we’re planning to add more free services and features in the near future!

https://www.rescuegroups.org/upgrades-new-features-please-donate/

Thank you so much for your help and support.  We hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and we wish you a wonderful holiday season.

System upgrades scheduled this coming week

Written November 21, 2013 by
Categories: API, Developers, Uncategorized, Updates
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RescueGroups.org has a couple system upgrades scheduled for this coming week, including over Thanksgiving.

First, on Saturday 11/23 from 8-10 AM, the RescueGroups.org FTP server will be unavailable.  This will affect any data uploads (to RescueGroups.org) or bulk export functions.  Exports to the adoption listing websites and the API will not be affected.

Then, early Thanksgiving morning, we will be performing a system upgrade on our production web servers.  We do not expect to have any noticeable or significant interruption of service because of this upgrade.

These upgrades do not include any changes to the functionality of our services.  They are primarily back-end system changes.  However, due to system architecture changes, software version upgrades, and the consolidation of our code base, there may be minor issues immediately following the upgrade.  We're not expecting any issues, but we realize that with a system as large as RescueGroups.org, a minor one here or there is generally inevitable.

You might be a little leery of system upgrades and their potential impact to your life-saving operations.  So, here's some things we're doing to make sure this upgrade goes smoothly:

  • We're doing as much testing as possible beforehand.
  • We'll do the upgrade on a holiday, so hopefully any minor issues will be resolved while you're relaxing and away from your computer.
  • We will be available all day Thursday, Friday, and the weekend if there are any issues that need attention.
  • We will respond to you promptly and directly if you need to contact Support regarding an issue you notice after the upgrades.
  • If there are any significant issues that cannot be resolved quickly we will be able to switch back to the previous systems.

Although these two system upgrades do not provide any new functionality, they are a big step in the right direction so that we can provide improved service performance and roll out enhancements with a lot less overhead.

Thank you for your support!

Upgrades & New Features – Please Donate!

Written November 5, 2013 by
Categories: Newsletters
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As you probably already know, RescueGroups.org is supported by our low service fees and by your donations.  We believe it's better for the community that we are a non-profit organization, and not have corporate sponsors -- it means we are able to do things in a better way that wouldn't be possible if we had investors, share holders, and corporate sponsors to answer to first.

Occasionally we ask our community to consider donating to help us work toward our mission.

No one is required to donate -- our free services will remain free even if you don't donate.

The past few years have been tough -- our income (from service fees and donations) has not been paying the bills.  We've been dependent on loans to keep us going.

But this year has been a little better.  We've found ways to trim some of our costs, and we've brought on more partners.  We hope that (with your help) we'll be debt free by the end of this calendar year!

This year we did a lot with our limited resources:

  • Brought on full-time administrative/support staff (our employee count remains at one)
  • Free microchip integration
  • Free imports from PetPoint
  • Free Online Forms and Common Adoption Application service coming soon!
  • Custom contact groups
  • Improvements to the Messaging Center
  • API updates including FTP-based XML exports
  • Brought on dozens of additional API websites and services
  • As much as we could from the Requests list
  • Tons of usability enhancements

We have huge plans for the next year:

  • Bring on at least one additional microchip registration partner
  • Usability improvements to the Portal website
  • Enhanced features for the free Toolkit service
  • Improve user permissions and security roles
  • Maybe a mobile app or two?
  • As much as we can from the Requests list

If you are able to donate, the Donation page includes information on how to donate online or with a check.

https://www.rescuegroups.org/give/upgrades-new-features-please-donate/

Thank you so much for your generosity and support!




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Donate any Amount

Free Online Forms Service coming soon!

Written October 24, 2013 by
Categories: Updates
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We're excited to announce that we are bringing a free version of our wildly popular Online Forms service to all organizations, for free!

The free Online Forms service will include features like:*

  • Built-in adoption application with detailed static questions
  • Contacts/adopter tracking
  • Per-user and per-form alerting features
  • Submitted form assignments
  • Add comments and discuss with other volunteers
  • 3rd party submissions via the API (eg, adoption listing websites)
  • Online Form iFrame (put your application on any website)

The Online Forms service will include a built-in adoption application, called "Common Adoption Application."  The Common app will have dozens of the most frequently used adoption questions -- all taken from the feedback we received from our community surveys.  Regardless if your organization has an existing adoption application, or you're looking to create one, the Common app will have you covered.

If you haven't used our Online Forms service before, you can find the link to Online Forms and to Submitted Forms on the Features menu of your Manage account.  The Online Forms page will show you the forms (adoption application, questions, etc) and the Submitted Forms page will show you the completed/submitted applications from your potential adopters.

We will also be renaming our current Online Forms service to "Advanced Online Forms," and it will continue to include these additional features:

  • Create unlimited forms (adoption, volunteer, foster, etc)
  • Create public and private forms
  • Create your own questions
  • Create unlimited pages per form
  • Track the progress of adoptions with the steps feature
  • Contact the application via email
  • Use an iFrame to put your application on any website!**

In the future, we plan to add these features:

  • Online Forms and Submitted Forms expanded API
  • Share adoption applications with other organizations

Look for these updates very soon!  We don't have an exact release date, but you should see the changes before the end of October.

We've worked really hard to put together this new free Online Forms service and expanded Advanced Online Forms service. We hope to improve communication, tracking and processing of adoption applications -- to help you work more effectively -- and increase adoptions!

Use the comments below to let us know what you think.  Thank you for your support!

* Specific features are subject to change -- we're close, but it's not in production yet, so we may have to change some things before going live.

** We've added this capability to the Website service also.

Coming Soon — AllPaws.com

Written September 1, 2013 by
Categories: API, Newsletters, Random Thoughts and Ideas
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We're excited about an adoption listing website that is "coming soon."  It's called AllPaws.com, and has been started by DCL Ventures.  DCL Ventures was founded by Internet entrepreneur and online dating/matchmaking expert Darrell Lerner.  The team plans to use some of the things he learned in the dating world to help adopters find the right pet.

AllPaws.com promises to be fresh and unique, with a lot of new features that aren't available with any other pet adoption website -- features that could really drive a lot of new adopters and opportunities to you.

We're excited not only because AllPaws.com is going to use the adoptable pet data from RescueGroups.org, but especially because AllPaws.com will be one of the first websites to integrate with the advanced features of the RescueGroups.org API.

The details of the new features are still being worked out at this time, but we're hoping to announce additional information about their integration in the new future.

If you'd like to get updates directly from AllPaws.com, please sign-up on their website:

http://allpaws.com

From their website you can interact with them via Facebook, Twitter, read the DCL Ventures blog, and email them.

Be sure to like and share their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AllPawsWebsite

AllPaws.com was featured in an article on Mashable last week: http://mashable.com/2013/08/23/allpaws/

If you have a second, please share, like and tweet the post from the Mashable website!

And there has also been a press release: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/allpawscom-launching-to-help-people-find-their-perfect-pet-220798531.html

Keep your eye out for more details in the near future!

Service updates to support automatic microchip registrations

Written July 19, 2013 by
Categories: Uncategorized
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UPDATE: Microchip Registrations are now live and active as of July 27, 2013.

We're getting close to releasing our microchip registration integration.

Here are the changes that you'll notice after our updates:

Under Animals > Settings you'll see a new section for Microchip Registrations.  You'll need to enable the microchip registry you'd like to use (currently we are supporting 911PetChip and  FreePetChipRegistry -- other providers can contact us if they would also like to be integrated with us).

In the Pet Adoption Portal, Website, and Manage interfaces you'll see a Register check box under the Microchip number field on the Add and Edit Animal pages. If you select that check box, you'll be able to enter the microchip registrant information.

If you have the Data Management service, you'll also see a Register check box under the Microchip number field on the Add an Adoption page. The registrant information will be populated for you automatically from the Adopter you selected.

More information about how our microchip integration will work can be found in the following User Guide article:

http://support.rescuegroups.org:8091/x/NwCN

If you have any questions regarding the microchip integration, or regarding our updates, please contact support.

RescueGroups.org Newsletter 6/24/2013

Written June 24, 2013 by
Categories: Newsletters
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There's so much going on right now! We are very excited about the growth and positive feedback we've been receiving recently!

Please read carefully below because everything included is very important. Feel free to contact us via Support, the Requests page, or Facebook if you have any comments or suggestions!

Contents:

  • Upcoming changes to user permissions
  • Sync App
  • Microchips
  • Adopt-a-Pet.com Grant
  • DogTime Petties

Upcoming changes to user permissions

We posted to our blog the other day about our planned changes and improvements to our user permissions and roles. These changes are primarily in response to your Requests and the suggestions we have received.

Please take a look at the following blog post. You may need to take action for your current users to maintain their existing permissions and access.

https://www.rescuegroups.org/were-improving-our-user-permissions-and-roles/

Sync App

Please double-check your Sync App to be sure it's running. There was an issue with a previous version of the Sync App that prevented it from running. You should be on version 5.5.2, and if you aren't, you may need to download and update the Sync App manually. Please go to the Sync App web page for additional information.

Microchips

We are still working on our microchip integration with 911PetChip and FreePetChipRegistry.com. Sorry for the delay. We expect to make additional announcements within the next month or so!

Adopt-a-Pet.com Grant

The Adopt-a-Pet.com Happy Beginnings Fund is now accepting applications from shelters and rescues! If you have, or are planning, a really inspired adoption program, or you have specific costs related to making sure your adoptions are successful (like providing adoption kits or obedience classes), Adopt-a-Pet.com wants to hear from you! The fund is accepting applications from June 15, 2013 through July 13, 2013.

Apply here: http://www.adoptapet.com/grants

DogTime Petties

The DogTime Petties nominations have opened and as part of the nominations phase, DogTime has also started their Petties Grant program. We ask everyone that nominates a blogger for the categories in the Petties to also nominate a shelter or rescue for the Petties Grant. The shelter or rescue that wins receives a $ 10k donation from DogTime.

The nominations end in just a few days, so spread the word quickly! Your rescue or shelter might be the winner of the $ 10k donation!

For more info please visit http://petties.dogtime.com/grants.

Thank you so much for your support!