Shelterluv can be configured to automatically upload your animal records to aggregators of adoptable animals. You can only connect one account for each of these aggregators (Petfinder.com, Adopt-a-Pet.com, and RescueGroups.org) to upload all your animals to.
How do we set up the auto-upload?
To start, you will need to get your FTP credentials from each of these organizations using the instructions below.
Important: FTP-specific username, password, and server are different from your general login details to your account on these sites.
Petfinder
- FTP Server: members.petfinder.com
- FTP Username/Password: Email Petfinder's support at help@petfinder.com with this message: "We are switching to Shelterluv as our software provider and would like to request our FTP credentials for auto-upload. Shelterluv will be sending photo URL's for our animals." These credentials are NOT the same as what you use to login to your Petfinder account.
- Notes:
- We recommend having Petfinder wipe your existing pets from your account before setting up auto-uploads to avoid duplicate listings, but this should be planned carefully with the Petfinder team so that there isn't a gap in your animals being listed.
- Animals will be listed in the order they are uploaded, newest animals will appear first.
- Currently, the following values are uploaded to Petfinder as "Unknown" because attributes are shelter-configured and cannot be mapped to the auto-upload files.
- Good with kids
- Good with dogs
- Good with cats
Adopt-a-Pet
- FTP Server: autoupload.adoptapet.com
- FTP Username/Password: Related documentation on Adopt-a-Pet's website can be found here and here.
- IMPORTANT: Adopt-a-Pet displays the FTP Username & FTP Server in reverse order from Shelterluv, so double-check to make sure you're entering the right credentials into the right fields!
- IMPORTANT: Adopt-a-Pet displays the FTP Username & FTP Server in reverse order from Shelterluv, so double-check to make sure you're entering the right credentials into the right fields!
- You will need to log into Adopt-a-Pet to set up an auto-upload account before entering your FTP credentials into Shelterluv.
- Setting up in advance:
- If you currently have an auto-upload account running through a different software, you will need to wait until the day you go live with Shelterluv to generate the FTP credentials in Adopt-a-Pet. On that day, you will turn off the auto-uploads from the other software, save, and then select Shelterluv from the dropdown menu to generate your credentials.
- If you do not have an an auto-upload account account running through a different software, you can generate your credentials on Adopt-a-Pet anytime and enter them into Shelterluv in advance by keeping it "disabled" in your Configuration panel. If you do this, your publicists will get automated emails from asking them if they need AutoUploading help; they can ignore these emails. Once you are ready to enable auto-uploads (which will permanently erase all current animals in your Adopt-a-Pet account), just toggle it to "enabled" in your Configuration panel.
RescueGroups
- FTP Server: ftp.rescuegroups.org
- FTP Username/Password: The credentials you enter into Shelterluv are NOT the same as what you use to login to your RescueGroups account. Please follow these instructions to do the following in your RescueGroups account:
- Generate your FTP credentials to enter into Shelterluv
- Configure an import account for Shelterluv with the file name pets.csv
Once you have the correct credentials, you can enter those credentials here:
Testing the Connection
To test the connection with each aggregator after entering the credentials, make sure it's set to "Auto upload enabled" and then click the "Save" button. You will see a pop-up with results of the connection test.
Be sure to switch each one back to "Auto upload disabled" after the test if you have not gone live with Shelterluv yet.
Upload Sites
If you have multiple locations or have foster homes spread out across multiple regions, please read How do I set up uploads to multiple Petfinder, Adopt-a-Pet, or RescueGroups accounts?
Upload Intervals
Petfinder uploads run hourly to keep your listings up-to-date throughout the day as new animals become available and other animals are adopted. However, we sometimes hear about delays up to 48 hours on Petfinder's side before the listings are updated, especially for the first upload.
Adopt-a-Pet.com uploads run every 8 hours.
RescueGroups uploads run overnight as a regular job every night. If you're testing to see if you've got the correct credentials entered, you should be able to verify the next morning.
Publishable Animals
We will only upload animals in a status that's configured to Publish=Yes. Once the animal is moved into a status that's configured to Publish=No or adopted, they will be taken off these sites when the next auto-upload runs.
Can I update animal profiles in each aggregator directly if I am using auto-uploads?
If you are utilizing auto-uploads, you will not want to update animals directly in your aggregator sites as this will be overridden each time an update is made (we send a new file on intervals - listed above - to the aggregator sites, letting them know what animal information to upload and your aggregator account is wiped each time a new file is processed).