Publishing¶
ASM can update many third party adoption sites and microchip registries as well as generating websites of your adoptable and recently adopted animals. The sites produced are based on simple editable templates and can be completely customised and branded to suit you.
All of this functionality is accessed via the top level Publishing menu.
There are many options you can set to choose what appears on the output, and how the output is generated. Set these options under
Animal Selection¶
The Animal Selection tab allows you to control which animals are considered adoptable by ASM’s internet publishers.
Include [category] animals: Select “yes” to include animals fitting the category.
Merge bonded animals into a single record: When outputting bonded animals, merge them into a single entry. The names will be joined together with commas, but other than that all the details will be of the first animal in the sort so make sure the bio/notes include information on the bonded animals for all of them.
Exclude animals aged under: This box is to prevent puppies and kittens who are too young being included in the list of available adoptions. You may choose an age limit on animals that appear. By default, the system excludes animals less than 1 year old (52 weeks).
Exclude animals with more than X active reservations: This allows you to automatically stop an animal being published after it has received a set number of applications/reservations.
Include animals in the following locations: Select the locations to include adoptable animals from. If none are selected, all locations will be used.
Note
In addition to items you select here, any animal which has the “Courtesy Listing” flag will be automatically included.
All Publishers¶
The All Publishers tab allows you to set options common to all internet publishers.
Register microchips after: If you are registering microchips, ASM will update the owner information with the registry after these types of movements. Non-shelter animals will always be registered with their original owner information if present, using the microchip date as a trigger. A special “Intake” option allows registering of microchips to the shelter’s contact info for animals currently in the care of the shelter. This includes animals brought to the shelter as well as those returned from a previous movement. Animals who are marked as held awaiting reclaim will not be registered until after the hold is removed.
Register microchips from: When registering microchips, only consider animals where the event triggering registration (intake, adoption, reclaim, etc) occurred after this date. This is useful when enabling registration for the first time on a database full of a historic data where you do not want to re-register old chips to potentially out of date adopters.
Update adoption websites every: Some adoption websites will accept updates more frequently than the 24 hour default. Setting this option to a value smaller than 24 will update those services at the chosen interval. Services affected by this value are PetFinder, AdoptAPet, PetRescue, SavourLife and Maddie’s Pet Assistant
Reupload animal images every time: Ticking this box will tell the publisher to reupload images for all the animals published. Normally, ASM will not upload an image it has previously uploaded to save bandwidth. ASM will detect the preferred image changing and force a reupload for that animal without the need for this option. This option will be ignored by some publishers (notably RescueGroups.org and AdoptAPet.com) as reuploading all images constantly is considered abusive behaviour.
Upload all available images for animals: Ticking this box will have the publisher upload all the images for each animal where available. They will be named sheltercode-X.jpg (X increments for each image). The first image will be the image flagged as web preferred.
Order published animals by: Sorts the list of animals before they are published.
Thumbnail size: Controls the size of thumbnails the system generates for adoptable animal publishers (in particular the ones used by the javascript include method of website integration). The size is for the thumbnail’s longest side.
Animal descriptions: This determines the source of the main description for animals when being published. For the HTML/FTP publisher, this is the source of the $$WebMediaNotes$$ token. Set to “Use animal comments” to use the comments field from the notes section of the animal’s record. “Use notes from preferred photo” will use the notes field on the animal’s web preferred photo.
Add this text to all animal descriptions: Allows you to set a footer on every animal description before it is published. Note that this does not apply to courtesy listings, allowing you to add additional contact info.
HTML/FTP Publishing¶
ASM can create websites for you using a simple templating system and optionally upload them to an FTP server. The pages themselves can be split down by species and age, or arranged numerically with a fixed number of animals per page. In addition, a recently adopted page can be generated along with an rss.xml for feed readers.
Warning
Static HTML publishing is deprecated for sheltermanager.com and is no longer available.
Generate javascript database: The site search facilities require a Javascript database, indexing the available animal records. If you wish to include search facilities, make sure this box is ticked.
Generate thumbnail images: The publisher will create thumbnails of all the animal images. Thumbnail images have the same name as the animal image, but are prefixed with tn and an underscore. You can use tn_$$WebMediaFilename$$ in a template to get the thumbnail image for the current animal.
Thumbnail size: The desired length in pixels of the longest side of the generated thumbnail.
Output a separate page for each animal type: Output extra pages of the form ANIMALTYPE.EXTENSION, eg: Miscellaneous.html. This means you can reference the page of miscellaneous animals only from your website. If you have used any punctuation or spaces in the animal type, then they will be turned into to underscores. For example, a type of “D (Dog)” will create a page called D__Dog_.html
Output a separate page for each species: Output extra pages of the form SPECIES.EXTENSION, eg: Dog.html. This means you can reference the page of adoptable dogs only from your website.
Split species pages with a baby/adult prefix: If this option is selected, ASM will output species pages in the form baby/adultSPECIES.EXTENSION. Eg: babyCat.html and adultCat.html for cats/kittens. This option only works in conjunction with the “Output a separate page for each species” option.
Split baby/adult age at: The split point to determine juvenile animals.
Output an adopted animals page: If set to yes, a file named adopted.EXTENSION will be output that you can use to reference recently adopted animals.
Output a deceased animals page: If set to yes, a file named deceased.EXTENSION will be output that you can use to reference recently deceased animals as a tribute page.
Output a page with links to available online forms: If set to yes, a file named forms.EXTENSION will be output that contains a link to all the online forms in the database.
Output an rss.xml page: If set to yes, a file named rss.xml will be output for feed readers. It will use the rss template if it is available in your database, if it’s not then it will be constructed from a default template built into the program.
Show animals adopted: If outputting an adopted animals page is on, how far back the adoptions should be included.
Page extension: The file EXTENSION to give a page. Eg: html
Publishing template: The template ASM should use to construct the header/footer/body elements of the pages. ASM comes with a set of included templates, outlined in the next section.
Animals per page: ASM will always output numbered pages of the form 1.EXTENSION, 2.EXTENSION, etc. Specify here how many animals you’d like before moving on to the next page. By default, the system shows 10 animals per page, however the more animals you put on a page, the longer the page will take to load.
Scale published images to: This box allows you to reduce the size of your animal images to a particular resolution. ASM scales down pictures when you attach them under the media tab, so unless you want to make them smaller still, it’s best to leave this at No Scaling.
Publish to folder: Choose the folder where output is to be generated.
Warning
This folder is on the machine that ASM is installed on, not your local client PC. If this is left blank, a temporary folder will be used.
Included templates¶
ASM comes with a number of website templates out of the box. As well as working with static HTML building, they can also be used with the template parameter to various html service methods (eg: html_adoptable_animals)
plain: produces very simple HTML output - just the animal’s picture and a few details in a list.
rss: produces XML output for interpreting by an RSS feed reader.
sm.com: uses CSS hover elements and javascript to do image substitution for icons and other tricks.
littlebox: a more advanced template that shows a screen of thumbnails with a clickable popup for each animal, using CSS overlays.
responsive: uses relative sizings to work equally well on mobile devices. It is not dissimilar to plain, but also features the ability to click an animal’s photo for more information.
slideshow: loads the images of all animals into a rotating carousel, producing a slideshow of all adoptable animals. This template is very useful if you want to display it full screen on a TV in reception, etc.
animalview: Used for displaying one animal generally. This is the default target of the animal_view service method and is the target for thumbnails injected by the javascript include code snippet (which loads the javascript from the animal_view_adoptable_js service method).
animalviewcarousel: Just like animalview, but has a rotating carousel/slideshow of images for that animal.
animalviewadoptable: This is the template used by the animal_view_adoptable_html service method, which injects the animal_view_adoptable_js service call into a page. It is useful for creating a page of thumbnails to link to for users who cannot edit their websites to include the javascript code snippet.
You can edit these templates under and add your own new ones if desired. Templates are made up of three sections.
The header block - this is output for each page before any animal records.
The footer block - this is output for each page after all the animal records.
The body block - this is output for each animal record and has keys to pull data from the database and the animal’s image(s). The keys available are those available for animal documents (see wordkeys in the appendix at the end of this document) and are enclosed in $$ - eg: $$ShelterCode$$ will output the animal’s shelter code.
A number of special keys are allowed in the header and footer blocks that pull information from other areas of the system. These are:
$$ORGNAME$$ - Becomes your organisation’s name
$$ORGADDRESS$$ - Your organisation’s address
$$ORGTEL$$ - Your organisation’s telephone number (all of these org fields can be found under )
$$ORGEMAIL$$ - Your email address (this is taken from )
$$USER$$ - Substitutes the current system user, including their real name
$$DATE$$ - The current date
$$TIME$$ - The current time
$$DATETIME$$ - The current date and time
$$VERSION$$ - The ASM version
$$NAV$$ - If you are using numbered pages, outputs navigation with the current page disabled and links to the other available pages. Returns a blank for recently adopted animal pages.
$$TITLE$$ - An appropriate title based on the page being published. If it is a recently adopted page, the title will be “Recently adopted” in your language. Otherwise, it will be “Available for adoption”.
$$TOTAL$$ - The number of animals output by the publisher
adoptapet.com¶
ASM can send data to 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com (now known as AdoptAPet.com) and upload your animals for adoption directly to your account with them.
You will need to go to the publishing options first and enter the user name given to you by AdoptAPet.com and your password. All you need to do then is choose Publish to AdoptAPet.com. The options for filtering animals are the same (see previous section for reference).
If you have mapped the colours and wish to include them, you will need to tick the “Include colors in column 9” checkbox on the AdoptAPet panel of the publishing options.
You can also have ASM stop sending the import.cfg file after the first export. This means you can then grab it from their FTP server and edit it yourself if you wish to change any mappings, then put it back again. This is generally only necessary for users who want to send colour information.
maddiesfund.org / Maddie’s Pet Assistant¶
ASM can send data to Maddie’s Fund/MPA - an application to provide information and interactive help to fosterers, adopters and other caregivers. Basic data on the animal and contact information for the adopter/fosterer is sent.
petfbi.org¶
ASM can send data to www.petfbi.org, a map-based website that publishes stray and found animals. Your ASM stray/hold animal data will also be published as well as found reports. You will need an organisation ID, FTP username and password and to enter the postal/zipcode of your shelter.
petfbi.org works with shelters in the US and Canada.
petfinder.com¶
In addition to creating standalone websites with animals up for adoption, ASM can also integrate with PetFinder.com and upload your animals for adoption directly to your account with them. You will need to go to first and view the PetFinder panel. Here, you should enter the shelter Id given to you by PetFinder.com and the FTP password they have assigned to you.
You can also opt to have your shelter animals with the “Hold” flag sent with the PetFinder H status, and shelter animals who have “Stray” selected as their entry type sent with an F status. This will put those animals into PetFinder’s lost and found database to help with reuniting stray pets with their owners. Animals who have the “Cruelty Case” flag will be omitted from these uploads.
Finally, you can choose to send previously adopted animals with status X. This helps PetFinder keep track of your adopted animals and can be useful for grants. If you have many thousands of previously adopted animals, this can have an effect on performance.
Note
If you have created new Species or Breeds within ASM, you will need to map them to the available publisher options under the Breed and Species sections of
If you have some that are not mapped, the publisher will fail with an error message.
PetFinder has some quirks in that they indicate an unknown crossbreed by having a blank secondary breed with the crossbreed flag set. Since ASM doesn’t allow you to set an empty second breed field, there’s a workaround - If you make the second breed the same as the first breed with the crossbreed flag set, ASM will send that second breed as a blank to PetFinder. This behaviour can also be triggered by setting your second breed to “Crossbreed”, “Unknown” or “Mix”.
Warning
You have to let PetFinder know that you are using ASM to upload your data. Do this by logging into the PetFinder members area, go to the Admin System Help Center, then Contact Us and send PetFinder Tech Support a message that you are using ASM to publish animal data via their FTP server. They should give you the FTP login information and make sure permissions and quotas are correct.
Extra fields¶
PetFinder have a number of extra fields that you can set by creating additional animal fields with certain names in your database. The system responds to the field names, you can label them anything you want, they must be linked to animal records.
pfprimarycolor, pfsecondarycolor, pftertiarycolor (Text): ASM only uses a single value for animal color, so our color field cannot be mapped to PetFinder. Instead, you can add the three color fields that PetFinder used and supply appropriate values. The values they will accept for color depend on the species of your animal and can be found here: https://github.com/bobintetley/asm3/files/3487421/import.breeds.coats.colors.updated.Aug.2019.xlsx
pfcoatlength (Text): PetFinder can accept a coat length value, which is one of Short, Long, Medium, Wire, Hairless, Curly
pfadoptionfeewaived (Bool): a 1 or 0 to indicate that there is no adoption fee for this animal.
pfspecialneedsnotes (Text): If the animal has special needs, you can add a note about those needs to be output on their PetFinder listing.
petrescue.com.au¶
In addition to creating standalone websites with animals up for adoption, ASM can also integrate with Petrescue.com.au and upload your animals for adoption directly to your account with them.
You will need to go to first and view the PetRescue panel. Here, you should enter the access token given to you by PetRescue.com.au. All you need to do then is choose Publish to PetRescue.com.au in place of the normal internet publisher. The options for filtering animals are the same (see previous section for reference).
Determing whether an animal is vaccinated¶
ASM will determine if your animals are vaccinated, wormed or heartworm treated and indicate this to PetRescue via the following rules:
If the animal has at least 1 previously given vaccination on file and there are no vaccinations outstanding, the vaccination flag is set.
If the animal has a medical treatment containing the word “worm” and not the word “heart” in the last 6 months, the wormed flag is set.
If the animal has a medical treatment containing the words “heart” and “worm” in the last 6 months, the heartworm treated flag is set.
Contact Info¶
By default, the contact info for the shelter from the options page will be used. You can optionally override the email address and set a contact phone number if you wish.
If you enable the option to use the adoption coordinator’s contact information, this overrides the contact email and contact phone number options and will supply the phone number and email address of the adoption coordinator for each pet.
Extra fields¶
PetRescue have a number of extra fields that you can set by creating additional animal fields with certain names in your database. The system responds to the field names, you can label them anything you want, they must be linked to animal records.
bestfeature (Text): PetRescue show a tagline at the top of listings. By default, this value is set to “Looking for love” on all listings. You are allowed 25 letters and can override the tagline on a per-animal basis.
needsconstantcare (Yes/No): This can be used to indicate that an adoptable cannot be left by itself.
bredincareofgroup (Yes/No): Indicates the animal was bred whilst in the care of the group. Setting this to true makes breederid mandatory for all listings in South Australia after July 2018.
needsfoster (Yes/No): Indicates that foster care is required for the animal.
Note
PetRescue integration relies on you naming your breeds and species with the same values that they do. If a breed does not match one of the PetRescue breeds, ASM will send it as “Mixed Breed” instead.
rescuegroups.org¶
ASM can integrate with RescueGroups.org. They run a pet adoption portal service that allows updating of multiple online services (including Facebook and Petsmart). See their website for information on which services they update. For more information on setting up RescueGroups to receive data from ASM, see their userguide at https://userguide.rescuegroups.org/ and search for ASM.
To configure ASM, you will need to go to and enter the FTP username and password given to you by RescueGroups (you can find this by going to in the RescueGroups management interface).
Once you’ve done that, you can choose the Publish to RescueGroups.org menu item. The options for filtering animals are the same as for the other publishers.
Warning
If you are using the “Upload all images” option, ASM will only send the first 4 images (the first is always the preferred) as RescueGroups.org do not support more than 4 images per animal.
Warning
The RescueGroups.org publisher uses the publisher breeds and species mappings, so you should make sure that you have mappings for all your breeds and species before using the publisher (the publisher will give an error message if any species or breeds do not have mappings).
savour-life.com.au¶
ASM can integrate with savour-life.com.au and upload your animals for adoption directly to your account with them.
You will need to go to first and view the SavourLife panel. Here, you should enter the username and password given to you by SavourLife. The options for filtering animals are the same as for other publishers, although ASM will only send dogs (Species 1) as SavourLife will not accept listings for other species of animals.
Note that regardless of whether you have set the publishing option to “Include animals who don’t have a picture”, SavourLife will not accept listings without a photo, so we will not send animals who do not have a photo.
Determing whether an animal is vaccinated¶
ASM will determined if your dogs are vaccinated, wormed or heartworm treated and indicate this to SavourLife via the following rules:
If the animal has at least 1 previously given vaccination on file and there are no vaccinations outstanding, the vaccination flag is set.
If the animal has a medical treatment containing the word “worm” and not the word “heart” in the last 6 months, the wormed flag is set.
If the animal has a medical treatment containing the words “heart” and “worm” in the last 6 months, the heartworm treated flag is set.
Extra fields¶
SavourLife have extra fields that you can set by creating additional fields with certain names in your database. The system responds to the field names, you can label them anything you want, they must be linked to animal records.
enquirynumber (Text): SavourLife will give potential adopters an enquiry number that can be given to the shelter. This enquiry number is used to link adopters with the adopted animal and qualify them for free food from SavourLife.
medicalissues (Text): Any information you want to pass to SavourLife about medical issues the animal has.
needsfoster (Yes/No): Indicates that foster care is required for the animal.
interstateadoptable (Yes/No): Overrides the global interstate adoptable value on the config screen and allows you to apply it on a per-animal basis instead.
Note
SavourLife integration relies on you naming your breeds and species with the same values that they do. If a breed does not match one of the SavourLife breeds, ASM will send it as “Mixed Breed” instead.
shelteranimalscount.org¶
ASM can automatically update your statistics with shelteranimalscount.org, the US service for aggregating statistics on animal intakes and outcomes (this publisher is sheltermanager.com only).
First, you will need to contact shelteranimalscount and let them know your sheltermanager.com account number. This is so they can tie your organisation to the incoming data.
Next, go to and check the “Enabled” box.
Like the other publishers, shelteranimalscount will run automatically overnight to send updates and does not require any interaction.
When the publisher runs, the first phase is to determine which months of data it will send.
If today is the 1st of the month, last month’s data will be sent.
If an animal or movement record with an event date in a previous month has been added or changed in the last 24 hours, that month’s data will be sent. An event date is one of intake, return, death or movement.
Warning
Like the SAC reports, this publisher relies on the default species from the default database. If you have deleted the original species and recreated them, you will need to contact sheltermanager.com support for assistance.
petslocated.com¶
ASM can integrate with petslocated.com, a lost/found matching database for shelters in the UK.
To configure ASM, you will need to go to and enter your petslocated.com customer number. Once the petslocated.com publisher is enabled, ASM will automatically send all active found animal records to them with the overnight batch.
The petslocated.com publisher also has a pair of additional options you can set for “Include shelter animals” and “Only shelter animals with this flag”.
If you set “Include shelter animals” to “Yes”, you will need to specify a flag. You should create an animal flag () to tag shelter animals that you would like to be sent to petslocated - typically strays and animals that have come via dog wardens, etc.
AVID/PETtrac UK¶
ASM can register animals with the AVID PETtrac database for shelters in the United Kingdom.
When you publish to PETtrac, ASM finds all animals with a PETtrac microchip (they are 15 digits and start with 977) that have been adopted and sends their information and new owner info to PETtrac to update their records. ASM tracks the date PETtrac was last updated, so if the animal is returned and adopted again, another update will be done automatically.
In order to handle re-registrations, you will need to nominate one of your system users as the “authorised user”. This user account needs to have a real name and an electronic signature on file. When re-registrations are generated, ASM will create a signed PDF disclaimer document to transmit to AVID, explaining that the shelter has done all it can to find the previous owner of the animal.
Warning
If you have the “Intake” option set of “Register microchips after”, the AVID publisher will ignore it. Instead, AVID have a “selfreg” parameter, which ASM will always set so the shelter is always logged as the secondary contact on a chip.
idENTICHIP/Anibase UK¶
ASM can register animals with the Anibase database for shelters in the United Kingdom.
When you publish to Anibase, ASM finds all animals with an idENTICHIP microchip (they are 15 digits and start with 9851 or 9861) that have been adopted and sends their information and new owner info to Anibase to update their records. ASM tracks the date Anibase was last updated, so if the animal is returned and adopted again, another update will be done automatically.
AKC Reunite¶
ASM can register microchips with AKC Reunite, part of the American Kennel Club, who supply microchips to US organisations and pet owners. AKC microchips are either 15-digits, starting with 956 or 10-digits, starting with 0006 or 0007.
They will optionally accept registration of any microchip, although this has to be agreed with them first.
BuddyID¶
ASM can register microchips with BuddyID, who supply microchips to US organisations and pet owners. Their registry is free to use and will accept registration of microchips from any manufacturer. To signup, you will need to get in touch with them and have them issue you with a “provider code” to configure in ASM.
ASM will attempt to register all microchips with BuddyID and as with the other chip registration publishers, will track when it last updated a chip with them in case of subsequent adoption or reclaim.
FoundAnimals/24Pet¶
ASM can register microchips with foundanimals.org (now named FoundAnimals/24Pet after being acquired by PetHealth), a non-profit organisation that supplies microchips to US shelters.
Their microchip registry is completely free and accepts microchips from any provider. To signup, just get in touch and request a folder name from them to configure in ASM.
ASM will attempt to register all microchips with foundanimals.org and as with the other chip registration publishers, will track when it last updated a chip with them in case of subsequent adoption or reclaim.
HomeAgain¶
ASM can register microchips with HomeAgain, a company that supplies microchips to US shelters and pet owners. HomeAgain microchips are 15-digits, starting with 985.
PetLink¶
ASM can register microchips with PetLink, a company that supply microchips to US shelters.
When you register animals with PetLink, ASM finds all animals with a PetLink microchip (their microchips are 15 digits and start with 98102) that have been adopted and sends their information and new owner info to PetLink to update their records. If an animal is returned and adopted out again later, ASM will automatically update PetLink again.
There is an option in the configuration to send 15 digit microchips from all US manufacturers (anything starting with a 9) to PetLink if you have enabled this in your account with them.
SmartTag¶
ASM can register animals with SmartTag PETID, a company that supply collar tags to shelters for free in the US. Each tag has a unique number on it and if your locale is set to US and you have SmartTag PETID Settings in your database, you can enter the tag information in fields on the animal health and identification section.
When you register animals with SmartTag, ASM finds all animals with a SmartTag that have been adopted and sends their information (along with owner info and a picture) to SmartTag so they can be identified in the event they are lost. If an animal is returned and adopted out again later, ASM will register the tag again to the new owner.
SmartTag also supply ISO microchips. ASM will also register SmartTag microchips (15 digits starting with 90007400) in a similar manner to ASM’s other chip registration publishers.
Exclude animals from specific publishers¶
It is possible to exclude an animal from a specific publisher. To do this, create a new animal flag called “Exclude from PUBLISHER”, where PUBLISHER is the name of the service you wish to exclude. Eg: “Exclude from PetFinder”.
Assigning this animal flag to your animal will then prevent it being sent by that publisher. You can create flags for all the 3rd party publishers you use and assign them in combination where necessary.
The flag names are not case sensitive. The names should not include any domains, eg: petfinder, adoptapet, rescuegroups, maddiesfund, petrescue, savourlife
This is useful in situations where you get inundanted with applications for very popular animals and only want to put them on your own website.