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Part C — For Shelters & Animal Welfare Organizations

This part of the Adopivo manual is for staff of shelters and non-profit animal welfare organizations: from registration and verification to animal profiles, team, inbox, breed-law check and the website widget.

Contents

Chapter 10 — Registration and verification

Who can register?

Adopivo is open to shelters and non-profit animal welfare organizations — both organization types have the same features on the platform. Commercial breeders and commercial animal dealers are excluded; this is checked during verification and is part of the shelter terms.

How do I register a shelter account?

  1. First create a personal Adopivo account and confirm your email address (Part B, chapter 5).
  2. Open the For shelters page and click “Register a shelter”.
  3. Fill in the form:
    • the organization’s official name,
    • the display name — how your shelter appears publicly on Adopivo,
    • country and language,
    • the address via the address search — the details are taken over in the background,
    • optionally phone, public email and website.
  4. Read the shelter terms and tick the checkbox.
  5. Click “Register a shelter”. You automatically become the organization’s first managing person; verification follows as the next step.

How does verification work?

  1. After registration, the overview (dashboard) shows the open steps — including uploading your verification documents.
  2. Upload at least one of the proofs of non-profit or non-commercial activity valid for your country — for Germany, for example, the permit under § 11 of the Animal Welfare Act, a current register extract or the tax-exemption notice. The upload form lists the document types accepted for your country.
  3. Adopivo reviews the documents. You can always see the current status in the sidebar of the shelter area.

Until verification is complete, you cannot publish animals — the animals page shows a “verification pending” notice. Once verified, you publish animal profiles immediately, without any further approval. Uploaded verification documents are not publicly accessible and are stored securely.

What is the difference between official name and display name?

The official name is your organization’s registered name; the display name is the name you appear under publicly on Adopivo. You can change the display name yourself — official name, country and organization type can only be changed via Adopivo support.

Chapter 11 — My shelter (profile and dashboard)

What does the overview (dashboard) show?

The overview bundles open steps (e.g. terms confirmation, verification documents) and is the entry point to all areas. The “My shelter” sidebar leads to: Overview, Animals, Listenhund-Check, Widget, Shelter profile (master data, description, logo), Users, Inbox, Blocked adopters and Terms. The top of the sidebar shows your verification status; the inbox entry shows the number of unread inquiries.

How do I maintain the master data?

Under Shelter profile → Master data you edit:

  • display name, address (via the address search), phone, public email, website and language.
  • “Adoption radius (km)” — the upper limit for all your animals. Leaving it empty means “open / international”. If a radius is set, it automatically becomes the default for every newly added animal; per animal you can set a smaller value, but not a larger one (chapter 12).

How do I embed videos in the shelter profile?

  1. Open Shelter profile → Master data, section “Videos”.
  2. Click “+ Add video” and paste a YouTube or Vimeo link — other providers are not supported; invalid links are flagged by the form.
  3. Up to 6 videos are possible; they are shown publicly on your shelter page. Remove an entry to delete it again.

Privacy note: visitors first see only a preview — the video is loaded from the provider only after a click (including a note about the data transfer). For a video directly on an animal, see chapter 12.

How do I maintain description, mission and adoption process?

Under Shelter profile → Description, first choose the language of the texts, then fill in the three public text fields: description (max. 4000 characters), mission (max. 2000) and adoption process (max. 4000). Repeat for every language you want to be reachable in — the texts appear on your public shelter page.

Under Shelter profile → Logo, upload a logo via “Upload logo” (JPEG, PNG or WebP, at most 5 MB — it is resized automatically) or remove it again.

Chapter 12 — Adding and managing animals

How do I create an animal profile?

  1. Open Animals and click “Add animal” (available once your shelter is verified).
  2. Enter the basic data: name, species, breed(s) — the first selected breed counts as the main breed, further ones as mix shares —, sex, date of birth or age estimate, size and weight.
  3. Optionally: your own animal ID — it appears in the profile’s fact sheet and in the subject of incoming inquiries, so you can match inquiries to your own records.
  4. Fill in the text sections: description, character, health, requirements for the new home.
  5. Set the attributes: compatibility with children, dogs and cats as well as neutered / vaccinated / chipped (each can also be “unknown”).
  6. Optionally: the adoption radius for this animal — leaving it empty adopts your organization’s maximum; an own value may be smaller but not larger (otherwise the form rejects it).
  7. Save the animal. In the “Draft” status it is not yet public — it is published with the status “Available” (see below).

For breeds that are regionally restricted, Adopivo automatically shows the corresponding notes with official source references on the public animal profile (Part B, chapter 8). Use the Listenhund check (chapter 13) to look up the requirements yourself in advance.

How do I upload and edit pictures?

In the animal profile editor you upload several photos, crop them in the integrated image editor and set their order — the first picture is the cover image of the animal card in the search results.

How do I embed a video in an animal profile?

The animal profile editor has a “Video (optional)” section: paste a YouTube or Vimeo link into the “Video link” field — one video per animal. It appears in the photo gallery of the public animal profile and, for privacy reasons, is only loaded from the provider after a click. Videos for the shelter page itself are maintained in the master data (chapter 11).

How do I manage the animal status?

Every animal has a status:

  • Available — publicly visible and contactable.
  • Reserved — publicly marked as reserved.
  • Adopted — adopted. Optionally you can keep the profile publicly visible after adoption and assign the adoption to an Adopivo adopter (selected among the people who contacted you via Adopivo — this strengthens their trust signal in the inbox). Without an assignment choose “walk-in / no Adopivo adopter”.
  • Draft — not public.
  • Archived — removed from active management.

When changing the status you can leave a short note (max. 500 characters); the status history documents all previous changes. In the animals overview you filter by All / Available / Reserved / Adopted / Draft and search by name.

How do I adopt animals out only together (bonded)?

In the “Bonded adoption” section of the animal profile editor you connect an animal with others that should only be adopted together (e.g. mother with young): search and add partner animals. When changing a status, Adopivo shows a confirmation so the status is applied to all bond members at the same time. Publicly, bonded animals appear linked to each other.

Chapter 13 — Listenhund check (breed-law check)

What is the Listenhund check for?

With the Listenhund check you verify, for a planned adoption, which country- and region-specific legal requirements apply to the breed(s) at the adopter’s place of residence. The data is based on official regulations (federal, state, canton). The tool provides information — not legal advice.

Note: the check tool’s interface is currently provided in German, as it covers regulations in German-speaking regions; the German labels are quoted below with translations.

How do I run a check?

  1. Open Listenhund-Check in the sidebar.
  2. Enter the adopter’s place of residence (“Wohnort des Adoptierenden”) — town, federal state, canton or autonomous region; no streets or house numbers, as the requirements apply regionally.
  3. Select the animal’s breed(s). The first selected breed counts as the main breed, further ones as mix shares — mix shares only trigger regulations that explicitly include crossbreeds.
  4. Click “Auflagen prüfen” (check requirements).

How do I read the result?

  • A banner classifies the case (breed subject to special requirements, mixed breed, or regionally regulated without a known region).
  • Below it, the requirements per regulation follow with a complete source reference: “Legal basis:” (official regulation name, linked), “Legal text as of:” (version date of the cited regulation) and “Last checked on:” (date of Adopivo’s last verification) — two deliberately separate dates.
  • Where applicable, an import restrictions section follows — for example when importing a breed is prohibited under the listed provisions (relevant for adoptions from abroad).
  • A data-status card shows when the data base was last updated; for older data an additional freshness notice appears.
  • The expandable “no legal advice” notice explains the limits of the information. In case of doubt, the linked official source always prevails.

Chapter 14 — Team and user management

Which roles exist?

There are two roles: Administrator and Member. Both work with animals and the inbox; certain areas are reserved for administrators — for example the “Blocked adopters” view and creating, showing and revoking widget tokens. The person who registered the shelter automatically becomes the first managing person.

How do I invite colleagues?

  1. Open Users in the sidebar (“User management”).
  2. Under “Invite a colleague”, enter the email address, choose the role and click “Send invitation”.
  3. Under “Open invitations” you can “Resend” or “Withdraw” an invitation.

How do I accept an invitation?

  1. Open the link from the invitation email.
  2. Sign in with exactly the invited email address — the invitation is not valid for any other address. No account yet? Register first (Part B, chapter 5), then open the link again.
  3. Click “Accept invitation” (or “Decline”). After accepting you are part of the team and taken straight to the shelter dashboard.

Expired or already used invitations are reported by the page — in that case ask for a new invitation.

How do I change roles or remove members?

In the member list you change roles via “Make admin” or “Make member” and remove people via “Remove” (with a confirmation prompt).

Chapter 15 — Inbox for organizations

How do I work with inquiries?

  • The inbox (“Inquiries”) collects all conversations in the tabs All, Unread, Favorites, Archived and Trash (permanent deletion after 30 days). The search field searches subject, adopter and animal.
  • Every inquiry is linked to the animal in question; if you have assigned your own animal ID, it is part of the subject.
  • If the adopter shares their location, the conversation header shows their city and the approximate distance to your shelter — nothing else.
  • Reply via the text field and “Send”. Messages are plain text.
  • The inbox is team-enabled: all staff share the same inquiries, with a per-person read status — holiday and substitution cases work without any assignment overhead. Adopivo additionally notifies you about new messages by email.
  • Per conversation: set a favorite, archive, delete.

How do I block adopters — and what does a block do?

The “Blocked adopters” view (administrators only) manages people your shelter has actively blocked: tab “Active blocks” and tab “History”. A block means: reading existing conversations remains possible, sending is blocked — in both directions. You can lift a block there at any time.

Chapter 16 — Widget: your animals on your own website

What is the widget?

With the widget (“Widget & Embedding”) you embed your animals published on Adopivo directly on your own website — without maintaining anything twice. Technically, a web component (recommended) and a JSON API for developers are available; iframe embedding will follow in a later version.

How do I set up the widget?

  1. Create a token (administrators only): assign a label (for recognition only, e.g. “main site”) and the domain of your website. Each token is valid for exactly one domain — including its subdomains; the widget is only delivered there.
  2. “Configure your widget”: language, species, age, sex, size, compatibility (children, dogs, cats), number of animals, cards per row, font and corner radius. “Colours (Pro)”: colours are a Pro feature — the preview shows your colours immediately; on your website they are applied with the Pro plan, and the configuration is kept.
  3. Embed the code: copy the code from “Embed code” via “Copy code” and paste it into your website. Insert your real token — an administrator can reveal it via “Show token”.
  4. “Show preview” opens a live preview of the widget with your configuration.

How do I manage the tokens?

  • Treat a token like a password; administrators can reveal it again at any time.
  • “Regenerate” replaces a token — the previous one becomes invalid immediately; embedded widgets must be updated.
  • “Revoke” deactivates a token; widgets using it stop showing animals. Revoked tokens can be deleted permanently.

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