Organization settings

Organization settings is where you shape how your shelter works in ShelterSync. It has three tabs: Sites & locations (where animals live), Operational policies (your security and access rules), and Integrations (connections to outside systems).

Who can use this page: administrators. Staff can reach the Sites & locations tab.

Sites & locations

Your shelter is described as a tree of places — a campus or site at the top, the facilities inside it, and the individual areas or kennels at the bottom. Every animal lives at a location in this tree, so an accurate tree keeps the rest of the app accurate (filtering by location, checking animals in and out, reporting).

Each location has a kind (campus, facility, area, or unit) and an assignable flag — only assignable locations (the actual kennels and areas) can hold an animal or host an activity.

To manage the tree:

• Add a location — use Add top-level location for a new site, or the + on a row to add a child beneath it.
• Edit or delete — use the pencil and trash icons on a row. You can't delete a location that still has children or animals in it; move those first.
• Rearrange — drag a row by its handle to reorder siblings or move a location to a new parent.

Tips for structuring locations: mirror how your shelter is physically laid out, so volunteers recognize the names. Keep the assignable level (kennels, runs, rooms) consistent — that's the level animals are assigned to. Don't over-nest; two or three levels (site → building → kennel) is usually enough.

Operational policies

This tab holds organization-wide settings: the timezone, your branding, and the security and access rules below.

Organization timezone

Set your shelter's timezone from a searchable list — each option shows its UTC offset, e.g. (GMT-5:00) Chicago. Type a city or region to find yours. This is the timezone the whole app reckons a "day" and "week" in: reports and the dashboard (activity minutes, goal progress, weekly stats) all use it, so a day lines up with your shelter's clock rather than UTC. The reporting-window options further down (day start, week start) build on this timezone. The default is UTC.

Branding

The Branding card holds how your shelter presents itself:

• Organization name — your shelter's display name, used across ShelterSync and on printed kennel cards. If your shelter rebrands or corrects its legal name, edit it here and select Save — the change takes effect immediately, no re-login needed. The name is required and can be up to 200 characters.
• Website — your public website address (a full http(s) link). Leave it blank to clear it.
• Shelter logo — an image (JPEG, PNG, or WebP) that appears on printed kennel cards alongside your name.

Sign-in and account protection

The numbers here are security thresholds, so it helps to know what each one does and what happens when someone crosses it.

First, a few terms:

• OTP (one-time password) — a short code (usually 6 digits) sent by text message to confirm it's really you.
• PIN — a 6-digit code a user can set for quick re-verification on a device they've already used.
• MFA (multi-factor authentication) — a second sign-in step beyond the password, using an authenticator app (and optionally a texted code or backup codes).

Sign-in lockout

• Failed-login limit and lockout duration — after this many wrong passwords, the account is locked for the set number of minutes and the person can't sign in.
• What happens when it's crossed: the user sees a "locked" message. They can wait for the lockout to expire, or an administrator can clear it early: open the person on the Users page and reset their lockout.
• The same idea applies to PIN attempts and OTP attempts, each with its own limit and lockout time.

Devices and extra verification

• Maximum devices per user — how many phones/tablets one person can have signed in at once.
• Roles that require device approval — for the roles you list here, a new device must be approved by an admin before it can reach animal data (see Devices). Leave this empty and no approval is needed.
• Roles that require texted codes (SMS OTP) — roles listed here must also confirm a texted code at sign-in.
• Which roles must use MFA — set which roles are required to enroll in multi-factor authentication.

If users get locked out

A lockout is temporary — it clears itself after the duration you set. If someone needs back in sooner, an administrator resets the lockout from the Users page. If you find people are locked out often, consider raising the failed-attempt limit or shortening the lockout time here.

Integrations

If you use another system (such as ShelterLuv), connect it here so its data flows into ShelterSync. You enter the connection details once; the key itself is stored securely and is never shown again. After connecting, you can run a sync or remove the connection.

How often it syncs

Once an integration is connected, choose a sync schedule: every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, every 6 hours, daily, or Manual only. ShelterSync then keeps your animals up to date automatically on that schedule, and the card shows when the next sync is due.

• Pick a shorter interval (15–30 minutes) if you want near-real-time updates, or a longer one (6 hours, daily) to pull less often — useful if your source system limits how frequently you can call it.
• Choose Manual only to turn off automatic syncing entirely. Nothing syncs on a schedule, but you can still sync on demand with Sync now.

Sync history

Each automatic or manual sync is recorded. Select View sync history on the integration to open a side panel listing recent runs — when each ran, whether it was scheduled or manual, whether it succeeded, and (for a failed run) the underlying error. The panel pages through older runs and closes with Escape or the × button.

Retiring this organization

Most shelters will never touch this. It matters if you are winding down: closing, merging into another organization, or ending a trial.

Zoolytix cannot mark your organization as disposable — the step that would allow its records to be replaced or wiped — while this is locked, which is how it stays unless you change it. If you are closing the organization down, unlock it for a short window and let Zoolytix know; it re-locks on its own when the time is up, and as soon as it has been used. You can lock it again at any time.

Two things are worth knowing:

• Unlocking does not delete anything. It only allows the organization to be marked disposable. Nothing is removed as a result of unlocking, and locking it again undoes it entirely.
• Nobody can do it quietly. If your organization holds any records, Zoolytix is shown exactly what is in it — how many animals, how much activity, how many people have signed in — and has to confirm those figures before the marking goes through. What they saw is kept in your audit log alongside the change, so it is on the record rather than in somebody's memory.

If somebody asks you to unlock this and you were not expecting it, don't. Ask Zoolytix directly first.

Fields explained

Field	What it means
Organization name	Your shelter's display name, shown across ShelterSync — including the organization indicator at the top of the sidebar — and on printed kennel cards. Edit it in the Branding card on the Operational policies tab; changes take effect immediately — no re-login needed. The name is required and can be up to 200 characters.
Organization timezone	The organization's timezone, chosen from a searchable list that shows each option's UTC offset (e.g. "(GMT-5:00) Chicago"). It defines the local day and week used across the app's reports and dashboard — activity minutes, goal progress, and weekly stats — so a "day" lines up with your shelter's clock. Type a city or region to find a zone; the default is UTC.
Retiring this organization	A lock your organization holds over itself. While it is locked — which it is by default, and which it returns to on its own — Zoolytix cannot mark your organization as disposable, and it is that marking which would allow your records to be replaced or wiped. Unlock it only if you are closing this organization down and Zoolytix has asked you to. You choose how long the unlock lasts; it closes itself when the time is up, and as soon as it has been used. Locking it again at any time takes one click.
Sync schedule	How often this integration pulls updates automatically — every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, every 6 hours, daily, or Manual only. Choose Manual only to turn off automatic syncing and sync on demand with the Sync now button. The card shows when the next automatic sync is due.