Housing and locations

Housing is where your animals are kept: your locations, the buildings and rooms at each, and the cages, cubbies and kennels inside them. You build it once in Settings, and then the Housing board shows where every animal in care is and what is free. Open the board from Housing at the top of the Animals list, or from the search palette. Anyone who can See Animals can read the board and the Locations list; building housing needs Change on Animals.

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Sites, rooms and cages

Housing is a tree. Each of your locations is the top of one, and what you build sits inside it. Each place has a capacity: how many animals it Holds. A capacity of 0 means it is not counted, which is right for a building, or for a row whose cubbies are counted instead. Only animals whose status is in care are counted as in a place. An adopted animal whose record still names a cage does not fill it.

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The Housing board

The board has one card per location, laid out as it is built. The card’s heading says how many places are free, of how many, and how many animals are there. Inside the card:

• a room or building with things inside it is a section, with its kind and “free of” count;
• each place is a tile with its name, the animals in it (photo and name), and how full it is.

Animals placed at a site or room directly, not in a space inside it, are listed under Here, not in a space. Press a place’s name to open its page, or an animal’s name to open its record.

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The numbers at the top

Places counts every place in service, a joined space once. Animals counts the animals in them, and Free the places still open. When you have filtered the board, Animals reads Animals shown. In foster appears when animals are on a foster placement.

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Filters

The filters appear when there is something to narrow:

• Location: one site, or Every location.
• Building: one building, shown as a card of its own.
• Kind: one species. Every place stays on the board, so what is free still reads, but only animals of that species are shown in them.
• Show: Shelter housing and foster homes, Shelter housing only, or Foster homes only.

The filters are kept in the page’s address, so a link to the cattery at one site opens filtered.

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Foster homes on the board

A Foster homes card lists every foster home with an animal on an active placement, and the animals there. Press a home’s name to open it. See Foster homes. The foster cards come from foster placements, not from the animal’s Location. An animal in a foster home whose location is not set is also listed under Not in a place.

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Not in a place

Not in a place lists the animals in care that have no place on the board: never given one, or returned from an adoption into a cage that has since been retired. Give each a place on its record.

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Moving an animal

An animal’s place is its Location. To move several animals at once, select them on the Animals list and set Location in Bulk update. A place can also be chosen on the intake form. Only places in service are offered. A cage inside a room that is out of service is out of service too, and the move is refused with the name of the place that is closed.

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Building housing

Housing is built under Settings → Organization → Locations, and the same locations appear on Our organization in the Organizations workspace. Each location has a Housing line saying how many places, free places and animals it has. Press Build housing (or Edit housing once something is built) to open the tree. Someone who can see the board but not change it gets Show housing instead.

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Adding places

Press + Add inside a site, building or room. Press Add. The arrows beside a place move it up or down among its neighbours; that order is the order on the board, and the order tunnels run in.

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Changing a place

Beside each place:

• Edit changes its name, kind and capacity.
• Out of service takes it out of use for now, such as a cage being repaired. Back in service returns it.
• Retire is for a place that is gone. Restore brings it back.
• Remove deletes a place made by mistake.

A place with an animal in care in it, at any depth, cannot be taken out of service or retired: move the animals first. A room is retired only once what is inside it is. A place cannot be removed while anything is inside it, while any animal’s record names it (an adopted or archived animal’s included), or while an event or a shift names it: retire it instead.

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Tunnels and combined spaces

Cubbies side by side can be joined, the way tunnels join the cubbies of a cat condo into one space. Between each two neighbouring cages in the same room or row there is a switch reading Tunnel closed or Tunnel open. Press it to change it. An open run of tunnels is one space:

• its capacity is the capacity of every cubby in it, added together, and its animals are counted together;
• the board shows it as one tile, named for every cubby in it (“Cubby 1 + Cubby 2”);
• four cubbies can be four spaces, two and two, or all one, depending on which tunnels are open.

Changing a cage’s kind, taking it out of service, or retiring it closes its tunnels.

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The Locations list

Locations lists every unit one by one, as tiles: its name, its kind, a badge (Full when it is at capacity), how many of its places are occupied, and how many other units it is combined with. Open it from Every unit on the Housing board, or from the search palette. At a glance goes back to the board. Unit type filters the tiles to one kind, and Views saves the filter you use most. The number at the top counts the units.

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The location page

Press a tile, or a place’s name on the board, to open its page: The page also shows your own custom fields for locations, the units it is Combined with, and Animals here: the animals whose location is this unit, with their status. The page is for reading; places are changed under Settings.