The Pets module gives your community a Pet Directory, a photo directory residents use to find the owner of a lost pet. If your community requires pet registration, the same module can also track vaccination and license records and remind owners before they expire. This article covers turning it on, setting it up, and helping households with their pets. For what residents see, share Registering Your Pets and Using the Pet Directory.
Turning the module on and changing its settings requires the Update Community Preferences permission. The permissions below control what each role can do once it's on.
Some options may be unavailable or appear differently depending on your level of account access.
The Pets module is off for every community until you turn it on. While it's off, the Pet Directory doesn't appear in the main navigation menu, the Pets tab doesn't appear under My Household, and pets don't appear on household pages.
Log in to Communitrak at https://app.communitrak.com.
Click Community in the main navigation menu.
Click the Preferences tab.
Turn on the switch on the Pets card.
Once it's on, residents see Pet Directory in the main navigation menu and Pets under My Household, where they add their own pets. The Pets card also shows the record and reminder settings below.
If your community requires records such as a rabies vaccination or a county pet license, list them on the Pets card. Every pet then shows which required records are on file, which are missing, and which have expired.
On the Pets card, click Add Required Record.
Choose the type: Vaccination, License, or Other.
Enter the record's name, for example "Rabies" or "County pet license".
Choose which pets it applies to. Leave it on All pets, or pick only dogs, cats, birds, or other pets.
Repeat for each record you require, up to 20. To drop one, click the trash icon on its row.
Click Save Pet Settings.
Residents add these from each pet's Health & License Records, with the expiration date and a copy of the certificate. A record counts toward a requirement when it's linked to that requirement, or when it has the same type and name. That second rule means records residents added before you created the requirement still count.
Removing a requirement doesn't delete the records residents already added. They stay on each pet as ordinary records.
Expiration reminders are on by default. While they're on, Communitrak emails the pet's household, and sends them a notification in Communitrak, when a record is coming due:
The number of days you set under First reminder before it expires (30 by default, anywhere from 8 to 120)
7 days before it expires
On the day it expires
Once more in the two weeks after it lapses
Reminders apply to any record with an expiration date, not only required ones. Renewing a record with a new expiration date starts the reminders over. A record added close to its expiration date gets the next reminder due, not every one it missed.
To stop reminders, turn off Expiration reminders. Click Save Pet Settings after changing either setting.
Anyone with the View Pet Health & License Records permission sees a Needs Records tab in the Pet Directory, with a count. It lists every pet with a missing or expired required record, including pets their owners have hidden from the directory. Click a pet to see its records and its owners' contact details.
Pets are also shown on each household's page, in the Household Pets card, for anyone with the View Households permission. The card includes pets the household has hidden from the directory.
Residents add their own pets, and there's no way to add a pet to another household. With the right permissions, you can fix a pet that's already there:
Open the pet from the Pet Directory, or from the Household Pets card on the household's page.
Click Edit to correct its details, photos, or directory visibility, or Remove to take it off the household. Both need Manage Pets.
To add or renew a record for them, click Manage under Health & License Records. This needs both View Pet Health & License Records and Manage Pets. With only the first, the link reads View.
Residents can use Found a Pet? to compare a photo of a loose animal with the pets in the directory, or open any pet and click I Found This Pet. Either way, the pet's household gets a notice. Things worth knowing:
Found a Pet? and filling in a new pet's details from its photo use AI. They only appear when your community has AI features turned on, and they count toward your community's AI usage limits. If your community reaches a limit, residents are told when photo matching resumes, and can still browse the directory and use I Found This Pet.
I Found This Pet works without AI.
Found a Pet? compares against each pet's cover photo, and only pets shown in the directory. Pets hidden from the directory can't be matched or notified.
With the Messages module on, a notice arrives as a Communitrak message the owner can reply to, with no contact details shared. Without Messages, the household is emailed, and the finder can choose to include a phone number.
Sending a notice doesn't need any messaging permissions. Notices always say they came from the Pet Directory.
Each person can run 10 photo searches and send 5 found-pet notices a day.
The Pets module adds three permissions, found in the Pets section of each role in Roles & Permissions. That section only appears while the module is on.
View Pet Directory: browse the Pet Directory, use Found a Pet?, and send found-pet notices. Granted by default to every role that can view the Community Members directory, including Residents.
Manage Pets: edit or remove any household's pets. Members never need this for their own household's pets.
View Pet Health & License Records: view any household's records and their attached documents, and see the Needs Records tab. Editing another household's records takes both this and Manage Pets.
Manage Pets and View Pet Health & License Records are granted by default to the Community Admin and Community Leader roles.
Owner names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses in the Pet Directory follow each member's privacy settings in the Community Members directory. Anyone with Admin View for Members sees them all.
A pet only appears in the directory, including the Needs Records tab, if at least one of its owners is visible in the Community Members directory to you. With Admin View for Members, you see every household's pets.
Record documents are private. Each link opens a copy that expires after a few minutes, so a link copied out of Communitrak stops working.
Each household can register up to 10 pets, with up to six photos each.
If you have questions or need help, chat with Communitrak Support from any page using the messenger icon in the bottom-right corner.
