Sales demos are designed to go smoothly. A better way to evaluate shelter management software is to have your own team try the jobs they do every week. This checklist is meant for that test.
To use it, set up a trial account or a sandbox for each product you're seriously considering. Assign each section to the person who does that work, and have them use a real animal's paperwork, with personal details changed. Everyone should note anything that took too long or needed an explanation.
If you're still working out what kind of system you need, start with our guide on how to choose software for animal shelters.
Intake
Ask your intake staff to create a new animal record and try the following:
- Create a record using only the details you'd have during a busy intake
- Record the source, such as stray, owner surrender, or transfer
- Enter an estimated age, and an unknown breed
- Add photos from a phone
- Search for the microchip number afterward and find the animal
- Handle a surrender request that arrives through a public form, then decline it
- Set a stray hold and see how the team gets reminded when it ends
Watch for: required fields that force staff to make up answers, and duplicate records created because the search wasn't good enough.
Medical care
Ask whoever handles medical records to enter a realistic history:
- A vaccine given before the animal came to you, with the actual date
- A booster due in three weeks
- An exam with a diagnosis, plus an attached clinic file
- A prescription with a dose, frequency, and refills
- A condition that's later marked as resolved
- A series of weights
Then check the results:
- Can you find every animal overdue for a vaccine, including those in foster homes?
- Can you print or export a record to hand to an adopter or a vet?
- Is it clear who gave a treatment and when?
Watch for: care that only exists in a free-text note. If the system can't tell when something is due, it can't remind you.
Fosters
Ask your foster coordinator to do the following:
- Approve a foster application and set how many animals that person can take
- Find a foster with open space and the right experience
- Place an animal, then try to go over that foster's limit
- Move the animal to a different foster and note why
- End the placement, then check that the earlier placements are still visible
- Place a litter together in one home
Watch for: having to re-enter the animal's details when it moves, and any notes that stay with the foster instead of the animal.
Adoptions
Ask an adoption counselor to run a full adoption from start to finish:
- Change a question on the application, then submit it from a phone
- Reply to the applicant, and leave an internal note they can't see
- Add a second pet they're interested in
- Schedule a meet-and-greet and record how it went
- Have the adopter sign a contract and pay
- Waive or change one pet's fee
- Find the signed contract and the receipt afterward
- Return the adoption and record the reason
Watch for: what happens to the earlier adoption when you process a return. It should still be on file, along with the contract and the payment record.
Volunteers, tasks, and donors
Choose the items that apply to your organization:
- Add a volunteer record, schedule a shift, and log their hours
- Assign a task with a due date and link it to a specific animal
- Record a donation and find the donor's giving history
- Look up someone who's both a foster and an adopter, and check that they don't exist as two separate people
Watch for: areas that seem to be included but turn out to need a second product or a paid upgrade.
Permissions
Set up test logins for a few different team roles. With each one, try to:
- Open an adopter's application
- See a donor's giving history
- Edit a medical record
- Delete a pet
- Export a list of people
Then remove one of those test users and confirm that their access has ended, and that their open work can be reassigned.
Watch for: a system with only "admin" and "everyone else." Most organizations need something in between.
Public listings
Ask whoever manages your website and listings to:
- Publish a pet to your website, and check how it looks on a phone
- Send the same pet to Petfinder or Adopt-a-Pet, and see how errors are reported
- Change the pet to adopted, then time how long the listing takes to update
- View the public page and confirm that no internal notes or medical records appear
Reports
Ask a manager or board member to answer these questions without any help:
- How many animals are in care today?
- How many adoptions did we complete last quarter?
- What's our average length of stay?
- How much did we receive in adoption fees and donations last year?
- Can we get these numbers in the format our main funder uses?
Then compare a few results with your own records, because a number that's off by a small amount will quickly lose people's trust.
Getting data in and out
This is the section most teams skip, and often the one they wish they hadn't.
- Import a sample from your current spreadsheet or system, including messy dates
- Check how the product reports rows it couldn't import
- Ask who does the migration and what it costs
- Export your animals, people, and medical records, then open the files
Costs and support
Ask each vendor to confirm these in writing:
- The total yearly cost, based on your animal count, team size, and adoption volume
- Any percentage taken from adoption fees or donations
- Which features need a higher tier or an add-on
- Contract length and how you cancel
- How to get help, and how long a reply usually takes
Send a real support question during your trial, too. It's a good way to find out how they'll respond once you're a customer.
Scoring your results
A simple score works well. For each section, ask the person who tested it to give a score from 1 to 5, and to write down the biggest problem they ran into. Give extra weight to sections your team uses every day.
Look closely at any low scores from the people who'd use that part most, even if the total looks good. A system your intake staff dislike will lead to incomplete records.
How PawPlacer fits this test
You can run this checklist on PawPlacer without a sales call. Create an account or browse the sample workspace in the public demo. All features are included, with no paid tier or usage limits.
A few answers you may want up front: role-based permissions come in six roles. The team handles migration at no cost. CSV exports cover animals, people, medical records, and more.
