Shelter Walk Tracker

Walker Guide · a tour of the app for shelter dog walkers

Signing in

The app uses your Google account. Tap Sign in with Google and pick your address. If you are new you land on a request-access form. Fill it in and an admin approves you. Your next sign-in goes straight through.

Add to your home screen

iPhone (Safari)

Open the app link in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, then Add.

Android (Chrome)

Open the link in Chrome, tap the ⋮ menu, then Add to Home screen or Install.

Either way you get an icon that opens full screen like a native app.

The roster

Every walkable dog in the kennel today, ordered by WALK ORDER. Each row shows:

Tap a row to open the dog's page. Below the table a red pill counts N NOT WALKED; it turns green at zero.

The dog page

Logging a walk

Log Walk 1, Log Walk 2, Log PG. Walk 2 stays grey until Walk 1 is logged. A logged button turns green and shows the time.

Tap a logged button again to undo. A red-bordered confirm shows how long ago it was logged. Walkers can undo within 30 minutes; after that ask an admin. Removing Walk 1 while Walk 2 is logged moves Walk 2 up to become Walk 1, keeping its time and walker. Playgroup has no limit.

Reservations

Reserved for Playgroup (green) means hold the dog for playgroup. Reserved for Training (cyan) means a trainer has the dog; the Walk 1 button gets a cyan border that stays until the reservation is removed.

Notes

The dog's ongoing care and behavior notes, newest first, with the volunteer's initials. Words in ALL CAPS are highlighted red so warnings jump out. PLAYGROUP NOTES is collapsed below with the dog's play style.

Tools

Links your shelter has set up, each opened prefilled with the dog: submit a comment or observation, and look the dog up in the shelter's own system. Admins can also add a photo and extra links for a specific dog (its adoption listing, a training plan); those show here too.

Color grades

From easiest to hardest:

PINK GREEN AQUA BLUE GOLD RED BLACK

Your own grade (Settings → Walker Profile) is the hardest color you are cleared for. You may walk any dog at or below it. Dogs above your grade appear dimmed and sink to the bottom, and their dog page shows a red notice instead of the log buttons. Special-handling dogs always show as red.

– is a touch easier than the base color. + pulls, ++ pulls hard. Those are about strength, not grade.

Cell colors

Sort and filter

WALK ORDER (default) puts the hardest color you can walk on top; within a color, urgent then amber then plain then reserved then done. PLAYGROUP groups reserved dogs by play style. Kennel, Color, and Name are plain sorts with an A→Z toggle.

The filter icon lets you show ONLY or NOT certain colors, playgroup-reserved, training-reserved, or BMOD dogs. While a filter is on the count reads SHOWING X OF Y DOGS.

Find a dog by name, ID, kennel, breed, color, or a word from its notes. Name matches come first. Each result shows today's W1 · W2 · PG ticks.

My log

Everything you have logged, newest first, grouped by day. Green check for a log, red ✕ for an undo. Tap a row to open the dog.

Kennel map

Rooms laid out as in the building, with area labels like the alley or courtyard when the admin has entered a floor plan (scroll sideways on a phone). Each room shows how many dogs still need a walk. Tap a room for its kennels and each dog's status (WALKED, PLAYGROUP, NEEDS WALK, or NO WALK for staff-only and no-walk dogs, which the roster hides but the map still shows so you know the kennel is occupied). When the floor plan says how many kennels a room has, every kennel is listed, empty ones as "Empty or dog not in the sheet". Tap a dog to open it.

Playgroup

Dogs grouped by play style: Gentle Dainty 1, Gentle Dainty 2, Push/Pull, Rough/Rowdy, Selectives, Projects, Unassessed, No Playgroup. Regular means the style is confirmed; Unassessed means it is a guess. Tap a row to expand its playgroup notes; long-press to open the dog. Playgroup attendance is logged from the dog's own page.

Playgroup leads and admins get Bulk Reserve: check the dogs going out today and Save.

Resources

This guide, blank versions of your shelter's tickets and forms, the shelter's own links (handbook, sign-up sheet, training videos), and a QR code for adopter resources if configured.

Support

Report a problem or suggest an improvement (it goes to your shelter's admins, who see the list on their own Support page and mark items handled), email your admins, read the common fixes (can't log a dog, missing alert, stale app), and copy the diagnostics block when someone asks what device and version you're on. Admins also find the Safari sheet-picker fix here.

Walker activity

Who else has logged something today, most recent first: first and last log times and the last dog. Green under 45 minutes means they are probably still here. Nothing tracks whether someone has left.

Settings

Your color grade (read-only), theme, font size, action buttons at top or bottom, notifications, sign out, and Delete my account (removes you from every shelter; your past walks stay in the shelter's history as "deleted user").

Roles

Walker: you log walks and playgroup for dogs at or below your color grade. Guest: you can see everything but not log; ask an admin to make you a walker when you're cleared. Trainer and Playgroup lead are extras an admin can add to a walker so they can reserve dogs. Admin: runs the shelter's account. Your role shows under Settings.

Alerts and notifications

Menu → Alerts lists every alert your shelter's admins have sent. The newest one from the last day is also pinned above the roster until you dismiss it. Admins can send short alerts to walkers: a dog that needs a walk before a vet visit, a schedule change, a thank-you. Turn them on per device under Settings → Notifications. On iPhone they only work after you add the app to your home screen and open it from the icon. Turn them off on the same screen, or in your phone's notification settings.

FAQ

I logged the wrong dog. Tap the green button again within 30 minutes to undo. Later, ask an admin.

The dog is not in the kennel the app says. Tell an admin. Admins can correct the kennel from the dog page, and it writes back to the sheet.

A dog is missing from the roster. Staff-only, no-walk, and unassessed dogs are hidden on purpose. Search still finds them.

Yesterday's walks are showing as today's. The app trusts the sheet's Today column. By default the app clears it every night at 11:59 pm shelter time and moves the checks into the Y column; an admin can turn that off under Users → Shelter settings, in which case staff must clear it by hand.

The sheet and the app disagree. The sheet wins. Pull down to refresh; changes made in the sheet show within a minute.

Times look wrong late in the day. They should not. The app's day starts and ends at midnight in your shelter's own timezone, which the admin sets under Users → Shelter settings.

Admin guide

Approving walkers

Menu → Users. Access requests appear at the top. New walkers get there by opening your shelter link and tapping Request access. Tap one, set the role, color grade, and trainer or playgroup-lead flags, then Save. Each option is explained on the form. The person can sign in immediately. Use guest for someone who should look but not log yet.

Adding people without the request step

Users → Invite walkers. Two ways in: Copy link or Share the shelter link and approve people as they request access, or Add by email with their Google email, role and grade so they are in the moment they sign in. Copy invite message gives you a note to text or email them with the link. Two accounts with the same name? Open the member and edit the Name field.

Owner

Whoever created the shelter is its owner (an "owner" badge on Users). Other admins can't demote, block or remove the owner or change another admin; the owner can, and can hand ownership to another admin from that admin's page (Make owner).

Photos, links and resources

Shelter-wide: Users → Shelter settings → Dog lookup URL and Dog photo URL with {id} in them apply to every dog. Per dog: open the dog → Tools → Add photo & links. Per-dog tools for every dog (medical, behavior and kennel tickets, the shelter's record): Shelter settings → Dog links, one Label | URL per line with {id} in the URL. Shelter resources for the Resources tab: Shelter settings → Resources, one Label | URL per line. Each box has a "start from" button with the usual list. Kennel map floor plan: Shelter settings → Kennel map rooms, rooms as CODE,row,col,kennels and captions as #Label,row,col,span.

Checking on a walker

Users → tap a member. Below their settings is their activity for the last 90 days, newest first, with a lifetime total. Tap a row to open the dog.

Changing a grade, blocking

Open the user, change the grade, Save. Block signs them out on their next request; Unblock restores access. Grades and blocks apply instantly even though sign-ins last 30 days.

Fixing a wrong log

Open the dog, tap the green button, confirm. Admins have no 30-minute limit. The undo is recorded in the dog's history.

Kennel corrections

On the dog page, tap the ✎ next to the kennel chip, type the new code, Save. The correction writes to the sheet's MAP column, so staff see it too.

Reservations

Admins can reserve any dog for training or playgroup from the roster kebab menu, and use Bulk Reserve on the Playgroup screen.

Your sheet

Users → Sheet shows whether Google is connected, how many dogs parsed, and any warnings. Reconnect there if the connection expires. Change sheet reopens the setup wizard. The app only ever has access to the one sheet you picked or created; Google enforces this, and the consent screen says so.

Bringing an existing sheet in

Two ways. Pick it: Users → Change sheet → paste the link → Pick a sheet from Drive. Google's picker opens on that file; click it and Select. Safari blocks Google's picker until you turn off Safari → Settings → Privacy → "Prevent cross-site tracking" for that one click (turn it back on afterwards), or do the click in Chrome, or use the second way. Copy it in: Create a sheet for me, then in Google Sheets right-click your old Kennels tab → Copy to → Existing spreadsheet → the new sheet. Colors and checkboxes survive the copy. Rename the copied tab to "Kennels" (delete the template's empty one) and staff work in the new sheet from then on.

Trying it before you have real dogs

On a sheet created from the template, Users → Sheet → Add sample dogs fills in 15 made-up dogs across every grade, with potty flags, a priority dog, a recent surgery, a training reservation, a behavior-modification section, and a no-walk dog. Delete those rows in the sheet when you enter real dogs.

Sending an alert

Menu → Alerts. Write a title and a short message, pick who gets it (everyone, a role or grade filter, or specific people), and watch the count of devices that will actually receive it. Members who haven't turned notifications on are listed so you can nudge them. Sent alerts stay in the history with delivery counts.

Walk history in the sheet

Each night, before the app clears the day's checks, it appends one row per dog with activity to a Walk history tab in your sheet: date, dog, kennel, grade, and the time and walker for each walk and playgroup. It's for staff who live in the spreadsheet; the app itself keeps the full record and can export it as a CSV under Users → Data.

Your data

Users → Data shows what the app stores for your shelter, exports every walk log as a CSV, and has Delete shelter, which removes the shelter, its members, all logs, and the stored Google token. Your spreadsheet is never deleted.

When the sheet changes shape

The app reads the Kennels, Playgroup, and QR code mapping tabs by column position. Adding rows is fine. Inserting or reordering columns needs a code change; tell whoever maintains the app before doing it.