Fields supported by the animal import
This information is for organizations using our Import Accounts feature.
They are not to be used for a One-Time Import of animal data completed by our staff.
The following fields are values that are supported by the animal import:
An R indicates the field is required. All others are optional.
Field | Supported Values |
---|---|
externalID R | String(45)* |
internalID | String(50) |
rescueID | String(25) |
name R | String(50) |
status R | One of the supported statuses |
type R | One of the supported species |
priBreed R | One of the supported breeds (required unless species is Dog) |
secBreed | One of the supported breeds |
mix | Yes, No or blank |
sex | Male, Female or blank |
age | Baby, Young, Adult, Senior or blank |
okwithdogs | Yes, No or blank |
okwithcats | Yes, No or blank |
okwithkids | Yes, No or blank |
declawed | Yes, No or blank |
housebroken | Yes, No or blank |
specialNeeds | Yes, No or blank |
altered | Yes, No or blank |
size | Small, Medium, Large, X-Large or blank |
uptodate | Yes, No or blank |
color | One of the supported colors |
pattern | One of the supported patterns |
coatLength | Short, Medium, Long or blank |
courtesy | Yes, No or blank |
dsc | String(16000000) |
found | Yes, No or blank |
foundDate | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) |
foundZipcode | String(7) |
photo1 | Uploaded file name or URL |
photo2 | Uploaded file name or URL |
photo3 | Uploaded file name or URL |
photo4 | Uploaded file name or URL |
videoUrl | YouTube video URL |
* The externalID value must be unique for each animal. This field is used to match up the animals in your data file those that have already been imported. You should always use the same unique value for each unique animal you upload.
Supported species, breeds, statuses, colors, patterns
Please download and refer to this spreadsheet to be sure that your species, breeds, statuses, colors, and patterns are all supported by RescueGroups.org.
Unknown Breed
For dogs only, RescueGroups.org allows the primary breed field (priBreed) to be left blank to indicate that the dog's breed is unknown. However, if you import an animal to us with a secondary breed without a primary breed, our system will use the secondary breed as the primary since that is how we will export it to adoption sites. You will be notified of that change in your Animal Data Import Errors email notifications. You can read more about the Unknown breed setting here.
Supported Image Formats
We support only the following image formats for upload: GIF, JPG, PNG
Header Row Format
The first row in your data file should be a header row so we can match-up your fields with the fields in our database. The header row would look something like this:
"externalID", "status", "internalID", "rescueID", "name", "type", "priBreed", "secBreed", "mix", "sex", "okwithdogs", "okwithcats", "okwithkids", "declawed", "housebroken", "age", "specialNeeds", "altered", "size", "uptodate", "color", "pattern", "coatLength", "courtesy", "dsc", "found", "foundDate", "foundZipcode", "photo1", "photo2", "photo3", "photo4", "videoUrl"
The field names in the header row are case-sensitive.
Deleting an animal record after import
Once an animal record is added through an import file in an Import Account to your RescueGroups.org account, it can be deleted by simply not including that animal row in future data files. The animal will automatically be deleted. This is done by tracking each animal's externalID, which must be unique for each animal. The one exception to this rule is if you are removing all imported animals. Our system has encountered many situations where uploaded files had zero rows of readable data by accident. In these cases, our system does not delete all imported animals as this was often done in error. Instead of uploading a file with zero rows of data, be sure to include at least one animal row with the status of 'deleted'.