Your sitters can send a complete rundown of their visits to clients. Included information are Arrival Time, Departure Time, Poop, Pee, Medication Given For, Meal Served To, Sitter Notes to Client and Visit Photos - any of which can be turned off. In addition, they can check off from a list of other actions that typically take place during visits (such as mail collection or watering plants), which is completely customizable.

Here is how it works:

  • Go to the Business Settings > Pet Sitters & Journals page and set Pet Care Journals to "On" (it is On by default)
  • Choose which Journal Information you want sitters to be able to include and setup your Other Journal Actions (additional Client-specific Journal Actions can be setup in individual Client Profiles)
  • If you would like to moderate or prevent your sitters from adding notes use the Preset Journal Notes setting. When set to "Preset" you can add your own notes that they will select from when adding journals
  • Once turned on, your sitters will see an "Add Journal" button on their My Schedule page for In Progress or Completed visits (solo sitters can do this from the Master Schedule page)
  • Clicking on that button will bring up the new journal dialog where they can fill out the information that you have allowed
  • Once done they will click on the "Save and Email Client" button, which will send a notification email to the client. In the email will be a link for clients to view the new Journal (journal information isn't included in the email)
  • Photos added by the sitter will be arranged as a photo gallery and the first photo added as a Cover Photo
  • On both the Master Schedule and the sitter/client My Schedule pages will be icons for each journal. Clicking on those icons will bring you to the journal page
  • The portal will track when clients have viewed the journals. The color of the journal icon will change to white when the journal has been viewed. When a client has added a comment to a journal, ato the right of the journal icon.
  • Sitters can add multiple journals for each visit, which is useful to have separate evening and morning journals for overnight visits
  • The Schedule > Journals page allows you to see all Pet Care Journals in one place


Journal Commenting

To keep communication between clients and sitters within the portal (and visible to management) we have Journal Commenting.

  • You can turn on Journal Commenting from the Business Settings > Pet Sitters & Journals page. Pet Care Journals must be turned on to use the commenting
  • Once turned on a "Leave a comment" form will be added to the bottom of each Pet Care Journal
  • Anyone that is viewing the journal can leave a comment. Being logged in to the portal isn't required (it isn't to view a journal either).
  • When a comment is posted it will send an email notice to the Portal Email Address, the pet sitter and the client. If the commenter's email address matches any of those emails then only the two other parties will get the notification (eg. when the client comments only administration and the sitter will get an email).
  • The comments will be saved and are viewable to anyone viewing the journal
  • Journals with a comment will be designated with a  icon


Require Journal Approval

Allows you to control whether staff journals must be approved before they are sent to clients.
  • Global Journal Approval
    : Enable a global setting at 
    Business Settings > Pet Sitters & Journals > Require Journal Approval for ALL Pet Sitters
     to require approval for journals submitted by all staff members before they are sent to clients. This setting overrides all other approval settings.
  • Staff Segment Journal Approval
    : Require journal approval for staff belonging to a specific Staff Segment. This setting applies unless the global journal approval setting is already enabled.
  • Individual Sitter Journal Approval
    : Require approval for journals submitted by specific sitters. This setting is only applied if neither the global setting nor the staff segment setting require approval.
  • Approval Priority Order
    :
    1. Global Setting (highest priority)
    2. Staff Segment Setting
    3. Individual Sitter Setting
    4. (If none are enabled, journals are sent directly to clients without requiring approval.)
  • Approval Process
    : The Journal is first sent to management, during which time it is not visible to the client. Once a journal is approved by management, it is sent immediately to the client with no additional steps required.


Require sitters to send journals

You can require sitters to send journals to clients for specific service types. This is setup at Business Settings > Pet Sitters & Journals > Require Journals for Services.

  • If the portal sees a visit which requires a journal in the previous 2 days, that sitter won't be able to Arrive or Complete any other visits until the journal has been created and sent to the client.
  • You can turn off this requirement for specific clients by setting Require Journals to "No" within their profile.
  • NOTE: be careful when turning this on as it will be effective immediately and sitters that didn't send journals in the last 2 days won't be able to Arrive at visits