Your Shelter Shouldn’t Have to Adapt to Its Software
Steve Zeidman
I've spent almost 30 years working with animal welfare organizations, and one thing has always been clear: no two organizations operate exactly the same way. A municipal animal services agency has different needs from a private humane society. Large organizations work differently from small ones. Even similar organizations can have completely different workflows, programs and reporting requirements. Yet shelter software has often asked organizations to adapt their operations to the software instead of the other way around.
Why Chameleon Is Still Here
Chameleon has been around for over 40 years and is still based on traditional client/server technology. Yet some of the industry's largest and most sophisticated organizations continue to use it.
Why? Flexibility.
Organizations with strong IT resources can customize Chameleon to fit their operations. Reports, documents, workflows and other elements can be adapted to meet very specific needs. That's incredibly powerful. The problem is that you need the technical resources to make it happen.
SaaS Solved One Problem but Created Another
Moving shelter software to the cloud eliminated servers, installations, complicated upgrades and much of the need for internal IT support. But too often, we gained simplicity and lost flexibility. That's the tradeoff I don't think shelters should have to make anymore.
The Modern Replacement Should Give You Both
This is what excites me about AnimalsFirst. AnimalsFirst is becoming the first true SaaS shelter platform that will match, and in many ways exceed, the flexibility organizations have historically valued in Chameleon, without requiring IT staff to customize it. With new and more advanced features being released weekly.
Customization should be accessible to the people who actually understand the operation. Shelter leaders should be able to configure the system around their programs, workflows and data needs without needing to know SQL, Crystal Reports or how the database works.
The goal isn't to recreate Chameleon in a web browser. It's to preserve what made Chameleon so valuable, the ability to make the software fit the organization, while eliminating the technical complexity that came with it. That's what I believe makes AnimalsFirst a true modern replacement.
