What are some common RG API use cases?

[Brandon Scivolette]

Hi everyone,

I'm a software architect and have recently started volunteering with a local rescue in Tampa that uses RG. After a long meeting in which they introduced me to RG (and how they utilize it), as well as their day-to-day processes, I'm starting to understand their needs (and rescues in general), better.

After ~4 hours reading the RG documentation, it's clear they aren't utilizing RG fully. There is a lot of duplicate or manual entry, jumping between multiple applications, and so on. I know that I can eliminate some of this by setting up features they aren't already using, but I have no doubt some functions/tasks will need to be handled outside of RG. Thus my interest in the API.

So, I'm just curious, how are other rescues using the API? What kind of issues are you solving with it (e.g., syncing data across applications, communication with volunteers/fosters, tasks or project management, etc)? 

[Phillip Jackson]

I am currently brainstorming the same thing, so that our rescue can better take advantage of the RG API. But I have received a bit of pushback from board members, with the common complaint being, "Another app I have to learn?". We've had a Microsoft Grant that gives us access to Office 365 Premium with 8 seats, Azure & Power Apps for the last year and we just got everyone used to Teams enough so that we can have our board meetings there.  But that's a completely different issue and I'm just ranting now. Sorry!

Currently, I am only using the API to fetch all our animals and display them on our website. I am using 11ty (SSG), so I have one Global Data Object that uses fetch to retrieve all the dogs at build time. This is placed in a `dogs` data object that I use to display them on individual cards. Separately, I have a AsyncShortCode (Nunjucks) setup that I used to display each dog's profile and information on its own page, which I'm using Eleventies built-in Permalink feature to build out those pages from a template.

This is not ideal, but... 

What I would love to build for us is a system that would 

• allow our fosters to have their own login to our backend (you can do this in the current frontend)
  • allow fosters to upload new photos or information and that information sync with RG.
• Add a new animal in our system and it syncs with RG.
  

Basically, a lot of the same ideas you currently have, so I won't sit here and list them all.

[Brandon Scivolette]

Thanks for your response, Phil!

That's a pretty clever utilization of the API to show the animals on an external website (not one created within RG). Regarding your wishlist, so-to-speak, what is your current backend built with? I presume it's an external application, as you want data entered there to sync with RG.

[Phillip Jackson]

Currently, our website is built using 11ty. 

The project I have been brainstorming though, will be made using Laravel with Livewire || Filament.