Lost & found animal matching with citizen reports

Purpose

1.1. Facilitate efficient identification and reunification of lost animals with owners using citizen-generated reports and shelter intake data.
1.2. Automate the intake of found/lost animal reports from various channels to rapidly crossmatch with shelter records.
1.3. Enable real-time notifications to both shelter staff and citizens regarding potential matches.
1.4. Aggregate reports, enrich with photos/descriptions, and reduce manual workload in animal control operations.
1.5. Ensure traceability and communicate status updates throughout the recovery process.

Trigger Conditions

2.1. New citizen report of a lost or found animal via web form, hotline, SMS, app, or email.
2.2. Animal intake at shelter entered into management system with description/photo.
2.3. Update to shelter database (new animal, status change).
2.4. Match found in database based on algorithmic criteria (species, breed, markings, location, date, etc.).
2.5. Staff manually flags or confirms possible matches.

Platform Variants

3.1. Twilio
• Feature/Setting: SMS/MMS receive webhook; auto-forward reports to processing endpoint.
3.2. SendGrid
• Feature/Setting: Inbound Parse Webhook; extract lost/found animal info from incoming emails.
3.3. Salesforce Service Cloud
• Function: Case creation API; auto-log citizen reports as service requests for workflow routing.
3.4. Zoho CRM
• Function: Webform integration; capture animal details and push to CRM modules.
3.5. Google Sheets
• Feature: Apps Script triggers; organize report data, run matching scripts on data updates.
3.6. Microsoft Teams
• Feature: Incoming webhook; notify shelter team channels with potential matches.
3.7. Slack
• Feature: Bot user with Events API; post alerts for new/updated matches to shelter workspace.
3.8. Zendesk
• Feature: Ticket API; auto-create/close tickets for each report, tag with match IDs.
3.9. AWS Lambda
• Function: Event-driven compute; run serverless matching and notification logic.
3.10. Algolia
• Feature: Search API; fuzzy search for animal details to identify close matches.
3.11. Zapier
• Feature: Multi-app automation, webhook ingest, and field mapping for report normalization.
3.12. Google Vision API
• Function: Image label detection; compare animal photos to improve match accuracy.
3.13. Airtable
• Feature: Automation triggers; maintain a database of animals/reports, auto-link related records.
3.14. Freshdesk
• Feature: Ticket API; auto-create cases and escalate matches for shelter review.
3.15. Mailgun
• Feature: Route API; receive and parse inbound animal report emails for structured extraction.
3.16. Docparser
• Feature: Template parsing; extract data from scanned paper/email forms.
3.17. Formstack
• Feature: Webform submission endpoint; gather structured citizen reports.
3.18. Webflow
• Feature: Form submission webhook; pipe lost/found animal webforms to backend integrations.
3.19. HubSpot
• Function: Forms API; ingest and track report submissions within marketing CRM.
3.20. ServiceNow
• Feature: Incident API; auto-open animal control tickets with matching status triggers.
3.21. Google Maps API
• Function: Geocoding; enrich reports with precise location match capabilities.
3.22. IBM Watson Visual Recognition
• Feature: Image analysis API; pattern-match photos for enhanced identification.

Benefits

4.1. Accelerates reunification by instantly connecting reports to shelter records.
4.2. Minimizes manual matching work for staff.
4.3. Boosts citizen engagement and satisfaction through timely notifications.
4.4. Maintains audit trails and transparency in process.
4.5. Offers scalable, multi-channel intake and alerting.
4.6. Improves match accuracy by combining structured human input and AI.
4.7. Frees up resources for higher-priority animal control activities.