Connecting iDogCam to Animal Friends OS

1. Overview

Animal Friends OS is an all-in-one business management platform for pet care facilities — grooming, boarding, daycare, training, transport, staff, payroll, QuickBooks, SMS, and client management in one dashboard. It partners with iDogCam to display live pet camera feeds directly inside the same dashboard you use every day.

This integration is designed for facility operators who:

• Already use iDogCam cameras for their kennels and play areas (or are planning to), and
• Use (or want to use) Animal Friends OS to run their business operations.

Once connected, your iDogCam cameras appear inside the Animal Friends OS dashboard alongside your bookings, kennels, and clients. Your team never has to leave the software to check on a dog, and your boarding customers can watch their pet from inside their client portal — no separate app, no separate login.

2. Prerequisites

Before starting the setup, make sure you have:

• An active iDogCam account — iDogCam works with about 95% of all cameras as long as there is an RTSP stream; you do not need to purchase cameras from iDogCam, but can if needed. If you do not have iDogCam yet, contact support@idogcam.com, call 424-229-2146, or visit idogcam.com to get started.
• An Animal Friends OS account with owner or admin permissions. You can start a free 14-day trial at https://animalfriendsos.app/signup — no credit card required.
• Two credentials from iDogCam:
  • Your Kennel ID — a unique number for your facility (e.g., 32000)
  • Your ERP Code — a passcode for your facility (e.g., 59232)
  These are provided by iDogCam when your account is set up. If you do not have them, email support@idogcam.com and ask for your "Animal Friends OS integration credentials."

3. Setup (3 steps)

The entire setup takes about two minutes once you have the two credentials from iDogCam.

4. Verifying the integration works

After syncing, your Cameras page should show one tile per camera with:

• The camera name exactly as configured in iDogCam (e.g., Suite 5, Cat Condo 2, Back Yard)
• A live MJPEG stream playing inside the tile
• A status badge showing online or offline

If a camera shows as offline, check the camera's status in your iDogCam admin panel first — the integration reflects whatever state iDogCam reports.

5. Showing cameras to boarding clients

Animal Friends OS can optionally show a dog's camera to the owner while their pet is checked in for boarding or daycare. To enable this:

1. After syncing cameras, go to each camera tile and click Assign to Kennel.
2. Pick the kennel that camera is mounted in. Repeat for each camera.
3. In Settings, make sure "Show cameras in client portal" is toggled on.

Once configured, any client with an active boarding stay will see the camera for their pet's assigned kennel when they log into their client portal — no additional setup required on their end.

6. Troubleshooting

Test Connection fails with "missing credentials"

Both Kennel ID and ERP Code are required. Make sure both fields are filled in and that you copied the exact values from the email iDogCam sent you. Leading or trailing spaces are trimmed automatically.

Test Connection fails with "http_404" or "http_500"

The credentials were valid format but iDogCam's endpoint could not find your facility. Double-check the Kennel ID and ERP Code with iDogCam by emailing support@idogcam.com.

Test Connection passes but Sync Cameras returns zero cameras

Your iDogCam account is provisioned but no cameras have been added to it yet. Contact iDogCam to confirm the cameras at your facility are set up and visible in their admin panel. Once they appear on their side, click Sync Cameras again in Animal Friends OS.

A specific camera shows "offline" in Animal Friends OS

The integration reflects iDogCam's status directly. Check the camera's status in your iDogCam admin panel. If iDogCam shows it as offline, that camera needs support from iDogCam — contact support@idogcam.com or call 424-229-2146. Animal Friends OS cannot fix camera issues on iDogCam's side.

Cameras appeared but the live stream is blank or frozen

Animal Friends OS proxies the stream through our backend. If the stream is frozen on our side but works in iDogCam's own viewer, contact support@animalfriendsos.com. If the stream is frozen in both places, it is an issue on iDogCam's side — contact support@idogcam.com or call 424-229-2146.

I added a new camera in iDogCam but do not see it in Animal Friends OS

Click the Sync Cameras button in Animal Friends OS Settings. This re-fetches the current list from iDogCam. New cameras appear immediately after sync. There are no webhooks — syncing is manual on demand, but it is instant.

I changed the name of a camera in iDogCam — will the new name show up?

Yes. Click Sync Cameras in Animal Friends OS and the updated camera name will replace the old one. Your kennel assignments are preserved across syncs.

My account says "Trial expired" — will my cameras stop working?

When an Animal Friends OS trial expires without converting to paid, camera display inside the dashboard is suspended because your OS account is suspended. Your iDogCam account and cameras themselves are unaffected — billing for cameras stays with iDogCam. To restore dashboard access, add a payment method in the Animal Friends OS billing page.

7. Billing model

The iDogCam ↔ Animal Friends OS integration uses a two-vendor billing model:

You will have one card on file with iDogCam and a separate card on file with Animal Friends OS. Cancelling either side does not affect the other. If you cancel iDogCam, your cameras stop showing up in the Animal Friends OS dashboard automatically but your OS subscription continues unaffected.

8. Security and privacy

Animal Friends OS handles iDogCam camera credentials with the following principles:

• Partner API key never leaves our server. The key iDogCam issues to our partnership lives only in environment variables on our backend. It is not stored in customer-facing pages, not returned by any API endpoint, and not visible to any customer in the dashboard.
• Per-customer credentials are stored securely in our multi-tenant database, isolated by tenant_id so no customer can access another customer's Kennel ID or ERP Code.
• Camera streams are proxied through our backend. The raw iDogCam authentication token is never sent to your browser or any end user's browser. Stream access uses short-lived (5-minute) HMAC-signed tokens that are tenant-scoped and camera-scoped, so a stolen token cannot be reused across customers or after expiry.
• Camera access is logged. Every live-view request is recorded with timestamp, user ID, and IP address in the idogcam_access_log table, available to facility owners in the Animal Friends OS admin panel.
• Client portal access is scoped by booking. A client only sees the camera for the kennel their pet is currently checked into — never a camera for another customer's pet.

9. Support contacts