Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Answers to the questions that come up most often, grouped by topic and linked to the documents that back them.
The answers below link, where relevant, to the page or document that makes them verifiable. When a feature does not exist yet, the answer says so instead of talking around it: a frequently asked question exists to help you decide, and an ambiguous answer does not help anyone decide.
Account and access
Registration, credentials, roles and deletion.
- How do I create an account?
- With an email address and a password. Sign-in with Google, sign-in with Apple and anonymous access are not available.
- Do I need an account to use the public site?
- No. The informational pages, the blog, the guides and the legal documents can be read without registering. The account is only needed for the application.
- Can I change my password myself?
- Yes, from the account card in the settings, where email verification is also requested.
- Is there two-factor authentication?
- No, it is not active yet. The Security page lists it among the unavailable measures, together with everything else that is missing.
- How do I delete my account?
- From the settings. Deletion removes pets and subcollections, contacts, shares, tags, sightings and the profile. Export your data first, because the operation is not reversible.
- What is the difference between the roles?
- The owner role manages their own pets; the veterinarian and shop roles give access to the tools of their organisation; the platform administrator manages licences and configurations. The role lives in the authentication token and cannot be changed from the client.
Pets and everyday life
Profiles, sharing, walks, lost pets and documents.
- How many species are supported?
- The pet profile covers dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, reptiles, rodents, fish and horses. The more specific clinical features are tuned mainly for dogs and cats.
- Can I share a pet with another person?
- Yes. You can add members with three levels: owner, editor and viewer. Anyone not on the list sees nothing, and this is enforced by the database rules, not by the interface.
- Is there a public page for a lost pet?
- Yes. A QR code tag leads to a public read-only page where whoever finds the pet can report a sighting. There is also a printable poster with photo, contacts and last known position.
- Are walks recorded with GPS?
- Yes, with a map built on OpenStreetMap data, saveable routes and group walks with invitations. The geolocation permission is granted to the site alone, as the permissions policy declares.
- Can I upload documents such as the health booklet or the pedigree?
- Yes, into a per-pet document vault accepting PDFs and images, with listing, download and deletion.
- Are reminders manual only?
- No. Besides the ones you set, there are proactive suggestions computed from the data already entered, for instance recurring deadlines and predictable reorders.
Health and clinical data
Logs, medicines, nutrition and symptom assessment.
- Which clinical logs are available?
- Weight and body condition, blood glucose, blood pressure, resting respiration, seizures, lameness, stools, vomiting, skin conditions, pain, quality of life, antibody titres and more, all as time series with a trend over time.
- Does Animiyo make a diagnosis?
- No, and it will not. The symptom assessment path applies explicit rules and returns an urgency level to help you decide whether to call a veterinarian. It does not replace a visit.
- Are drug interactions checked?
- Partly. The public free source that provided interactions was retired in January 2024 and has no free replacement: the available check uses a limited internal set of known pairs, cited one by one.
- Where does the medicine information come from?
- From the United States public drug databases, for package inserts and adverse reaction reports. They are American sources and must be read as such, not as European package leaflets.
- Are the dose calculations reliable?
- The calculators apply known formulas to weight and concentration and are a support tool for someone who already knows what to administer. Prescribing remains a veterinary act.
- Can I analyse pet food?
- Yes. The analysis compares declared values with requirements and flags incompatibilities with the recorded conditions. Product data comes from an open, collaborative pet food database.
Veterinary clinics
Professional tools, schedule and clinical documents.
- What changes for a clinic compared with an owner?
- A clinic works inside an organisation with its own members: structured medical records, schedule, bookings, quotes and invoices, laboratory reports, signed consent forms, a ward whiteboard and clinical calculators.
- Is one clinic's data separated from another's?
- Yes. Organisation membership lives in the authentication token and the database and file storage rules check it on every operation. A veterinarian from another clinic cannot reach that data.
- Are medical record accesses traced?
- Yes. Opening, editing, deleting and sharing a record leave an entry in an append-only log that nobody can edit or delete.
- Is a data processing agreement needed?
- Yes, when the organisation processes data as a controller. The agreement is published and should be read together with the subprocessor list, which states providers, locations and transfer basis.
- Where are consent signatures stored?
- In a storage path reserved to the organisation, accessible only to those holding the veterinarian role in that organisation. There are no public paths.
Shops and services
Catalogue, orders, loyalty and reviews.
- What can a shop do?
- Publish a catalogue, manage deliveries and order states, set up recurring reorder subscriptions, define loyalty rules and read a dashboard with the main indicators.
- How does the loyalty programme work?
- In tiers, with point multipliers and per-tier benefits, plus rewards tied to the pet's birthday and reorder reminders derived from purchases.
- Are reviews verified?
- They are star ratings with an aggregated average on shops and products, with basic moderation. It is not a system of reviews verified by certified purchase.
- Does a shop see its customers' health data?
- No. The shop operates inside its own organisation and has no access to medical records, which stay tied to the pet and to the clinic it is entrusted to.
- Is there a public shop front?
- Yes, with a contact card and a browsable catalogue. The contacts shown are the ones the shop enters in its own profile.
Privacy and personal data
Purposes, rights, retention and transfers.
- Where is my data stored?
- In the us-central1 region of Google Cloud, in the United States. Transfer outside the European Union relies on the 2021 standard contractual clauses and on the provider's certification.
- Is my data sold or used to profile me?
- No. The privacy notice foresees neither transfer to third parties for commercial purposes nor advertising profiling.
- How do I exercise my rights?
- By writing from the Contacts page with the dedicated subject line. If you have an account, authentication counts as verification; otherwise you receive a code at the registered address. The ordinary response deadline is one month.
- How long do you keep the data?
- Profile, pets, subcollections and documents stay until the account is deleted. Audit log entries have a declared retention of twenty-four months.
- Who are the providers processing my data?
- They are listed one by one on the subprocessors page, with the service performed, the location and the transfer basis. A change is announced at least thirty days in advance.
- Can I take my data away?
- Yes. The export produces a single JSON file with profile, pets, all clinical subcollections, contacts and budget, generated directly on your device.
Pricing and payments
Plans, trial, refunds and add-ons.
- Is there a free version?
- No. Animiyo is a subscription: 3.99 EUR per month, or 5.99 EUR per month with the PetAI assistant. You can cancel anytime.
- How does the trial work?
- The base plan includes a seven-day trial period before the first charge.
- Can I withdraw and get a refund?
- Yes. A consumer buying at a distance has fourteen days to withdraw without giving a reason, and the refund happens within fourteen days of the declaration, using the same payment method.
- Is the conversational assistant included?
- No, it is a separate add-on with consumption-based credits. The message counter and the credits are written only by the server, so they cannot be modified from the client.
- Which payment data do you see?
- The payment provider is a third party declared on the subprocessors page, where its activation state is also indicated. Card data does not pass through the platform database.
iOS application
Relationship between the native application and the web platform.
- Is there an iOS application?
- Yes. It is a native application sharing the same backend and the same data schema with the web platform, and it is the part the project grew out of.
- Does data entered on the web appear on iOS?
- Yes, for the areas shared between the two applications: the web platform writes in a format compatible with the native application's schema.
- Do all web features exist on iOS too?
- No. The web platform is further ahead on professional tools and on recent modules, and feature parity is not claimed anywhere.
Languages and accessibility
Translations, writing direction and reading preferences.
- How many languages is it available in?
- Nine: Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, Simplified Chinese, Estonian, Russian and Arabic.
- Is Arabic really supported, with right-to-left writing?
- Yes. The interface uses logical properties for margins and alignment, so it mirrors correctly instead of merely translating the words.
- Are the editorial pages translated into every language?
- Only where the translation really exists. An untranslated page is not published in that language and does not appear among the alternatives, so that no out-of-language pages are created.
- Are there accessibility settings?
- Yes: high contrast, reduced animations and a skip link to the main content. Known limitations are listed in the accessibility statement.
Open data sources
Where the external information shown in the product comes from.
- Which public sources does the product use?
- The United States public drug databases, the National Institutes of Health chemistry database for toxic substances, the open services built on OpenStreetMap for places, geocoding and routing, an open weather service for environmental conditions and air quality, and a public database of national public holidays.
- Do these features need a paid key?
- No, sources usable without a key were chosen precisely so that basic features are not tied to an external price list. When a source starts requiring a key, it is replaced with an open alternative.
- Is the external data updated in real time?
- It is requested on demand and kept briefly in memory so as not to overload the providers. Freshness depends on the source, which is always stated on the page that uses it.
- What happens if a source stops working?
- The feature says so instead of showing an invented value. It has already happened with a drug interaction source retired in 2024 and with a time zone service that shut down, both replaced or declared as a limitation.
- Does Animiyo identify itself when querying these sources?
- Yes. Requests carry a header identifying the platform and including a contact address, as required by the usage policies of several public services. It is the same contact published on the Contacts page.
Did not find your answer?
Write stating the kind of request in the subject line. The Contacts page lists the response deadline foreseen for each kind, with the document that sets it.
Go to contacts