Help

Step-by-step guides to using StopSmith. For shorter answers, see Questions.

Getting started

Setting up takes about five minutes. You need your home address and the calendars you work from.

Choose Start free trial and create an account with your email and a password, or with Google. Every account starts with a 14-day free trial, with no card needed.
Open the circle with your initials in the top-right corner and choose Settings. Under Home base, start typing your street address and pick it from the list. Each day's drives start and end there.
Check your Time zone, so events show at the right times, then save.
Go to the Calendars tab in Settings and connect your calendars. See Setting up your calendars.
If you use Rover, open Clients and add an address for each client. See Clients and addresses.

Put StopSmith on your phone's home screen

StopSmith runs in your phone's browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app.

iPhone: open stopsmith.com in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
Android: open stopsmith.com in Chrome, open the menu and choose Add to Home screen.

Setting up your calendars

All your calendars are in one place: open the account circle, choose Settings, then the Calendars tab. Connect as many as you use. StopSmith puts them together into one schedule.

Rover

On a computer, sign in at rover.com.
Open the menu under your name and choose Calendar.
Choose Sync your calendar and copy the link in the box. In the Rover app it's under Service Settings, then Calendar, then Sync your calendar.
In StopSmith, paste the link into Rover calendar link and choose Connect Rover.

Your bookings, Meet & Greets and requests waiting for your answer show up within a few seconds. The link works like a password to your bookings, so StopSmith stores it encrypted and never shows it again. To use a new link, choose Replace link.

Google Calendar

Choose Connect Google Calendar and pick your Google account.
Allow StopSmith to see and edit your events. Editing is only used when you add, change or delete a personal event from inside StopSmith.
Back in StopSmith, tick the calendars to include. Your main calendar is ticked to start.
If one of your calendars holds client visits, tick it under Which of these hold client visits? Its events are tagged Visit and counted on your Overview.
Choose a calendar under Add new personal events to, then Save calendar choices.

You can connect up to three Google accounts, for example personal and work. Use Add another Google account under Other calendars. Events marked Free, cancelled events and invitations you declined are left out. All-day events show as reminders at the top of the day and don't block time.

iCloud, Outlook and booking tools

Any calendar with a subscription link works. The link may be called an iCal, ICS or webcal link. These calendars are only read; StopSmith never changes them.

iCloud: in the Calendar app or at icloud.com, share the calendar, turn on Public Calendar, and copy the link.
Outlook.com or Microsoft 365: in Outlook on the web, open Settings, then Calendar, then Shared calendars. Publish the calendar and copy the ICS link.
Booking tools: look in the tool's calendar or sync settings for an iCal, ICS or webcal link.

Under Other calendars, choose Add a calendar link.
Paste the link and give the calendar a short name, like Grooming or Family.
Under What are these events?, choose Personal plans and other work or Client visits, then Add calendar.

You can add up to five calendars by link. Use Rename or change to update the name or the kind of events.

Keeping calendars up to date

StopSmith refreshes every calendar on its own every 30 minutes. To refresh right away, tap the sync arrows next to the account circle at the top of the screen, or Refresh now on one calendar in Settings. Each calendar can be refreshed once a minute. The Day view says when your calendars last synced.

To stop using a calendar, choose Disconnect (Google) or Remove (a link). Its events leave StopSmith; nothing is deleted from the calendar itself.

Getting around

The four tabs

The bar along the bottom of the screen has the four main places in StopSmith:

Overview: your next 7 days at a glance, and anything that needs a look.
Day: your schedule, with drive times between stops. Week and Month are here too.
Check: see whether a request fits before you accept it.
Clients: addresses and notes for your Rover clients.

The circle with your initials in the top-right corner opens Profile, Settings, Refer a friend, light or dark colors, and Sign out. The StopSmith logo always takes you back to today.

Moving between days

Use the arrows on either side of the date to go to the previous or next day.
Tap the day's name (Today, Tomorrow or the weekday) to pick any date from a calendar.
When you're on another day, Back to today returns you to today.

Day, Week and Month

The Day | Week | Month switch at the top of the Day tab changes how much you see, and keeps the date you're looking at.

Week runs Sunday to Saturday and lists each day's stops in order. It shows only the drives that are Tight or a Conflict. Tap a day's name to open it.
Month shows how many stops each day has and marks days with a Conflict or Tight drive. On a phone these are colored dots, with a key under the month. Days to look at lists them below. Tap any day to open it.
Use the arrows to move a week or a month at a time, and This week or This month to come back.

List or Hours

On the Day view, List shows your stops one after another with the drives between them. Hours draws the day on a time grid, so you can see open time at a glance. Tap a block on the grid to open that event in the List, where you can change it. StopSmith remembers your choice on each device.

Printing

On a computer, choose Print on the Day or Week view. Only the schedule prints, with its status colors, and every status keeps its word so a black-and-white printer works too.

Reading your day

The Day view lists everything you need to be at, in order. It begins with Start at home and ends with the drive home. Between each pair of stops is the drive, with an estimate and a status:

Fits 10 minutes or more to spare, after the drive and your extra time.
Tight You can make it, with under 10 minutes to spare.
Conflict It overlaps something, or you can't get there in time.

Each drive has a directions link that opens Google Maps, or Apple Maps if you choose it in Settings under Directions open in.
Drive times marked “about” go to or from an approximate area, such as a ZIP code, and include 5 extra minutes.
All-day events show as reminders at the top. They don't block time.
Requests waiting for your answer show at their time with a dashed outline. They don't block time or change your drives until you accept them in Rover.
A stop that says No location, so drive time can't be checked needs an address. See below.

To leave more room between stops, change Extra time between stops in Settings: none, 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

Changing events

Each event on the Day view (List) has its own actions under it.

Adjust a Rover booking's time

If you and a client agreed on a different time than Rover shows, choose Adjust time on the booking, set the new start and end, add a note if you like, and choose Save time. StopSmith uses the new time everywhere, but Rover isn't changed. If Rover's time changes later, the booking says so. Use Rover's time removes your adjustment.

Add, edit or delete personal events

With Google Calendar connected, you can manage personal events without leaving StopSmith.

On the Day view, choose + Add event.
Enter a title, the times (or All-day), and a location if there is one.
Pick which calendar it goes on, then save. It appears in your Google Calendar too.

Personal events from Google have Edit and Delete. For a repeating event, only that date changes. Rover bookings and calendars added by link can't be edited here.

Give an event a location

For an event with no location, choose Add location, type an address or place, and choose Save location. For a Rover visit, choose Add address instead; it's saved for that client and used for all their visits.

No travel needed and Ignore

No travel needed: for a phone call or video meeting. The event stays on your schedule but isn't a stop, so drives go around it. Needs travel undoes it.
Ignore: for something that isn't really on your plate, such as a family member's event on a shared calendar. It stays as one faded line but counts for nothing. Stop ignoring undoes it.

Checking requests

Rover requests

When a request is waiting for your answer in Rover, a banner appears across the top of StopSmith. Choose See how it fits, or open the Check tab. Under Rover requests waiting for you, each client has one card with every visit they asked for, already checked against your schedule.

Each visit is marked Fits, Tight or Conflict, with the reason.
Show each date lists every requested date. Show day opens that day with the request in place.
For a Conflict, StopSmith suggests the closest time that would work. Suggest it to the client in Rover.
Open in Rover takes you to the conversation, where you accept or decline.

If a request says the client has no address, add one on the Clients tab first. The area is enough if that's all the client has shared.

Checking a request yourself

For a request from somewhere other than Rover, or to try a time before you offer it, use Check a request yourself on the Check tab.

Enter the client or pet name and the address (or neighborhood or ZIP code).
Pick the date and the start and end time. For a regular visit, choose Weekly, tick the days, and choose how many weeks.
Set the extra time between stops, then choose Check this request.

You'll see each date marked Fits, Tight or Conflict. For a Conflict, Use this time tries the closest time that works. When one time works on every date, Use … for every date tries it for all of them. Checks look up to six months ahead. Nothing is saved or sent to Rover or your calendar.

Clients and addresses

Rover's calendar has the time and the pets for each booking, but not the address. You add each client's address once on the Clients tab, and StopSmith uses it for all their visits.

Find the client under clients need an address or Requests without an address.
Choose Open in Rover to see the booking in Rover, where the address is.
Back in StopSmith, choose Add address, start typing it, pick it from the list, and choose Save address.

Don't have the exact address yet? Enter the neighborhood or ZIP code. Drives to it are marked “about.” Choose Change later to replace it.
Add notes for things like a gate code or feeding instructions. Notes show under the client's visits on the Day and Week views and on printouts. They stay in StopSmith and are never written to any calendar.
Use the search box to find a client by pet, owner, service, address or notes.
Declined a request in Rover, but it still shows? Choose Hide request. It comes back if the client sends a new one. Hidden requests are listed at the bottom of the page, with Show again.

When a client books new pets, StopSmith links the visit to their saved address if the owner and at least one pet match.

The Overview

The Overview tab is a summary of your work:

Next 7 days: visits, hours with clients, an estimate of your driving, and your busiest day.
A chart of visits per day for the next 14 days.
Needs a look: days with Conflict or Tight drives, clients without addresses, requests waiting for your answer, and calendars that didn't sync. Each one links to where you can fix it.
This month: visits done, still to come, and the clients you visit most.

Visits are Rover bookings, Meet & Greets, and events on calendars you marked as client visits.

Settings, account and billing

Settings

Home base: your home address, time zone, extra time between stops, and whether to show drives to and from home.
Appearance: match this device, light or dark. This is saved on each device, so your phone and computer can differ.
Plan: your trial or subscription.
Calendars: see Setting up your calendars.

Profile

Open the account circle and choose Profile to change your name, sign-in email or password. If you signed up with Google, you can add a password here too. Forgot your password? Choose Forgot your password? on the sign-in page.

Subscribing, changing plans and cancelling

Go to Settings, then Plan.
Choose monthly or yearly to subscribe. To change your card, switch plans, see invoices or cancel, choose Manage billing.

If you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you've paid for. After that, or after your trial, you can still see your schedule and addresses. Checking requests, drive times and changes come back when you subscribe. See pricing.

Refer a friend

Open the account circle and choose Refer a friend to get your link. When someone signs up with it and subscribes, you get a free month.

When something looks wrong

A booking or event is missing: Tap the sync arrows at the top to refresh. For Google Calendar, check that the calendar is ticked in Settings, Calendars. Events marked Free, cancelled events and invitations you declined aren't shown.
A calendar says the last sync didn't work: Events from the last successful sync stay on your schedule. For Rover or a calendar link, the link may have changed: copy it again and use Replace link. For Google, choose Reconnect Google Calendar.
Times are off by an hour or more: Check your time zone in Settings, under Home base.
A drive time is missing: One of the two stops has no address. Add one on the event, or on the Clients tab for a Rover client.
I can't add or edit events: Adding and editing need Google Calendar connected with permission to edit. If Settings, Calendars asks you to reconnect Google Calendar, do that and allow editing. Your trial or subscription also needs to be active.
A declined request still shows: Rover keeps declined requests in its calendar. Hide it from the Clients tab with Hide request.

Still stuck? Send us a message or email support@stopsmith.com.