Shepherd API
Shepherd is a cloud-based veterinary practice management system (PIMS) built by veterinarians to simplify running a clinic. This page is an independent design exercise that asks what a well-designed Shepherd API could look like: the resources it would expose, the authentication it would need, and the workflows it could unlock. Below: a hypothetical endpoint design, the technical requirements a production implementation would face, the use cases programmatic access could serve, and where to start if your team needs this kind of access today.
This page is an independent analysis by Supergood of what a well-designed Shepherd API could look like. It draws on publicly available information, vendor materials, and general integration experience in this category. Nothing on this page describes an existing Shepherd product, and Supergood is not affiliated with or endorsed by the vendor. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
What is Shepherd?
Shepherd is a cloud-based veterinary practice management system (PIMS) built by veterinarians to simplify running a clinic. Its core promise is that an accurate medical record produces an accurate invoice, "if it's in the medical record, it's on the invoice", so practices stop losing charges. Clinics use Shepherd to run SOAP-based medical records, schedule appointments, capture charges, manage inventory, send client reminders, process payments through Shepherd Pay, and run end-of-day reporting, with AI tools (TranscribeAI, DiagnoseAI, SummarizeAI) layered on top.
Core product areas include:
- SOAP-based medical records with vital comparison charts, autosave, activity logs, and AI-generated notes (TranscribeAI, DiagnoseAI)
- Invoicing and charge capture, where charges flow automatically from the medical record, plus Shepherd Pay payment processing
- Scheduling and appointments with customizable appointment types, provider availability, and a digital whiteboard
- Inventory management with automatic updates after product administration and automated reorder scheduling
- Reminders and client communication, messaging center, pet portal, Rx refill requests, and vaccine certificates
- Reporting for end-of-day, commissions, treatments, patients, and practice-health analytics
An API for a platform like this would naturally organize around its core data entities:
- Clients, Patients, Pet Portal accounts
- Appointments, Appointment Types, Provider Availability, Whiteboard entries
- SOAP Medical Records, Vitals, Diagnoses, Treatments, Prescriptions
- Invoices, Line Items, Payments (Shepherd Pay), Estimates
- Inventory Items, Stock Levels, Reorder Rules, Lab Results
- Reminders, Tasks, Reports, Commissions
The Shepherd Integration Challenge
Clinics run Shepherd as the system of record for every patient visit, but turning its portal-driven workflows into reliable API-driven automation is non-trivial:
- Limited public API: Shepherd exposes a REST API only for select endpoints, so much of the patient, invoice, and inventory data lives behind the authenticated web app
- Partner-gated integrations: Most connectivity flows through Shepherd's pre-built integration partners (IDEXX, Antech, Greenline, Talkatoo), not a self-serve developer portal
- Record-to-invoice coupling: Charges are auto-derived from SOAP entries, so pulling clean financial data requires understanding the medical-record-to-line-item mapping
- Authentication and session handling: Cloud login sessions expire and must be maintained for headless automation
- Inventory state drift: Stock levels update automatically on product administration, so reads must reflect near-real-time inventory movement
- Client-facing workflows: Pet portal requests, Rx refills, and vaccine certificates span multiple surfaces that need careful orchestration
What a Shepherd API Could Look Like
If Shepherd exposed a modern, general-purpose API, the integration challenges above suggest what it would need to get right. This is a design sketch, not documentation of anything that exists today:
- First-class authentication: session handling with support for MFA and enterprise sign-on where the platform uses them
- Consistent resources: normalized JSON schemas and pagination across the platform's core objects
- Reliable writes: idempotency keys and validation that mirrors the platform's own workflow rules
- Entitlement awareness: endpoints scoped to what each customer's licensing actually permits
The endpoint sketches, technical requirements, and use cases below flesh out this hypothetical design.
How AI agents could connect to software like Shepherd: MCP servers for software without a public API →
Need This Kind of Access Today?
If your team needs this kind of access today, Supergood builds integrations on request, one customer at a time. We act at the direction of our customers, within the access they already hold. Customers bring their own accounts, licenses, and entitlements. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
- Schedule an Integration Assessment
A 30-minute session to review your product mix, licensing, and authentication model. - Scope the Integration
We design the access pattern around your workflows and entitlements. - Deploy with Monitoring
Go live with continuous monitoring as your platforms evolve.
Potential API Endpoints
Authentication
/authenticateWould authenticate to a Shepherd practice account using username/password and obtain a session token for downstream calls.
Patient Operations
/patientsWould list patients with their owners, species, breed, and medical history, filterable by client, status, and last-visit date.
Scheduling
/appointmentsWould retrieve appointments with type, provider, status, and room assignment across the practice calendar and whiteboard.
Scheduling
/create_appointmentWould book a new appointment for a patient with appointment type, provider, and time slot.
Medical Records
/medical_recordsWould pull SOAP medical records, vitals, diagnoses, treatments, and prescriptions for a patient.
Billing
/invoicesWould pull invoices, line items, estimates, and Shepherd Pay payment activity, with the medical-record-to-charge mapping preserved.
Use Cases
Sync patient and medical record data to your warehouse
- Pull clients, patients, and SOAP medical records into a central data warehouse - Stream vitals, diagnoses, and prescription events to analytics and recall tools - Reconcile patient and owner records across locations for a unified client 360
Automate scheduling and reminder workflows
- Create and update appointments from external booking and CRM systems - Pull provider availability and whiteboard status to power dashboards - Trigger follow-up reminders, vaccine recalls, and Rx refill requests without portal clicks
Reconcile invoicing and payments
- Sync invoices, line items, and Shepherd Pay payments into accounting and AR systems - Match charges back to the originating SOAP medical record for audit and missed-charge analysis - Surface end-of-day totals and commission data to reporting pipelines
Keep inventory and lab data in sync
- Pull inventory items, stock levels, and reorder rules as products are administered - Push lab results and diagnostic charges back onto the patient record - Trigger automated reorder workflows when stock falls below threshold
Connect via No-Code Tools
Automate this platform from the no-code stack you already use.
Technical Requirements
Authentication
Would require username/password login handled in a managed, encrypted session
Connectivity
Would build on authenticated browser flows plus Shepherd's select REST endpoints surfaced through one API
Response format
Normalized JSON across clients, patients, appointments, medical records, invoices, and inventory
Rate limits
Adaptive throttling tuned to your practice to avoid Shepherd-side limits
Session management
Would need automatic session refresh and credential rotation
Data freshness
Near real-time pulls for patients, appointments, and inventory with optional scheduled batch syncs
Security
Encrypted credential vault, scoped access tokens, SOC 2-aligned controls, and audit logging
Webhooks
Event-style callbacks for new appointments, invoice changes, prescription refills, and inventory movement
Latency
Design target: sub-second reads on cached entities; multi-second writes when posting through scheduling and invoicing workflows
Throughput
Design target: horizontally scaled workers sized to multi-location practice volume
Reliability
Retry, backoff, and idempotency keys for appointment, charge, and inventory transactions
Versioning
Clear versioning and change management would matter as Shepherd evolves
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The API normalizes clients, patients, and appointments across locations so multi-site practices get a unified surface, with workers scaled to combined volume.
Availability of official interfaces varies by product, plan, and licensing. Many platforms in this category gate access behind partner programs or paid modules, and there is often no broadly available, self-serve public API. Check the vendor's developer resources for current offerings.
The hard parts would be authentication (MFA, session management, enterprise controls), consistent schemas across the platform's products, and write semantics that reconcile the way the platform's own workflows do.
No. This page is an independent analysis by Supergood and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the vendor. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used for identification only. Nothing here documents an actual Shepherd product or service.
Supergood acts at the direction of its customers, within the access those customers already have. We respect each customer's agreements with their software vendors, and how those agreements apply to a customer's use is a determination the customer makes. If the vendor offers an official API, we highly recommend it.
Supergood builds managed API access to enterprise software for customers on request, scoped to each customer's own licensing and entitlements. If your team needs programmatic access to a platform like this, schedule an integration assessment to discuss options.