How to Integrate ShiftCare with Cara: A Setup Guide for Home Care Agencies
Connect your ShiftCare account to Cara so every converted family becomes a client record automatically — API setup, regions, field mapping, and troubleshooting.
ShiftCare runs your scheduling, rostering, and billing. Cara runs everything that happens before that — answering inquiries, qualifying families, and booking assessments. Connecting the two means a converted family becomes a ShiftCare client automatically, with no re-typing and no lost details between the phone call and the roster.
- • Connect with an API key + numeric Account ID
- • Pick the right region: AU, CA, or US
- • Clients sync at the Client pipeline stage
- • A date of birth is required by ShiftCare
Most home care agencies run at least two systems: one for the work (scheduling, rostering, care plans, invoicing) and one for the growth (inquiries, follow-up, assessments). ShiftCare is excellent at the first. It was never designed to answer a 9pm phone call from an adult daughter comparing three agencies.
The gap between those two systems is where revenue leaks. An inquiry comes in, someone writes it on a notepad, the assessment gets booked, the family signs — and then a coordinator re-types the whole record into ShiftCare from memory. Details get dropped. Start dates slip. Sometimes the record never gets created at all.
Why connect Cara and ShiftCare
The integration exists to close one specific loop: the moment a family converts, their record should already exist in the system your schedulers live in. Three concrete outcomes:
- No double entry. Name, contact details, address, care needs, and weekly hours travel with the record. Your coordinator opens ShiftCare and the client is there.
- Faster first shift. The lag between "family says yes" and "first caregiver rostered" is usually administrative, not operational. Removing the re-keying step typically saves a day or two.
- One clean handoff point. Cara owns the record until the Client stage. ShiftCare owns it after. No ambiguity about which system is the truth.
What syncs, and when
The sync is deliberately narrow and one-directional. Cara pushes a client record to ShiftCare; it does not pull rosters, shifts, or invoices back. That keeps ShiftCare unambiguously the system of record for operations.
| Field in Cara | Field in ShiftCare | Required |
|---|---|---|
| First name | first_name | Yes |
| Last name | last_name | Yes |
| Date of birth | dob | Yes — ShiftCare rejects without it |
| No | ||
| Phone | mobile | No |
| Location | address | No |
| Care needs + hours/week | notes | No |
Cara pushes a client record once, when the contact reaches the Client stage.
The trigger is the pipeline stage. When you drag a lead into Client, Cara pushes the record. Each contact is pushed a single time — moving a card back and forth will not create duplicates.
Setting up the integration
- In ShiftCare, open Settings → API (or Integrations). Copy your API key and your numeric Account ID.
- In Cara, go to Settings → Integrations and find the ShiftCare card.
- Paste the API key and Account ID, then choose your region — Australia, Canada, or United States.
- Hit connect. Cara makes a live test call to your ShiftCare account before saving anything. If the credentials are wrong you get an error immediately rather than a silent failure weeks later.
- Once the card reads Connected, add a date of birth to any lead you expect to convert. It is the one field ShiftCare will not accept a client without.
Regions: AU, CA, and US endpoints
ShiftCare runs separate regional environments, and credentials issued in one region will not authenticate against another. This is the single most common reason a valid API key appears to be rejected.
| Region | API host |
|---|---|
| Australia | api.shiftcare.com |
| Canada | api.ca.shiftcare.com |
| United States | api.us.shiftcare.com |
All three use API v3 and HTTP Basic auth (Account ID as username, API key as password).
Troubleshooting a rejected connection
"ShiftCare rejected these credentials"
Work through these in order. In practice, the region and the Account ID account for nearly every failure:
- Confirm the region matches where your ShiftCare account was created.
- Confirm the Account ID is numeric. Not your email, not your agency name, not the API key repeated.
- Confirm API access is enabled — Premium or Enterprise plan.
- Regenerate the API key in ShiftCare and paste it fresh, with no trailing spaces.
Connected, but no client appeared
Open the lead in Cara and check the date of birth field. ShiftCare returns a 400 — Dob is missing error when it is blank, and the push fails. Add the DOB and use Sync to ShiftCare on the lead drawer to retry immediately. Any other error is surfaced as a message on that button rather than being swallowed.
The intake-to-roster workflow
With both systems connected, a typical inquiry runs like this — and only the last step involves a human touching ShiftCare:
- A family calls, texts, or fills in a web form at 8:40pm. Cara answers in seconds, qualifies them, and captures care needs, hours, location, and funding source.
- Cara books the assessment directly on your calendar and confirms with the family by text.
- Your coordinator runs the assessment, adds the date of birth and any missing detail to the record in Cara.
- The family signs. You drag the card to Client.
- The client record lands in ShiftCare. Your scheduler rosters the first shift from a record they did not have to type.
The value is not the API call. It is that nothing between the 8:40pm phone call and the first rostered shift depends on someone remembering to write it down.
Frequently asked questions
Does ShiftCare have an API?
Yes. ShiftCare exposes a REST API (v3) at api.shiftcare.com, with regional endpoints for Canada (api.ca.shiftcare.com) and the United States (api.us.shiftcare.com). API access is available on Premium and Enterprise plans. Authentication uses HTTP Basic auth with your numeric Account ID as the username and your API key as the password.
How do I find my ShiftCare API key and Account ID?
In ShiftCare, open Settings and look for the API or Integrations section. You'll find your API key there along with a numeric Account ID. The Account ID is a number, not your email or company name — using the wrong value is the most common cause of a rejected connection.
Why does ShiftCare reject my API key?
Three usual causes: (1) you're pointed at the wrong regional endpoint — a Canadian account must call the CA host, (2) you entered a non-numeric Account ID, or (3) API access is not enabled on your plan. Confirm all three before assuming the key is bad.
What data does Cara send to ShiftCare?
When a lead reaches the Client stage in your Cara pipeline, Cara creates a ShiftCare client record with first name, last name, date of birth, email, mobile, address, and a notes block summarising care needs and weekly hours. Nothing is pushed before that stage, and each contact is pushed once.
Why did my client not appear in ShiftCare?
The most common reason is a missing date of birth. ShiftCare rejects client creation without a DOB and returns a 400 error. Add the date of birth on the lead record in Cara and use the Sync to ShiftCare button to retry.
Does this replace my scheduling system?
No. ShiftCare stays your system of record for scheduling, rostering, care plans, and billing. Cara owns everything upstream of that: answering the inquiry, qualifying the family, booking the assessment, and handing over a clean client record once they convert.
Connect Cara to ShiftCare and stop re-typing clients.
Cara answers every inquiry, qualifies the family, books the assessment — then hands a complete client record to ShiftCare the moment they convert.