Log a Contact

Each time you help a student, for example with FAFSA guidance or academic advising, log it as a contact. Contacts make up the student's activity feed and move students to the Served status your APR reports on. Your program may use its own word for contacts.

Log a Contact in Four Steps

1. Open the student's profile from the Students list, then choose Log Contact in the header. The form opens for that student only, so you cannot log it on the wrong record.
2. Open the Contact Type dropdown and check every type that applies, for example FAFSA guidance or academic advising. At least one is required, and one contact record is saved per type you check.
3. Confirm the Date of Contact. It defaults to today, so change it only when you are catching up on an earlier meeting. The date can't be in the future, and it must be January 1, 2001 or later, so a year typed as two digits, such as 0025, is caught here. The reason shows under the field, and nothing is saved until you fix the date.
4. Pick a Modality (how the contact happened, for example in person or by phone), add your Notes, then choose Save Contact. Modality is required; notes are optional and can have up to 10,000 characters. Over that, the box says how many you have, keeps your text and saves nothing until you shorten it.

To bring a colleague in, type @ in the notes and pick them from the list. They get a notification and an email. When you log one contact for several students, each person you mention is notified once for the whole save. See Mention a Colleague.

To log one contact for several students, choose Log Contact at the top of the Students list, pick the students in the form, and save once. You can also ask the AI Assistant to draft it, then choose Log Contact on its draft card (see Use the AI Assistant). For a workshop or other group session, record an event instead. See Record an Event.

If someone deletes one of the students you picked, or merges the record into another record on the duplicate review page, before you save, that student is left out and the others are saved. The form, or the Assistant's draft card, names who was left out, and the form shows only that message and Continue. If a record was merged, the student is on the record that was kept: open Log Contact again and search for them, or ask the Assistant for a new draft. A deleted record cannot be logged. If that happened to every student you picked, nothing is saved: the form says so and asks you to reload the page and choose again, and the Assistant's draft card names them and says what to do from the card.

You land back on the student's profile, and the contact is already in their activity feed, stamped with your name, the type, the modality, and the time you logged it.

If the type or modality list is empty, the form says so. Ask your admin to set up the lists.

Attach Files to a Contact

Attach paperwork from the meeting, such as a signed form or a FAFSA confirmation, to the contact. Attachments save only when the contact is for one student.

1. Find the Attachments area at the bottom of the Contact Details card.
2. Choose Attach Files and pick one or more files. On a phone the button is called Choose File, and Take Photo beside it opens the camera, so you can attach a picture of a signed form.
3. In an EOC, Talent Search or VUB program, set Supports Outcome on a file that is the proof of an outcome. This is optional. In an EOC program it does more than label the file: it marks that EOC outcome Yes on the student's record for the current program year, so set it only when the file is the proof. In a Talent Search or VUB program it offers one tag, for a record your federal instructions ask you to keep: the tag records that the document is on file and sets no outcome, so record the outcome in the profile's APR Outcomes panel too. Upward Bound, UBMS, SSS and McNair programs record outcomes in that panel, so they show no Supports Outcome choice. See Upload and Download Documents.
4. Save the contact. The files upload with it.

TRIOPilot reads each file as soon as you choose it, so the file uploads as it was then, even if you close, move or change it on your computer before you save. This matters for a PDF opened from an email: your email program can delete its copy when you close it. Once 256 MB of files are waiting to upload, any more files are read when you save instead, so keep those in place until then. A file that takes a while to read, such as one stored only online or on a network drive, says Preparing File until it is ready, and the save button waits for it. You can keep filling in the form meanwhile. A photo from Take Photo is used as the camera took it.

This device could not read the file. If a file cannot be read when you choose it, the form says so under Attach Files and leaves the file out. This happens when the file is still being saved, is open in another program that locks it, or is stored only online (a cloud folder file that is not downloaded). Wait until it is saved, or download it, then choose it again.

If you choose a file with the same name as one already in the list, the form asks Replace the earlier copy? Choose Replace to keep only the file you just chose, for example after you edited it, so the old version is not uploaded. Choose Keep Both when they are different files.

Attached files are saved to the student's documents and listed under the contact in the activity feed. Choose a file's name there to see it: an image (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP) or a PDF opens over the page, with Download and Close, the same as View on the Documents tab (see View a Document). Any other file, such as a Word document or a HEIC photo, opens in a new browser tab, and the Audit Log records it as Downloaded Document.

If a file cannot be uploaded, the contact is already saved, and the form still tries every other file. When it finishes, it says how many went through and names each file that did not, with the reason under that file. Files that went through show Uploaded and stay put. An outcome set on one of them is marked on the student's record as soon as that file is uploaded, so it is kept even if you leave without the rest. The contact's details are locked at that point. What to do next depends on the reason:

• A dropped connection or a file service problem. At the end, the form says "Press Upload Attachments to try again". Press it: only the files that did not go through are sent again, and the contact is not logged twice.
• The file was refused (for example, it is too large or not an allowed type), or this device could not read it. Fix or remove that file, or remove it and choose it again, then press Upload Attachments. When only files like this are left, the form says "Then press Upload Attachments to upload the rest."

Skip Attachments and Open Profile leaves the contact saved and drops only the files that did not upload. For other ways to add files, see Upload and Download Documents.

No Attachments area on the form? Your role can log contacts but cannot edit student records, which is what uploading a file requires. Ask your admin.

Mark Students Reportable as You Save

When these contacts finish a student's work for the year, you can move them to Reportable in the same save, so they count in this year's APR. Check Also mark these students Reportable in the box just above the save button. On a single student's form it names them, for example Also mark Ana Lopez Reportable. The box is off by default; left off, saving works as it always has, and a student with 2 contacts this year becomes Served. The box shows only while the Date of Contact is in the current program year: a contact dated in an earlier year saves as it always has, and the box comes back, unchecked, when you pick a date in the current year.

1. Pick the students, the contact type and the modality as usual.
2. Check Also mark these students Reportable. The save button now reads, for example, Save and Mark 12 Reportable.
3. Choose the save button. A confirmation opens before anything is saved. It names the program year the students will count in, lists anyone who is not Served yet with their current status (they go straight to Reportable), names the others who change, names anyone who is Rejected or Inactive (they are never marked), and says how many are already Reportable (they stay as they are). When no one would change, the line under the box says so before you save, and saving logs the contacts only.
4. Choose Save and Mark 12 Reportable to save, or Cancel to go back to the form.

The contacts save first, exactly as they would without the box, then the students' status for the current program year changes to Reportable. Each student's edit history gets an entry for the change, and the audit log records it as Updated Student Statuses, as when you use Set Status on the Students list. You can change a student back on their profile.

If the contacts save but some students cannot be marked, the form says so, names them, and stays open. Choose Try Again to mark them, or Continue to leave their status as it is. The contacts are not saved twice.

The box never moves a Rejected or Inactive student: they get their contacts, and their status stays as you set it. Change them on their profiles if you need to.

You see the box only if your role can change statuses for a group on the Students list. A single student's form does not show it when the student is already Reportable, is Rejected or Inactive, or has no record in the current program year.

On a Phone

The form fits a phone screen. The modalities are large buttons, three to a row. Save Contact and Cancel stay at the bottom of the screen, so you can save without scrolling to the end of the form. When something stops the save, such as a missing modality, the sentence that says what to change appears just above the buttons. While the keyboard is open it covers them; they come back when you close it.

When you log one contact for several students, the student list is a Choose Students button on a phone. It opens the list on a full screen: search, filter by status with the tabs, tap students to select them, and choose Add to Contact to return to the form.

Good to Know

• Your program sets the types and modalities. Your admin manages both lists in Settings, on the Participants tab. If one you need is missing, ask them.
• The date drives your reporting. A contact counts in the program year that contains its date, so backdating moves it into that year's totals.
• The first contact sets the age at first service. For EOC and Talent Search, a student's Age at First Service for the year is their age on the date of their first contact in that year. When the note under the field says Calculated from the date of birth, logging that contact, or one with an earlier date, updates the age. An age entered by hand, or one whose note says TRIOPilot does not keep this age current, does not change. See How Age at First Service Is Calculated.
• Logging contacts can move a student to Served. Two or more contacts in the current program year promote a pending or active student to Served. TRIOPilot adds an entry to the student's activity feed that says so, such as "Moved to Served automatically: 2 contacts this program year". Since one record is saved per type, checking two types for a single meeting counts as two contacts. A contact dated in an earlier program year never changes this year's status. To move the students to Reportable in the same save, see Mark Students Reportable as You Save. See Understand Student Statuses.

Fix a Mistake

Logged the wrong type, picked the wrong modality, or typed the wrong date? Open the student's profile, find the contact in the Activity Feed, and click the small pencil at the right edge of its header. A dialog lets you change the type, modality, date, and notes, and mention a colleague in the notes. A new date follows the same rule as Date of Contact: not in the future, and January 1, 2001 or later. TRIOPilot checks the date only when you change it, so you can always fix the notes of an older record. The notes follow the same 10,000 character limit, checked only when you change them. Then choose Save Changes and the entry updates in place, marked (edited). Only people you add to the notes are notified. Every edit is kept in the audit log with who changed what.

When several types were logged together, the feed shows them as one entry with the note printed once. The pencil at the right edge of that entry edits what they share (the note, modality and date) for all of the records in one save, so the entry stays together. A change to the date there is saved for every record. To change one record's type, open the line under the entry that names how many records it holds, such as Show all 3 contacts individually, and use that record's own pencil.

Three rules to know. The date still drives the program year: moving a contact across the start of a program year moves it into the other year's totals, and a date moved into the current year can complete the two-contact rule that moves a student to Served. A date moved out of the current year can move the student back from Served, under the same rule as deleting a contact (see the next section). The hint under Date states this rule before you save. After you save, the edit window names anyone it moved back and stays open until you choose Done. For EOC and Talent Search, a date change that makes a contact the student's first contact in the year, or stops it being the first, also moves an Age at First Service that TRIOPilot calculates (see How Age at First Service Is Calculated). And permissions apply: by default advisors can fix their own contacts and admins can fix anyone's. Your admin can change that on the Team tab under Settings, where Edit Own Contacts and Edit Any Contact are separate rows. Contacts imported from a previous system have no owner, so fixing one of those needs Edit Any Contact. To remove a contact that should not exist at all, see the next section.

Delete a Contact

Logged a contact for the wrong student, or logged it twice? Open the student's profile, find the contact in the Activity Feed, and click the small trash can at the right edge of its header, beside the pencil. The dialog names the student, the date and the type. Type DELETE to confirm, then choose Delete Contact. When several types were logged together, the feed shows them as one entry and they are deleted together: the dialog says how many records it removes.

The people who can fix a contact can delete it: by default advisors can delete their own contacts and admins can delete anyone's, following the Edit Own Contacts and Edit Any Contact rows on the Team tab under Settings. A contact an event logged is not deleted on its own, because the event keeps count of its attendees: an admin chooses Remove from Event on that entry, or removes the attendee or deletes the event on the event's page (see Record an Event).

Deleting a contact, or moving its date out of the current program year, can move a student back from Served: when the contacts left in the current program year are fewer than 2 and no one set them to Served by hand, they go back to the status they had before. Reportable, and any status a person chose, never change. The feed says so, such as "Moved back to Active automatically: a contact was deleted, 1 contact left this program year" (or "a contact moved to another program year"). See Understand Student Statuses.

For EOC and Talent Search, deleting the student's first contact in a program year also moves an Age at First Service that TRIOPilot calculates (see How Age at First Service Is Calculated).

A deleted contact leaves the student's activity feed and your program's counts, and the audit log records who deleted it, as Deleted Contact. A file that was attached to it stays on the student's Documents tab. If a contact was deleted by mistake, choose Share Feedback, pick Report an Issue, and say when it was deleted: TRIOPilot support can restore it. A student the deletion moved back from Served returns to Served when the restored contact gives them two or more contacts in that program year again. In an earlier program year, a status someone changed after the deletion stays as it is.

What the Bottom of the Feed Shows

Every feed ends with the student's starting entry: the day they submitted their application, the day staff added them with Add New Student (the entry names who added them), or, for a record that came in without an application, the program year they enrolled. When the application PDF is on file, the starting entry lists it under Attachments: select its name to open it, as you would a contact attachment. A record brought in from another system has no application PDF, so its entry has no attachment. When you are viewing a later year for a Continuing student, the feed instead ends with a Continuing from PY xx-xx entry dated the day they were added to the year you are viewing, then a dotted stretch labeled with what the earlier years hold (for example "2 prior program years, 14 contacts"), then the starting entry. Switch the program year at the top of the feed to read those earlier years.

Group Sessions

Do not log a workshop one student at a time. Record an event instead: one event records who attended and logs a contact for every attendee, using the event's types, modality, date and notes. See Record an Event.