Set up your program

You made it through the setup wizard. Good news: TRIOPilot already built most of your program for you. Here's what's waiting, and a short checklist for your first week.

What Onboarding Already Created

You didn't start from a blank slate. When your program was set up, TRIOPilot created:

• A complete application form. The Application Builder comes pre-loaded with a full intake form for your TRIO program type: contact information, demographics, eligibility questions, an education level question whose answers are recorded as your program's own federal reporting categories, a records-release paragraph, and a signature. Every question that collects an answer is already mapped to the matching student profile field, so submissions flow straight into your APR data. File upload questions work differently: whatever the applicant attaches goes to that student's Documents rather than to a profile field. The form is translated into Spanish and Haitian Creole at setup, so applicants can switch languages from day one.
• Your contact types. The interaction types you listed in the wizard (FAFSA Guidance, Academic Advising, and so on) are ready in Settings, on the Participants tab, under Contact Types and Modalities. That wizard step was optional, so if you skipped it, add your types there now. Either way you also get four standard modalities: In-person (office), In-person (field), Online, and Phone.
• Your team. Everyone you added during setup received an email invitation and appears on the Users page. Anyone who hasn't signed in yet carries a Pending badge, with a Resend invite button beside it.
• Income eligibility defaults. Your program starts with a standard 150% of poverty income table, so the application's income question works immediately.

Your First-Week Checklist

Work through these in order. None of them take long.

1. Review your application form. Open the Application Builder and click Preview, which opens the form in a new tab so you can read it the way an applicant will. Reword questions, change what's required, or add your own, then click Save and Publish to put your edits live. See Build your application form.
2. Check your income thresholds. In Settings, on the Reporting tab, find the Low-Income Eligibility Thresholds card, confirm the numbers match the current federal guidelines, and click Save Thresholds. See Find your way around Program Settings for everything else on that page.
3. Add the rest of your team. Invite any advisors or staff you skipped during setup with the Invite user button on the Users page. See Add a user or advisor.
4. Share your apply link. Your live application URL sits at the top of the Application Builder, with Copy and Open buttons. For flyers and events, use the Application QR Code card just below it on the same page: Copy the link, Download PNG, or Print a ready-to-post sheet. Curious what applicants see? Read What applicants see.
5. Log your first contact. Once your first student is in, record an interaction and watch it land on the activity feed. See Log a contact.

Good to Know

• Everything is editable later. Questions, contact types, thresholds, your logo and colors: nothing the wizard set is locked in.
• Applicants never sign in. Your application is public. People fill it out without an account, and every submission lands on your dashboard as a Pending student for staff to review.
• Paper applications have a home too. Advisors and admins can key one in with the Add New Student button on the Students page, and the result is treated exactly like an online submission. See Add a student by hand.
• Some statuses move on their own. Two logged contacts in the same program year promote a student from Pending to Served, so you don't have to change statuses by hand. See Understand student statuses.