Set Up Your Program

The setup wizard builds most of your program. This article says what to have ready, lists what setup created, and gives you a checklist for your first week.

Before and During Setup

Setup takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Its first screen, Have These Ready, lists what the wizard asks for, so you can gather it before you start:

• Required for every program: your name, your program type, your program's name, the web address you want, and your time zone. EOC, Talent Search, Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science and Veterans Upward Bound also enter this year's reporting period dates from Block 6 of the Grant Award Notification; SSS and McNair may enter the first day of classes.
• Helpful, not required: your PR/Award Number, the project director's name, title, phone and email, your mailing address, your project period, the kinds of contacts your staff log, and the names and email addresses of staff to invite.
• By program type: EOC chooses its Objective D option and may enter its Number Funded to Serve; Talent Search enters its project period and its two postsecondary attainment choices; Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science choose when their project year starts and enter their Number Funded to Serve and annual grant amount.

If your setup link was made for one program type, the list shows only that type's items. Otherwise they appear under Depending on Your Program Type.

You can stop and come back. When you set up from a setup link or after paying at checkout, your answers are saved each time you select Continue. Open the same link later, on any device, and the first screen says Welcome Back. Select Continue Setup to open the first step that still needs an answer. If a save does not go through, the wizard says "Could not save your answers. They are still on this page." You can keep going; the next step tries again. Saved answers are kept until the link ends: they are deleted when your program is created or when the link expires. Answers saved after paying at checkout are deleted 90 days after the last save.

What Onboarding Already Created

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 each store one of your program's federal statuses (you can reword the answers, and the status each one stores is shown beside it in the builder), 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 at setup, so applicants can switch languages from day one; add or remove languages in the builder under Languages.
• 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 & 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 invited during setup receives an email about your new program that says how to sign in, and appears on the Users page. An address at a demo or test domain, such as example.com, gets its access but no email, because TRIOPilot never sends email to those domains. The last setup screen says how many people are on your invitation list. Anyone who hasn't signed in yet carries a Pending badge, with a Resend Invite button beside it. Setup checks each address before it creates your program, so you can fix a mistyped address on the spot. The last setup screen does not say whether each invitation went through, because that can depend on whether an address already has a TRIOPilot account, and the screen never reveals that. If an invitation needs attention, our team is alerted and contacts you to finish it. Only admins can open the Users page.
• Your program's address. The last setup screen shows your program's web address, such as stonefield.triopilot.com, as a link to its sign-in page. Bookmark it: you and your team sign in there.
• Your time zone. The setup wizard asked for your program's time zone. It decides when your program year turns over, which day TRIOPilot records for an application that arrives late at night, and the times your staff see. Review or change it in Settings, on the Program tab, under Time Zone. See Time Zone.
• Your project information. The setup wizard asked for your PR/Award Number, project director, address and project period, which fill in Section I of your APR. It checked the PR/Award Number against the format your federal APR form gives (Upward Bound, UBMS, VUB, McNair and SSS), that the Director Email is a complete address, and that the project period ends after it starts. Review or change them in Settings, on the Reporting tab, under Project Information. See Find Your Way Around Program Settings.
• Income eligibility defaults. Your program starts with a standard 150% of poverty income table, so the application's income question works immediately.
• Your reporting period. The setup wizard asked for the period your APR covers this year: for EOC and Talent Search, the budget period in Block 6 of your Grant Award Notification; for Upward Bound, UBMS and Veterans Upward Bound, the project year in Block 6; for SSS and McNair, the first day of classes, which you could leave blank. TRIOPilot counts every contact, application and status in the program year whose dates contain it, and a Talent Search grant cycle's years follow these dates. You can review or change them in Settings, on the Reporting tab, under Reporting Periods. See Run Your APR.
• EOC only: your Objective D option. The setup wizard asked which of the two federal options your grant application's postsecondary enrollment objective (Section IV.D) uses, and your APR reports use it from day one. If you were not sure, check your grant application or ask your program officer. Your grant keeps this choice for the rest of the grant cycle; if the wrong option was entered, correct it in Settings, on the Reporting tab, under PSE Enrollment Objective (Section IV.D) on the APR Report Configuration card. See Run Your APR.
• EOC only: your Number Funded to Serve, if you entered it. The setup wizard asks, optionally, for the number of participants your project was funded to serve, from your project's approved objectives. When you enter it, the APR report uses it for the 90% rule. It does not change your Annual Enrollment Goal, your own internal target (see step 5 of your first-week checklist). If you left it blank, enter it on the APR Report Configuration card (see your first-week checklist).
• Talent Search only: your Postsecondary Attainment choices. The setup wizard asked for your project period and the two Section IV.E choices (Option 1 or Option 2, and all enrollees or a random sample) and recorded them for your current grant cycle. You can review them in Settings, on the Reporting tab, under Postsecondary Attainment Choices (Section IV.E), and add the next cycle there when it starts.
• Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science only: your project start type. The setup wizard asked when your project year starts: a summer start (June or July), a fall start (September to November), or moving from a summer start to a fall start. Your Grant Award Notification shows your project year in Block 6. The federal APR instructions give some fields different choices for each kind of project, so TRIOPilot records yours. Setup checks that the dates you enter for your current project year match the start type you choose. You can change it in Settings, on the Reporting tab, under Project Start Type.
• Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science only: your grant figures. The setup wizard also asks your Number Funded to Serve and your annual grant amount (both required, from your Grant Award Notification), and, if you have them, the objective targets approved in your grant application and your state assessment cut scores for Reading/Language Arts and Math. The APR report uses them for the 90% rule, the GPA and Retention and Graduation objectives, the cost per participant, and proficiency from a raw score. Change any of them in Settings > Reporting.

Your First-Week Checklist

Work through these in order.

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. On the education question you can reword each answer, but the federal status it stores stays fixed. See Build Your Application Form.
2. Confirm your time zone. In Settings, on the Program tab, check that the Time Zone card shows your zone. If it does not, choose yours and select Save Time Zone. Do this before your first application arrives, because the zone decides which day it is dated. See Time Zone.
3. 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.
4. Enter your grant numbers. On the same tab, on the APR Report Configuration card, pick the current program year, enter your Number Funded to Serve and your Annual Performance Targets (%), the objective rates approved in your grant application, and choose Save APR Config. The APR report uses the funded number for the 90% rule. Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science entered their funded number at setup, and an EOC program may have; confirm it here. EOC programs also check the PSE Enrollment Objective (Section IV.D) option on this card: change it if it does not match the option your grant application's postsecondary enrollment objective uses. See Run Your APR.
5. Set your enrollment goal. The Annual Enrollment Progress card on the admin dashboard measures your reportable participants against your Annual Enrollment Goal. It starts at 1,000 for every new program. To set your own target, open Settings, the Reporting tab, the Annual Enrollment Goal card, and choose Save Enrollment Goal.
6. 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.
7. 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. To see the form as applicants do, read What Applicants See.
8. Log your first contact. Once your first student is in, record a contact and check that it appears on the student's activity feed. See Log a Contact.

Good to Know

• Most of it is editable later. You can change your application questions, contact types, income thresholds, logo, and colors at any time. Two setup choices are permanent: your program type and your web address (the subdomain you picked, such as stonefield.triopilot.com).
• 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.
• You can enter paper applications. Advisors, assistants and admins can key one in with Add New Student on the Students page, and TRIOPilot treats it like an online submission. See Add a Student by Hand.
• Some statuses change on their own. A second contact in the current program year moves a Pending or Active student to Served. See Understand Student Statuses.
• If your own invitation does not arrive. The last setup screen tells you to check your email and says that our team will contact you if an invitation needs attention. It reads the same whether or not your invitation went through, because the reason one fails can depend on whether an address already has a TRIOPilot account, and the screen never reveals that. When TRIOPilot cannot finish your invitation, our team is alerted and follows up with you. You can also write to support@triopilot.com and include your program address.
• If you leave yourself off the team list. When you remove your own address and invite someone else as the admin, the email about your new program goes to that person, not to you. The last setup screen asks you to have each admin you invited check their email, without naming them, and says that no email is coming to you. Ask that admin to invite you from the Users page.
• If you already have a TRIOPilot account. Setup adds your existing account to the new program with the role you chose for it there, such as admin. Your role in any other program you work in stays as it is. If setup cannot add your account to the program, our team is alerted so that we can help you get access. The last setup screen does not say that this happened.