Update a Student's Record

You edit a student on their profile: hover over a field (on a phone or tablet the pencils always show), click the pencil and change the value. This article covers how the profile is laid out, how editing works and which program year your edit is saved to.

Find Your Way Around

The profile has three parts:

• The header shows the student's name with their essentials on one line: participant ID, email, and phone. Under that is a row of chips: their program year, the year they entered, their assigned advisor, and how many documents are on file. Anything that needs your attention, like a possible duplicate or a missing APR item, appears in that same row. On the right are the Log Contact button and, under it, the status stepper. Next to Log Contact, the ... (More Actions) menu holds Add to the current year when the student has no record in it, which enrolls them so they appear in the current year's list, and Export Student Record for people who may export a student's record (see Respond to a Student's Request to See Their Record).
• The reference cards on the left hold the information that stays with the student across years: contact information, demographics, eligibility. Tags is pinned above them. The rarely used groups start collapsed to a single header line: click a header to open or close it, and the profile remembers your choice on that computer.
• The tabs hold the day-to-day work. Activity Feed opens first and shows the feed. The PY Details tab, named for the selected program year (for example "PY 25-26 Details"), holds that year's fields. Documents holds the student's files, and the document-count chip in the header jumps straight there. Programs with scheduling turned on also get an Appointments tab, and when texting is on, advisors and admins get a Text Messages tab with the student's recent conversation and a composer right there. A count on a tab tells you there is something inside, and a text-message notification opens the profile on the Text Messages tab. On a phone, the tabs sit in one row: swipe it sideways to see the rest.

The Program Year picker sits to the right of the tabs. In a window too narrow for both on one row, it moves under the tabs and stays at the right. It controls which year the Details tab and the activity feed show, and the Details tab renames itself to match. It lists the years the student has a record in, plus the current year. To search every year at once, use All Years on the Students list. The profile opens on the most recent year the student has a record in, so a student not yet in the current year opens on their latest record instead of an empty year. Pick the current year from the picker, or use Add to the current year, when you mean to work in it. If you pick a year the student has no record in and save a field for that year, TRIOPilot creates the student's record for that year: status Active, Age at First Service calculated where your program reports it, and the student marked Continuing when they have a record in an earlier year. An upload tagged to an outcome, on the Documents tab or as a contact attachment, always writes the current program year, so it creates the current year's record this way when the student has none, whichever year the picker shows. Add to creates the current year the same way, except in Upward Bound, UBMS, SSS, McNair and VUB programs for a student who was Reportable last year: it carries last year's record into the year, as a rollover does, and a student carried as a prior-year participant starts Reportable. The Activity Feed entry for that change names the Age at First Service and the Continuing mark it set.

Use the Profile on a Phone

On a phone the profile is one column, in the order you work:

1. The student's name, then the participant ID, the email and the phone number. Tapping the email opens your mail app. Tapping the phone number opens Text Messages when your program texts and your role can send texts; otherwise the number is plain text.
2. The chips, then Log Contact and Text side by side (Text appears when the profile has a Text Messages tab) with the ... menu when it has an action for you, then the status steps for the program year.
3. The tabs, with Activity Feed first, then the Program Year row, the comment box and the feed. The feed ends with a "Beginning of activity" line for the year you are viewing. The document count is on the Documents tab.
4. The reference cards, under Student Record. Every card starts collapsed except Contact Information, and the profile remembers which cards you open on that phone. In an open card, the fields with no value yet are hidden: choose Show Empty Fields to see and fill them, and Hide Empty Fields to hide them again. Tags is its own card above the others.
5. For admins, Delete at the very end of the record.

Edit a Field on the Profile

1. Open the student's profile from the Students page.
2. Find the field: details that stay with the student live in the reference cards on the left, and year-scoped details live on the PY Details tab.
3. Hover over the field you want to change and click the pencil icon that appears. On a phone or tablet the pencil is always showing, so tap it.
4. Enter or pick the new value.
5. Click the green check mark to save, or the X to cancel. When you are typing in a field, Enter saves and Escape cancels. In a Long Text field, Enter starts a new line, so save with the check mark.

On a phone, each field's label sits above its value, and the pencil is at the right of the value.

The change saves immediately. If TRIOPilot cannot use the value you typed, a message appears under the field, the field stays open with what you typed, and nothing is saved until you correct it. If a save fails, for example because the connection dropped, a message appears under the field in the same way and the field stays open with what you typed: click the check mark to try again, or the X to keep the stored value.

Some fields work differently:

• Address is edited as one piece, and it saves with Save and Cancel buttons instead of the check mark. Click the pencil and start typing: matching addresses appear, and picking one fills in the street, city, state, and ZIP for you.
• High School Attended suggests schools from your program's high school list as you type. Admins manage that list on the Participants tab in Settings. See Find Your Way Around Program Settings.
• Target School at Entry and Target School answer two different questions. Target School at Entry is where the participant went to school when they first entered the project, recorded once. Target School is where they go to school in the program year you are viewing, recorded each year. The profile shows no explanation under either field; they are explained here.
• Target School at Entry, on Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science programs, is in the Eligibility & Program card. It is your APR record file's field #23: the target school the participant attended when they entered the project (for a rising ninth grader, the school they attend as a ninth grader). Pick a school from your program's list. Choose Not a target school when the school they attended at entry is not one of your target schools, Home school for a participant schooled at home, or Unknown. It is recorded once and does not change from year to year. A number recorded earlier that is not on your list shows as (not on your list) and stays as it is until you change it. On a phone, an empty Target School at Entry is one of the fields Show Empty Fields reveals.
• Target School, on EOC, Talent Search, Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science programs, is in the Status & Education card for the program year. Pick the target school the participant attended this program year from your program's list. Choose Did not attend a target school if they attended no school on your list. If they changed schools, choose the one they attended when they were first served this year. On an EOC program it appears once your admin adds a target school, and only for participants with a high school status at first service, unless an answer is already recorded. A record whose answer reads Attended a target school (school not recorded) came from an earlier field: pick the school to replace it. Admins add schools in Settings > Reporting; see Find Your Way Around Program Settings.
• Institution Name, on EOC programs, suggests colleges from a national list, and it appears once Enrolled in Postsecondary is set to Yes. When TRIOPilot recognizes the college it fills in Institution Type for you and relabels that field Institution Type (auto).
• First Name and Last Name cannot be left empty, and each needs at least one letter from A to Z (accented letters such as é count). A name written only in another alphabet is refused: enter the spelling that uses the letters A to Z. Federal reports and the Clearinghouse file carry names in those letters only, and the Department matches records by name.
• Email takes a full address, such as name@stonefield.edu. An address with no dot after the @, or with a space in it, is refused, because TRIOPilot cannot deliver mail to it. You can still clear the field.
• Phone takes a 10-digit US number, with or without a 1 in front. TRIOPilot saves it as (305) 555-1234. A number with a missing digit or an extension is refused, because a text to it cannot be sent.
• Dates take a year from 1900 to 2200. Enter all four digits of the year: a two-digit year, such as 24, is refused instead of being saved as the year 0024. A date that does not exist, such as 09/31 or 02/30, or one not finished, is refused too, with the box outlined in red, so the date already saved stays as it was. Correct the day, then save.
• Long Text fields (a field your admin made with the Long Text type) open in a box with several lines, and keep the line breaks you type.
• Fields your APR record file writes in a fixed format, on Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, SSS, McNair and VUB programs, refuse a value the file would leave blank:
• PSE School Code (First Institution Attended) (Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science field #55, VUB field #39): 6 digits, or B, E or G followed by 5 digits, the Federal School Code. TRIOPilot saves the letter as a capital.
• Graduate Institution First Attended (IPEDS) and Doctorate Institution (IPEDS) (McNair fields #37 and #46): the 6-digit IPEDS ID.
• High School Cumulative GPA (Unweighted) (Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science field #33): a number from 0.001 to 4.000, or one of the form's codes 8.888, 9.999 or 0.000.
• Cumulative GPA at Bachelor's Degree (McNair field #31): a number from 0.001 to 5.000, or 9.999 or 0.000.
• Cumulative GPA (SSS field #25): a number from 0.000 to 5.000, or one of the form's codes 9.999 or 7.777.
• Amount of Financial Aid Received and Amount of SSS Grant Aid Awarded (SSS fields #35 and #36): whole dollars from 0 to 99999, with no commas or cents.
• Amount of SSS Grant Aid Awarded (SSS field #36) in PY 24-25: no more than $7,395, the maximum Pell Grant award that year's federal form gives. An amount from $1 to $739, or above $6,895 (the amount the instructions' definitions give), saves with a note under the field; 0 means no award. For a later year, whose form is not published yet, a note under the field names an amount outside those bounds and nothing is refused. See Run Your APR.
• Any other number field your record file reports, such as a weighted GPA: digits and a decimal point only, for example 3.25.
• High School Cumulative GPA (Weighted) (Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science field #32) has no upper limit on the federal form, so a value such as 35 still saves. A value of 8 or more, other than the form's 8.888 and 9.999, does not count toward the GPA objective, so a note under the field says it looks mistyped, and the validation report names it. Enter the GPA on a four-point scale, such as 3.5.
• A number typed with no digit before the decimal point, such as .5, is saved as 0.5.
• Middle Initial, next to First Name, takes one letter, A to Z. TRIOPilot saves it as a capital letter and drops a period after it, so j. saves as J. Anything else, such as two letters or a number, is refused right away: a message appears under the field and the save does not go through. Every APR record file takes one capital letter or a blank here.
• Date of First Project Service, on Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, SSS, McNair and VUB programs, is the date the participant first received a service from your project. Use the original date even if they left and came back, and not the date they were accepted unless it is the same day. It carries over from year to year. While it is blank, the field shows the date of the student's earliest logged contact with from the earliest contact after it: that is the date your APR record file uses until you record one. Nothing is saved until you enter a date.
• Date of Birth refuses a date in the future, or a date that gives an age under 5 or over 130, right away: a message appears under the field and the save does not go through. It also refuses a date after the student's first service, or one that gives an age under 5 on it. The first service here is the student's earliest logged contact, or a recorded Date of First Project Service, in any year. Correct the date and try again. A date already saved stops nothing: you can still change the student's other fields.
• Dates that record something that has happened, on Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, SSS, McNair and VUB programs, cannot be after today on your program's clock. These are the dates your APR record file reports, such as a first or last service, a graduation, an enrollment or a degree. The same goes for Date Postsecondary Credential Earned on Talent Search. A date your program added for itself can be ahead. Date of First Project Service also cannot be before the date of birth.
• Dates your APR record file can also answer with a code, on Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math-Science, SSS, McNair and VUB programs, offer a choice next to the date box. Pick Date and enter the date, or pick one of the federal answers, for example No bachelor's degree earned yet (99/99/9999) or Unknown (00/00/0000) for McNair's Date of Bachelor's Degree, or Not applicable, still participating in project (88/88/8888) for SSS's Date of Last Project Service. The profile shows the answer with its code, and your record file reports the code as it is. Each field offers only the codes its own federal field takes.
• Age at First Service, on EOC and Talent Search programs, has a note under it that says where the age came from. Calculated from the date of birth means TRIOPilot keeps it matched to the first contact in the year and the date of birth. If you type an age, TRIOPilot keeps yours. A typed age is a whole number from 5 to 130; anything else is refused. An age whose note says TRIOPilot does not keep this age current stays as it is until you choose Calculate From Date of Birth. See How Age at First Service Is Calculated.

Change Status From the Stepper

At the top right of the profile, under the Log Contact button, is a row of steps: Pending, Active, Served, Reportable. Click a step to move the student there. On a phone, the steps are one row of four circles under Status for and the year: a circle with a check mark is a step the student has reached, the ringed circle is the current status, and you tap a circle to move the student there. The stepper updates when you click and shows a small spinner while the change saves; the steps stay locked until the save finishes, so clicking twice cannot record the change twice. Two rules apply:

• The stepper always writes the student's latest program year (normally the current one), no matter which year the Program Year picker beside the tabs is showing.
• You cannot set Active until an advisor is assigned. If nobody is assigned yet, advisors and admins get an Assign to Me button under the stepper that assigns the student to themselves. To assign someone else, use the pencil on the Assigned Advisor field in the reference cards. To remove the advisor, choose Unassigned there: the current program year's reports then list the student with no advisor, and earlier years' reports keep the advisor the student had in that year. A student may also arrive already assigned: if your application form asks applicants to choose an advisor (an admin links that question's options to staff in the Application Builder, see Build Your Application Form), their choice is applied when the application is submitted and shows on the profile's activity feed.

A student marked Inactive or Rejected is off the stepper. The steps turn gray and stop responding, because neither status is a point on that path. Choose Return to the Flow underneath, then click the step you want. For what each status means, see Understand Student Statuses.

Know Which Program Year You Are Editing

A student's record has two kinds of fields:

• Persistent fields stay with the student across years: name, contact info, address, demographics. They live in the reference cards on the left, and an edit applies everywhere.
• Program-year fields are tracked separately for each year: status, outcomes, and any fields your admin scoped per year. They live in the cards on the PY Details tab.

The Program Year picker to the right of the tabs controls which year you are viewing, and edits to program-year fields land in the year shown. Admins decide which fields fall on each side in Customize Student Profiles.

"My edit disappeared." If you changed a field on the Details tab while the picker showed a past year, the edit saved to that year, and its entry is in that year's Activity Feed. Switch the picker to that year to find it. Before updating the current year, check that the picker shows the current year.

The Activity Feed

The feed fills the Activity Feed tab and shows contacts, profile edits, comments and, when your program uses scheduling, appointments for the selected program year, newest first. A field change becomes a feed entry showing who changed it, when, and the old and new values. Each field appears by name rather than as a database code, including your program's own fields, and a change to the assigned advisor shows the person's name. An edit to a program-year field is listed in the feed of the year you changed, dated the day you made it, so a correction to a past year appears when you view that year. An edit to a persistent field, such as an address or a phone number, belongs to no single year and is listed under the current program year.

Admins can see the full trail across all students in See Who Changed What.

Comments vs Contacts

The box at the top of the Activity Feed tab adds a comment: a quick note for your teammates, like "left a voicemail" or "prefers texts after 3pm". Type the note and choose Add Comment. A comment can have up to 10,000 characters. Over that, the box says how many you have, keeps your text and leaves the button off until you shorten it. To make sure a colleague sees it, type @ and pick them from the list; they get a notification and, unless the mention email is turned off, an email. See Mention a Colleague.

The comment is saved under your name and in the current program year on your program's calendar. The student's assigned advisor gets a notification about a new comment, unless they wrote it or you mentioned them in it (then they get the mention instead). The pencil and trash icons on a comment let its author, or an admin, edit or delete it; if the change cannot be saved, you see an error and nothing changes.

If your program has the Student Portal turned on, a new comment starts hidden from the student. To let the student read it in their portal, choose the eye icon on the comment (pointing at it shows Hidden from student. Click to show). Choose it again to hide the comment. Only staff whose role can edit students see the eye icon, and it does not appear while the portal is off, because then no student can see a comment.

Comments are just notes. They never change a student's status and never count toward your APR numbers. A student becomes Served through logged contacts, not comments, so when you helped the student, log a contact instead.

Good to Know

• Observers and guests can read but not edit. They see the full profile with no pencils. An admin can also turn editing off for advisors and assistants (Edit Students on the Team tab). See Add a User or Advisor.
• Every change is on the record. Successful edits land in the student's edit history and stay with the record for compliance, even if your admin has hidden edits from the feed display.
• Talent Search random sample. For Talent Search, admins can also set the random-sample value (In the Random Sample (Postsecondary Attainment), on the Program Outcomes panel) for many enrollees at once from the APR report. See Run Your APR.
• Only admins can delete a student. The Delete button is at the bottom of the record, and other roles never see it. If a student is removed by mistake, contact TRIOPilot support at support@triopilot.com to restore the record. A record of a program other than the one you are viewing is never deleted from here: you see a message, and nothing changes. For Talent Search, a deleted participant stays on any enrollee list recorded as filed and counts on Objective E line E7 until the record is restored.

Related: Find and Filter Students and Review Possible Duplicates.