What you need to know to use Hyperion for the PIT count. If you run into unfamiliar terminology, the Key Concepts page is a good reference.
1. Create your account
Go to admin.pointtimecount.com and click Create Account. No payment is needed — every account starts in trial mode, which works just like a fully activated account. You won’t lose any work if you decide to upgrade later.
2. Set up your organization
Go to the Organization tab. Select your CoC name and set your CoC boundary, which draws it on the map for your volunteers.
You can also import hot spots to direct your volunteers to likely locations.
3. Review your questions
Go to the Questions tab. Hyperion pre-loads question sets for common scenarios: the unsheltered PIT count interview, the sheltered PIT count interview, an observation form (a shorter set of questions for when a volunteer spots someone they believe is experiencing homelessness), and a volunteer registration form.
You can customize these. You can also add new questions to collect additional information. See How to Use the New Survey Form Editor for a walkthrough of the editor.
Changes save automatically. Use “Test Survey” to preview exactly what your volunteers will see.
Hyperion has first-class support for the sheltered count as well.
4. Create a survey
Go to the Home tab and click Create Survey. Give it a name, and Hyperion will generate a survey code. If you’re doing observation surveys or volunteer registration, select those forms here too. For sophisticated plans, you can also set up teams to divide your CoC geography.
Every survey starts in training mode. Volunteers can practice filling out surveys, and training submissions are clearly separated from live data in your analytics.
5. Share the survey with volunteers
Go to the Settings tab for your survey. You’ll find two things to share with your volunteers: the web address (pitcounter.com) and the survey code. Volunteers go to pitcounter.com, enter the code, and provide their name and phone number.
6. Volunteers fill out surveys
Volunteers tap Start Survey, share their location (prompted each time for accuracy), and work through the questions with the person they’re interviewing. When they’re done, the survey uploads automatically.
Hyperion works offline, so volunteers can keep going without signal.
7. Switch to live mode
After you’ve had your volunteers fill out some training surveys, go to Settings and change the survey mode from Training to Live. That’s it — all new submissions will count toward your analytics and reports.
8. Monitoring the PIT
You can see submissions arrive in real time on the map. If something doesn’t look right you can reach out to the volunteer who submitted it. You can also see where volunteers are going with volunteer monitoring and share a public dashboard with your community.
9. Finishing up
Hyperion has an automatic duplicate finder and assisted data cleanup. You can also adjust how submissions are categorized if you have additional information.
10. Data export
If you want, you can export the raw data collected during the PIT.
11. Reporting
Finally, you can see the results for your PIT in the software — no number crunching needed. Hyperion calculates your HUD breakdown automatically and generates downloadable PDF reports.
Need help?
Email zak@hyperiondata.io — happy to hop on a call.