Survey — A container for a specific data collection effort. You might create one for your annual PIT count, another for outreach, another for one-off data gathering. Each survey has its own code, settings, and data.
Survey Code — A short code that volunteers enter at pitcounter.com to connect to your specific survey.
Training Mode vs. Live Mode — Every survey starts in training mode. Training submissions are kept separate from live data so volunteers can practice without affecting your count. Switch to live mode when the real count begins. You can also mark it “Finished” when you’re done. If you’re using volunteer registration, then it will start in Volunteer Registration Mode.
Survey Status — Each submitted survey can be marked as live, training, invalid, or duplicate. You can change these after submission — for example, if a volunteer submitted after the count officially ended but the data is still valid, you can mark it live.
Question Sets — Pre-loaded groups of questions for different scenarios. Hyperion ships with sets for the unsheltered PIT count, sheltered PIT count, observation, and volunteer registration.
Observation Form — A shorter question set for when a volunteer sees someone they believe is experiencing homelessness but doesn’t conduct a full interview.
Volunteer Registration — An optional form that collects basic info about your volunteers (available on the sophisticated plan).
CoC Boundary — The geographic boundary of your Continuum of Care, displayed on the map for both admins and volunteers.
Teams — Geographic subdivisions of your CoC used to assign groups of volunteers to specific areas. You define a region (a polygon on the map) and each region becomes a team volunteers can join or be pre-assigned to (sophisticated plan).
PIT Lead — A user whose access is scoped to specific teams within a PIT count. They view data only for the teams they’ve been assigned to (sophisticated plan).
Hot Spots — Locations you flag in advance as likely places to find people experiencing homelessness. These appear on the volunteer map.
Shelters — If you’re doing a sheltered count, you can pre-load your shelters so volunteers can select from a list rather than typing them in.
Household — Survey responses are grouped by household. On the data tab you’ll see one row per household.
Filters — On the admin data screen, you can filter surveys by volunteer, shelter, county, city, zip code, or individual question responses. Hyperion automatically geocodes latitude/longitude into county, city, and zip.
HUD Exchange Format — Hyperion formats your data to match what HUD requires for import into the HDX (HUD Data Exchange).
Dashboard — An optional public-facing page showing a real-time breakdown of your count data. You can embed it on your website or share the link. Keep in mind it reflects whatever data exists at that moment, including any unresolved duplicates.