Admin Platform Guide & Frequently Asked Questions

What is the admin dashboard for?

It’s where you build and configure everything your field team uses, then monitor a count as it happens. From here you design surveys, schedule the count, manage your team and locations, publish training resources, send notifications, and watch results arrive live.

How is the dashboard organized?

The left sidebar groups pages into sections. From top to bottom you’ll see:

• Overview (the home page)
• Build → Surveys, Question Bank, Waivers, Resources
• Operations → Counts, Locations, Sheltered
• People → Users, Alerts
• Settings and Sign out (pinned at the bottom)

Near the top of the sidebar is a “Current CoC” switcher. If you administer more than one CoC, use it to choose which one you’re working in; it’s disabled when you only have one.

Is there a setup checklist? 

Yes. A brand-new CoC with no counts yet shows a Getting Started checklist front and center on the Overview page. It has five steps that tick themselves off automatically as you complete them: create a survey, schedule a count, bind a survey to your count, add locations, and invite your team. Each step has an “Open” link that takes you straight to the right page. Once you’ve created your first count, the checklist tucks itself away behind a “Getting started” toggle button.

Does the dashboard update live? 

Only the Live View page updates in real time as surveys sync in. Every other page loads its data when you open it and refreshes after you save a change.

What’s on the Overview page? 

It’s your landing page and combines a snapshot of your CoC with live operations.

At the top is a header card showing your CoC’s code, name, and status. Below that are three summary cards — Active users, Total Count (surveys bound across active counts), and Resources — followed by the full Live View embedded right on the page so you can monitor activity without leaving home.

What does Live View do? 

It’s your real-time operations center during a count. A live connection to the database updates every number, chart, and map marker the moment a volunteer’s survey syncs.

What can I see and control here?

• Count selector — defaults to the count happening right now; otherwise your default count, or the most recent one.
• Survey-kind filters — All / Interviews / Observations / Sheltered.
• Time filters — Entire count / Last 24h / Last hour.
• KPI cards — people counted, households, interviews, observations, sheltered, volunteers, locations, and activity in the past hour.
• Activity map — an OpenStreetMap view with circle markers that grow with the count. Toggle between By location and By zip code, and include or exclude Sheltered programs. Blue markers are street locations; teal markers are sheltered programs pinned at their address (falling back to the zip area if needed).
• People by zip code table — people, sheltered, locations, and share percentage per zip.
• Submissions · last 24 hours — an hourly bar chart.
• Demographics — switch between Age, Gender, Race, and Veteran status breakdowns.
• Recent activity — a privacy-safe feed of the latest submissions (survey type, place, and time — no personal details).

Who can see Live View? 

CoC admins and platform admins only.

What are surveys here? 

Surveys are the questionnaires your volunteers fill out. The Surveys page lists your templates and is the gateway to the Survey Builder. There are four kinds: Interview, Observation, Sheltered, and Household Member.

How do I create a survey quickly? 

Use Seed New Survey to generate a pre-built template for any kind in one click:

• Interview — populated with default HUD questions (pulled from your Question Bank; seed the Question Bank defaults first if it’s empty).
• Observation — a self-contained standard unsheltered observation form.
• Sheltered — for HMIS non-participating ES/TH/Safe Haven programs; attach it to a program on the Sheltered page.
• Household Member — for non-heads of household; adult-only questions are hidden for minors.

You can also start from scratch with New Survey.

How do I build or edit a survey? 

Click a survey to open the Survey Builder.

At the top you set the survey name, kind, and an “Active (selectable for Counts)” checkbox. Below that you build the survey page by page:

• Add Page to create sections; each page has an editable title.
• Add from Bank to insert a reusable question from your Question Bank (searchable by friendly name or HUD element).
• Add Text to insert text blocks in three styles: Surveyor Read Text (green — read aloud to the client), Info Text (neutral), and Error Text (red — warnings or instructions).
• Reorder questions up/down, delete them, or expand a question to edit its prompt, guidance text, and Required toggle. (Answer options for bank questions are edited in the Question Bank, not here.)

Can I show or hide questions based on earlier answers? 

Yes — that’s the conditional (“skip”) logic. Both individual questions and whole pages can be set to “Show only if…”. You choose a target question, an operator, and a value. Most questions support equals / not equals / contains / does not contain. Date-of-birth questions get age-aware operators — greater than, less than, ≥, ≤, and between (a min and max age) — so you can, for example, only show adult-only questions to people 18 and over.

What happens when I archive a survey? 

Archiving sets it inactive so it stops appearing in count and program dropdowns, but it isn’t deleted and existing bindings keep working. Use the “Show archived” checkbox to see and restore archived surveys.

What is the Question Bank? 

A reusable library of questions — HUD-standard elements plus your own custom questions — that feed the Survey Builder. Build a question once and reuse it across surveys.

How do I populate it?

Use New Question to add your own. New CoCs get a default set of HUD questions based on the current data standards. Click Seed Default Questions to add all the standard HUD questions at once. Existing questions are never overwritten, and you’re told how many were added. This is useful when new elements are added or changed.

What question types are available? 

Info Text, Surveyor Read Text, Error Text, Short Text, Number, Date Picker, Approximate Date, Date of Birth (with Age), Social Security Number, Single Select, Multi Select, and Paragraph (multi-line, with voice dictation on mobile).

How do answer options work? 

For Single/Multi Select questions, add options by typing a label and pressing Enter. For Multi Select you can mark an option Exclusive so picking it (e.g. “None of the above”) clears the others.

Can I delete a question? 

You can delete your own custom questions, but HUD default questions cannot be deleted. Filter tabs let you view All, Defaults, or Custom questions.

What are waivers for? 

Waivers are the liability/consent forms surveyors sign in the app. The Waivers page has two tabs: Completed Waivers (signed records) and Waiver Templates (the forms you write).

How do I write a waiver? 

Under Waiver Templates, use New Template or Edit. You set a Title, the Body Content (a rich-text editor with headings, bold, italic, links, and lists), and a Consent Statement (the checkbox text shown in the app). Both support a {NAME} placeholder that auto-fills with the signer’s name. You can also mark it Active and, for new templates, choose to deactivate previous active waivers.

How do I make everyone re-sign a waiver? 

Creating a new active template forces all surveyors to re-sign before they can continue in the app. Editing an existing template only affects new enrollments — so if you need current users to re-sign, create a new template rather than editing the old one. Templates aren’t versioned; each stands alone.

Can I export signed waivers? 

Yes. The Completed Waivers tab lists every signature (signee, email, waiver name, date signed in your CoC’s timezone) and lets you Export PDF of any signed record, which includes the rendered text, the signature, device info, the timestamp, and a verification hash. You can also preview and download a PDF of any template.

What are resources? 

Training and reference materials that appear in the field app for your members — orientation guides, FAQs, links, videos, and documents.

What types of resources can I add?

• Content — a rich-text article (best for reading on a phone), with inline protected images.
• External Link — a URL.
• YouTube Video — paste any YouTube link; the video and thumbnail are detected automatically.
• File — upload a PDF or document available only to signed-in members.

How do I control ordering and visibility? 

Each resource has a Status (Draft / Published / Archived), a Featured toggle, and a numeric Sort Order. Featured items appear first, then by sort order, then by title. Only published resources show in the app. You can upload a thumbnail and reuse images from a per-CoC image library, and preview any resource as members will see it.

Heads-up on deleting: Deleting a resource removes its record, but any files you uploaded to storage remain unless removed separately.

What is a “count”? 

A count is a PIT event: a date window plus the surveys and waiver the field app should use during it. Setting up a count is what connects everything you’ve built to the field.

How do I schedule a count? 

Use New Count. The form pre-fills smart defaults you can adjust:

• Count Name — suggested automatically (e.g. “Your CoC’s 2026 PIT Count”).
• PIT Night — defaults to the HUD-standard last Wednesday of January; changing it recomputes the window.
• Start/End Date Window — defaults to the night after PIT night through about a week later. All times are entered and shown in your CoC’s configured timezone.
• Interview Survey (required) and Observation Survey (optional). When an observation survey is set, an “Enable observation counting” toggle lets you hide it in the app without unbinding it.
• Household Member Survey (optional) — used when adding non-head household members so minors aren’t asked adult-only questions.
• Waiver Profile (required).
• Operational Notes, a review window toggle (lets surveyors review their synced submissions for a set number of days), an Active toggle, and a Set as Default Count toggle.
• Review Window is the number of days after a surveyor syncs their submissions that they can still review and modify their own synced responses in the app for the count, set per-count when you enable the “Allow end users to review synced submissions” toggle.

Can I delete a count? 

Counts can be edited but not deleted from this page. If a bound survey template no longer exists, editing the count will prompt you to re-select it so the app never points at a missing survey.

Who creates locations? 

Locations (canvassing spots) can be created two ways: by field users in the app (where they’re private to the person who made them), or by admins directly on this page using the + New Location button. This page lets you add locations, share them with members, and remove them.

What can I do here?

• New Location — add a location directly from the dashboard so you don’t have to wait for a field user to create it in the app. The form asks for a Name / address, City, and Zip code. On save the address is geocoded to pin the location on the Live View map, and City and Zip auto-fill from the address when you leave them blank. You can also check which assigned users should see it (only those members see it in their app). Click Create Location to finish.
• Assign — search your members and check who should see a location in their app. This is how you give a whole team access to the same spots.
• Delete — a soft delete that removes the location from everyone’s app. It’s blocked if any survey responses are attached to that location.
• Search — filter the list by name, city, or zip.

Important gotcha: Assigning a location hands it over to admin management — it clears the original creator, so afterward that field user can no longer edit or delete it from the app; only admins manage it. Editing a location’s actual address still happens in the app.

What is the Sheltered page for? 

Managing sheltered-count programs — HMIS non-participating Emergency Shelter (ES), Transitional Housing (TH), and Safe Haven (SH) programs that you count through Quick PIT. Victim Service Providers (VSPs) SHOULD NOT use the Quick PIT app at this time.  We are actively working on a solution for VSPs to submit their aggregate data.

How do I set one up? 

Use New Program. You enter the program name, type (ES/TH/SH), and address. On save the address is geocoded so the program pins precisely on the Live View map (if geocoding fails, it still saves and falls back to the zip area). You then bind a survey (a Sheltered template is preferred) and choose assigned users — only those members see the program in their app. There’s an Active toggle, and deleting a program keeps its submitted surveys but removes it from assigned users’ apps.

Accurate and useful reporting is just as important as the data collection process.  Using our reporting dashboard you can meet all of your compliance and custom reporting needs.

How do I create reports?

The Reports page generates HDX ready table shells and line level reports for reporting in other tools.

How do I manage my team? 

The Users page shows your member roster — name, organization, email, roles, enrolled date, and last seen — and lets you invite people and change roles.

How do I invite members?

 Click Invite Members. You can:

• Add individual emails and choose Member or CoC Admin for each.
• Import a .csv / .xls / .xlsx file to bulk-add emails. Imported emails are always invited as Members — CoC Admin invites must be sent individually by design.

Staged invites appear in a table before you send. Send Invites emails everyone; large lists are automatically sent in batches of 200. Resending is safe and never creates duplicates. A summary tells you how many were sent, were already members, were invalid, or failed to email. Invitees’ access applies automatically when they sign into the app with the invited email.

How do I change someone’s role? 

Use Promote to CoC Admin or Demote to Member in the roster. Role changes take effect at the person’s next sign-in (claim refresh can lag up to about an hour). You can’t change your own role, and platform admins can’t be edited by CoC admins.

What about pending invites?

 The Pending Invites table lets you see invite status and Resend or Revoke any outstanding invite.

What does the Alerts page do? 

It sends push notifications to all active members of your CoC. Each notification also lands in every member’s in-app inbox.

How do I send one? Fill in a Title and Message and choose a Type:

• Message — normal priority, for general updates and reminders.
• Alert — high priority with sound, for urgent, time-sensitive notices.

Then Send now or Schedule for a later time. Scheduled times snap to 15-minute increments (:00, :15, :30, :45), because the delivery system runs every quarter hour; the picker defaults to about an hour out and won’t accept past times.

Can I track delivery? 

Yes. The Notification History table shows each notification’s status, scheduled and sent times, how many members were reached, and who sent it. You can Cancel a notification that’s still scheduled. (Members who can’t be reached by push still get the in-app inbox copy.)

What’s on the Settings page? 

Two groups: personal account settings (always available) and tenant settings for your CoC (require a CoC to be selected).

Personal settings

• Appearance — Switch your theme. Select between: System, Light, or Dark.
• Account settings — link or unlink Google, Microsoft, and Apple sign-in (you can’t remove your only remaining method), and email yourself a password reset/set link.

CoC (tenant) settings

• Membership & Join Policy — choose how people join your CoC: Invite only, Auth code (a shared code you can enter and rotate), or Open (any signed-in user — hidden for real CoCs and reserved for demo tenants because it’s unsafe for real data). Auth codes are stored hashed; rotating a code doesn’t remove existing members.
• CoC Timezone — the timezone counts and waiver timestamps are saved and displayed in (default America/New_York).
• App Lock — require members to re-authenticate (biometrics/PIN on mobile, PIN on web) when reopening the field app, with a “re-lock after N minutes in background” timeout. Applies to all members on their next launch.