Release Notes WFM: Applicant Tracking System January 2021

What’s Changing?

Please select an item from the list below to be taken to that section of the release notes.

• Introducing the ability for a candidate to decline event(s) they cannot attend via the Candidate Portal
• Introducing the ability for hiring managers to reopen closed vacancies and publish new adverts to job boards
• Performance improvements within the Events area.
• Delivering integration between Fourth ATS and Fourth Analytics backend to enable automatic data extraction to feed Fourth Analytics dashboards

Release date: 19^th January 2021

Reason for the Change

• Delivering several new features and functionalities to Candidates and Hiring Managers alike
• Improvements to performance within the ATS
• Delivering integration between Fourth Analytics & GoodData Gateway

Customers Affected

All Fourth ATS customers.

Release Notes

New ‘Decline Events’ Functionality

Previously, candidates could not easily inform managers that they are unable to attend an event through the candidate portal. Candidates needed to either phone or email, or in some instances candidates would just not attend the event at all.

Additionally, managers could not easily reinvite candidates to alternative events using their admin ATS portal if a candidate could not make a specific date and time.

To create a more engaging and interactive recruitment experience for both candidates and managers alike, the new capability for declining events will enable candidates to quickly and easily inform hiring managers that they are unable to attend an event. In response, hiring managers will be notified and have the appropriate functionality to review declined events and subsequently send new invites out to candidates.

Overview of ‘Decline Events’ Capability

1. Candidates can use a button in the Candidate Portal to decline all the events they have been invited to.
2. Candidates can provide a reason for declining and suggest alternative dates and times in text to inform a manager.
3. Candidates will receive an email confirmation from the ATS to acknowledge events that have been declined, with the next steps
4. Candidates will subsequently be moved back to a place in the process where they can be reinvited by the hiring manager
5. The hiring manager will be notified of declined events via push and in-app notifications within their Fourth app
6. The hiring manager can follow the notifications onto the candidate’s application page where they can reinvite them to the event
7. The hiring manager can review events declined using the reasons provided by a candidate before sending an alternative set of invites
8. Hiring managers can identify and find candidates who have declined events easily across the ATS
9. Hiring managers also have a view of the full event history of a candidate’s application that can be easily accessed via their Application page
10. Candidates now see an ‘All Slots Booked’ message if events they have been invited to have been fully booked by other candidates so that they can contact the hiring manager 

Declining Events in the Candidate Portal

Candidates use a button to decline the events they have been invited to

When a candidate has been invited to an event, they receive an email with a link that directs them to their Applications page within the Candidate Portal with a list of events invites to select.

A candidate can:

• Select a slot and thereby confirm they can attend the event
• Decline one or more events at once by selecting DECLINE EVENT SLOT (will be pluralised if more than one event)

Fig.1 – Decline Event Slot button in Candidate Portal

Candidate adds a reason for declining the event

Selecting DECLINE EVENT SLOT will open a pop-up where the candidate can provide a reason to inform the hiring manager why they are unable to attend that event (max count of 500 characters allowed).

Fig.2 – Entering a Decline reason

Candidate receives a confirmation email after declining event

Once a candidate has successfully declined one or more slots and provided a declined reason, they receive a confirmation email containing the dates and times of the event slots that were declined, along with the next steps.

 

Fig.3 – Email confirmation to the Candidate

 

The e-mail content can be modified and updated by users with Head Office/ Adminintrator permissions within the ATS.

• Navigate to the ATS > Set up > E-mail Templates > select the candidate _event_decline email template > view and edit the content of this e-mail template - see Fig.4

Please note: The content of the email message can be modified but not the template name.

 

Fig.4 – Editing ‘Decline Events’ email template

Candidates are moved back to a place in the process where they can be reinvited by the hiring manager

Once a candidate has declined an event, they will be moved back to the last relevant process step where the hiring manager can reinvite them to the same event but with an alternative date and time (see Fig.5).

The candidate’s application will be updated to reflect the step they are currently on and any previous events they have already attended and will be displayed under the ‘Previous interview’ section (also see Fig.5).

Fig.5 – Candidate moved back to the previous step after declining an event

The hiring manager is notified when a candidate declines event(s)

Hiring managers are notified by the ATS in two different ways when a candidate declines events:

• Push notifications for declined events are delivered to the hiring manager’s mobile device (iOS and Android) via their Fourth app (or branded app)
• In-app notifications for declined events are also visible within Engage via the Notifications tab (see Fig.6)

Fig.6 – ‘Decline Event’ in-app notification

Both types of notifications are sent to the hiring manager who sent the invite.

Navigating to candidate’s application and reinviting the candidate to new events

Selecting a Declined Event push notification and/or in-app notification will take the user to the candidate’s Application page directly.

The declined event icon (see Fig.7) indicates that the candidate has been moved back to the previous relevant step, allowing the manager to reinvite them.

Fig.7 – ‘Decline Event’ icon in the candidate application page

Reviewing Declined Events and Reinviting Candidates

Hiring manager reinviting candidates to events

Hiring managers can reinvite a candidate to an event by selecting proceed with application on the candidate Application page and then invite to… – see Fig.8.

Fig.8 – Reinviting a candidate to the same event

Doing this will open the event invite pop-up which will contain additional information (see Fig.9):

• ‘last event(s) declined by candidate’ – a list of the last set of events declined by a candidate
• ‘reason for declining event(s)’ – the reason provided by a candidate at the time of declining the events

Fig.9 – Reviewing declined events before reinviting a candidate

There is also new functionality that improves the user experience when reinviting candidates to a new event:

• Any associated events with free slots that have been previously declined by the candidate will be automatically de-selected to prevent managers from accidentally reinviting candidates to events they can’t attend
• Functionality to invite a candidate to an event that they have declined is also present in case a candidate is available for that date/time slot again or a candidate has declined an event slot accidentally
• The declined event icon is now displayed in the ‘Associated Events with free Slots’ section against events that candidates have declined
• Any events with free slots that were not declined by a candidate will be automatically selected (as per current functionality) for managers to continue quickly inviting candidates

Hiring managers have the option to use the above information to invite a candidate to an existing event with free slots or to create a brand-new event using the familiar Event Creation user interface (see Fig.10).

Fig.10 – Hiring manager reinviting candidate via the event invite tool

Identifying candidates who have declined events

Declined events can be easily identified across the ATS through the new Declined Event icon (see Fig.11).

Fig.11 – ‘Declined Event’ icon

The Declined Event icon is displayed in several places within the platform:

• Vacancy Pages (see Figs 12, 13, 14)
• The Dashboard (see Figs 15&16)
• Individual candidate Application page (see Figs 18&19)

The Vacancy Pages

The Declined Event icon is shown throughout the section, ensuring these candidates are quickly found.

Fig.12 – Vacancy page – showing Declined Event icon

Fig.13 – Vacancy page – showing Declined Event icon on process step

Fig.14 – Vacancy page – showing Declined Event icon in candidate cards

The Dashboard

 

Fig.15 – Dashboard – showing Declined Event icon by process step

Fig.16 – Dashboard – Declined events by candidate within the process step

 A new filter has also been introduced within the dashboard pages to enable hiring managers to quickly get to candidates who require reinviting by selecting Last event declined within the Filter records by filter (see Fig.17).

Fig.17 – New filter to filter records by candidates that have declined events

Individual candidate pages

An icon is shown here to highlight that the candidate has recently declined an event.

Fig.18 – Candidate page – Declined event icon

The hiring manager can view the full history of events that a candidate has declined

Hiring managers can view all the events that were declined by a specific candidate through the candidate’s application page.

The new Event history tab within the application page displays a list of all previously declined events related to the application and includes the following:

• Event Name
• Date/Time of Event
• Declined Date/Time
• Reason (for declining)

Fig.19 – ‘Event History’ tab displaying all events declined by a candidate

‘All Slots Booked’ messaged displayed to candidates

If a candidate has been invited to an event but there are no available slots to pick from (due to other candidates having booked up all slots), the ATS now displays the ‘All interview slots have been booked’ message within the candidate portal’s application page (see Fig.20).

Fig.20 – ‘All interview slots have been booked’ message displayed for candidates

This message encourages candidates to contact the hiring manager. Where possible, the location telephone number is displayed.

Please note:  A location telephone number cannot be displayed if the location has not been set up with one.

 

New ‘Reopen Vacancy’ Functionality

Previously, it was not possible to quickly and easily boost candidate applications for a role and location within the Vacancy area.

Existing functionality does not allow customers to create a new vacancy for the same role and location until the vacancy is closed and has no candidates within any stage of the application process. This is to ensure that managers continue to evaluate their candidates and take one of the following actions:

1. Regret candidates
2. Add candidates to the talent pool
3. Onboard a candidate

As part of this release, a new capability is being introduced within the Vacancies area that aims to address the key requirement of boosting applicants for the same role and location even if existing candidates who have already applied are still moving through the application process.

Reopening closed vacancies in the ATS

If a vacancy for the same role and location has expired and existing candidates are still moving through the application process, hiring managers no longer need to wait until there are no candidates within any stage of the application process to re-advertise the job.

Hiring managers can now reopen a vacancy that has expired (i.e. a closed vacancy) and subsequently publish new job adverts linked to the same vacancy on job boards to attract new candidates and boost the applications. This approach provides a more efficient and easier way to re-advertise vacancies without the need to create the same vacancy for a role and location multiple times.

The following steps need to be followed by hiring managers to reopen a closed vacancy for the same Role & Location:

• Navigate to a closed vacancy via the Vacancies page
• Change the job live from and job live until dates
• Tick the Reopen vacancy box (will appear automatically after changing the dates)
• Select Save to reopen the vacancy

Fig.21 – Reopening a closed vacancy

Please note: Any users who are currently able to create a new vacancy will also have the permissions to reopen a vacancy. Publishing reopened vacancies to job boards will still require approval from the correct user groups.

Reopened vacancies are then published to:

1. Candidate Portal – The reopened vacancy will appear at the top of the list of vacancies/job adverts within the candidate portal (see Fig.22) 

2. Job Boards – Reopened vacancies are either directly published to job boards (that use XML Feeds). Other vacancies that require a manual push of job adverts to job boards will display the relevant job board icons on the Vacancy page (see Fig.23).

 

Fig.22 – Reopened vacancy at the top of the list in the candidate portal

Fig.23 – Job Board icon available after reopening a vacancy

 

Posting reopened vacancies as new job adverts

Reopening a closed vacancy will allow users to publish it to the job boards in the same way as new vacancies are.

Job Boards using XML Feed 

• The XML feeds for the job boards are updated by the ATS and a reopened vacancy is added as a new one, with revised start date & expiry dates. The previous vacancy will be removed from the XML which will remove the old job adverts from the various job boards

• As reopened vacancies are picked up as new ones within the XML feeds, corresponding job advertisements in the job boards will be listed at the top of the listings to attract more applicants and boost applications

XML-based Job Boards supported for this functionality:

• LinkedIn
• Indeed
• LeisureJobs
• Glassdoor
• E4S

Job Boards integrated with ATS UI 

• Once a vacancy has been reopened, the button for posting the job advertisement to the Job Boards becomes available to the user
• Users can select the Job Board button which will send the job advertisement request to users on the Head Office/Administration permission level for approval and will be seen within the Job Board Ads page in ATS
• Users on the Head Office/Administration permission level can review the list of job advertisements and choose to approve or reject. Any approved job advertisements will then be published as a new job advertisement within the job board. Job Board Ads functionality and permissions will work in the same fashion as they do for new vacancies

Integrated ATS Job Boards that are supported for this functionality:

• Caterer
• Hospitality Jobs

Job Boards that are unsupported for this functionality (including XML Feeds or via direct integrations with ATS):

• Reed
• Gumtree

Vacancy History

A new tab has been introduced within the Edit Vacancy page called Vacancy history (see Fig.24) to provide users with an audit trail so that they can easily access details of when a vacancy was:

• Created – when the vacancy was first created
• Extended – when the job live until field was modified in a live vacancy
• Closed – when the vacancy closed after the job live until date
• Reopened – when the vacancy was reopened using the new functionality

The default permission for viewing the Vacancy history tab is currently set to Head Office/Administrator users only.

The tab includes the following columns:

• ‘User’ - name of User/Username
• ‘Status’ – states that the vacancy was in throughout its lifecycle – created, extended, closed, reopened
• ‘Job Live From’ – date set on the Job Live from field in the edit vacancy page
• ‘Job Live Until’ – date set on the Job Live until field in the edit vacancy page
• ‘Modified’ – date/time stamp of when the change was made

All vacancy status changes are displayed in descending order; the most recent change will always be at the top of the Vacancy History tab.

Fig.24 – Vacancy history tab within edit vacancy page

 

Performance Improvements to the Events functionality

Several performance optimisations have been made within the Events functionality.

The following areas have been optimised:

1. Calendar Page – Administrator Portal

 

• Switching between dates should now load the events within those dates noticeably faster without reloading the page (see Fig.25)
• Improvements made to the saving of events that are created via the calendar page – attaching vacancies to events and saving - should be noticeably quicker

Fig.25– Calendar in Admin Portal

2. Adding Events or Creating New Events – ‘Event Invite’ pop-up modal

• Improvements made to the speed of saving on the event invite pop-up modal once a new event has been created or an existing event has been selected
• Time taken to progress a candidate to the next step after selecting Progress Application is also improved (see Fig.26)

Fig.26 – ‘Event Invite’ pop-up modal

3. Candidate Calendar – Candidate Portal 

• Improvements made to the calendar within the Personal Information area of the candidate portal
• Switching between dates should now load the events within those dates noticeably faster without reloading the page

Fig.27 – Interviews Calendar in Candidate Portal

ATS Feeds integrated with Fourth Analytics

Integrating Fourth Analytics with ATS Backend

A key integration between the Fourth Analytics platform and the Fourth ATS to Live is being delivered that will enable the Fourth Analytics team to:

• Extract key ATS datasets on a scheduled or ad-hoc basis to feed into Fourth Analytics
• Independently set up and configure the necessary ATS datasets for new customers without development team intervention

Please note: This release does not include new ATS Dashboards within Fourth Analytics. The above integration is a necessary precursor that has been specifically developed to allow the ATS to reliably and consistently feed ATS data to the Fourth Analytics platform via an internal Fourth web service.