September 28th 2022, Release Note: WFM UK | ATS: Vacancy Approval Workflow, Vacancy List New User Interface – Fourth & HotSchedules Customer Success Portal

Summary

Select the release feature from the table below to be taken directly to that section of the release note.

Feature 1

Feature 2

Vacancy Approval Workflow

New functionality for creating approval workflows for vacancy requests.

Vacancy List User Interface Changes

Improvements to the Vacancy List user interface.

Release date: September 28th 2022

Vacancy Approval Workflow

Enabled by Default? - Yes
Set up by customer Admin? - No
Enable via Support ticket? - No
Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What's Changing?

New functionality for creating approval workflows, meaning that new vacancies can be approved before they are published.

Reason for the Change

Currently, vacancies are created and published to the candidate portal or job boards immediately upon creation. Adding the ability to approve vacancies before they are published allows for Head Office to have greater control of all vacancies.

Customers Affected

All ATS customers.

Release Notes/Steps

The approval feature will be enabled by default.
Once all workflows have been configured (see guidance below), please liaise with your Fourth contact to request for the setup to be completed.

A new permission has been applied to the 'Head Office' permission group, giving all users in it the ability to create approval workflows.

Approval Workflows

Approval workflows are used so that new vacancies must be approved by specific users or permission groups before they are published to the candidate portal, job boards or talent attraction/recruitment marketing partners.

An approval workflow can consist of multiple 'steps', where specific users approve and progress (or reject) the creation of a vacancy.

Creating a New Approval Workflow

Fig.1 -Set Up > Approval Workflow Builder

Any existing approval workflows will be listed onscreen.

Select + Create New

Fig.2 - '+ Create New' button

Enter a Workflow Name to help make it easily identifiable, and a Workflow Description

Linking Roles

Then select Link Roles

Fig.3 - Creating a new workflow - Link Roles

When a role is linked to an approval workflow and a new vacancy is created for that role, the approval workflow is then activated.

The following actions are available:

Select All - assigns all roles to the workflow
Search - begin typing the role name for it to be filtered
Division - see roles associated only with a specific division
Assigned to workflow?
- Assigned - displays all roles currently assigned to a workflow
- Not Assigned - displays all roles not currently assigned to a workflow

When selections are made, the Link Roles button will become available, displaying the number of selected roles.

To save the configuration, select Link Roles, or Cancel if necessary

Fig.4 - Link Roles side panel

A message will display confirming the roles have been linked successfully. The side panel will remain open.

Close the side panel using the cross in the top right corner

The newly linked role(s) will then display on the workflow creation page.

Roles can also be linked via the Roles page - guidance can be found further on in this release note here.

Fig.5 - Newly linked role on the workflow creation page

Adding Approval Steps

To add an approval step, select + Add Step

As when linking roles, a new panel will appear on the right-hand side.

Enter the Step Name
Select the Permission Group(s) or Users that need to approve the vacancy
- At least 1 permission group or 2 users can be selected as approvers of each step
- Use the toggle (shown in Fig.6) to switch between Permission Groups or Users
- Use the Search box to find specific permission groups or users to select
Select Apply to confirm the selections
To add further steps, simply select +Add Step again and repeat the process

There is no limit to the number of steps that can be added to an approval workflow.

Fig.6 - Adding a step

Once each step has been created, close the side panel using the cross in the top right corner

The 'Create New Workflow' page will display the new steps in the order they were created.

To delete a step, select the dustbin icon next to it
To rearrange the step order, drag and drop, as shown in Fig.7
To keep changes select Save

Fig.7 - Deleting, reordering steps

Once saved, the approval workflow will be visible as a new workflow card.

Modifying Existing Approval Workflows

Several actions can be completed from the workflow card.

To view a preview of the approval steps, select Preview
To link additional roles or update existing ones, select Link Roles
To make an edit to the approval workflow (rename, change order of steps, change linked roles, etc), either select the workflow card itself or go to Preview > Edit (see Fig.9)

Fig.8 - Approval Workflow card - Preview and Link Roles options

Fig.9 - Workflow Preview

Any changes made to a workflow will come into effect for any new vacancies created for it. The changes will not affect the workflow of any existing vacancies.

To duplicate an approval workflow, use the 'Kebab' Menu Icon from the top right of the workflow card and select Duplicate

Fig.10 - 'Kebab' menu icon > Duplicate

A new workflow card will be created underneath the original one, with the word 'Copy' added at the end.

Fig.11 - A duplicated workflow

When an approval workflow is copied, only the title, description and steps will be duplicated. No roles will be linked to the new workflow.

To delete a workflow, again use the Kebab Menu Icon and select Delete
Confirm the deletion of the workflow

Fig.12 - Delete workflow

The card and workflow will then be deleted.

Any existing open vacancies assigned to the deleted workflow will still have the original workflow steps assigned to them. These steps will need to be followed if the vacancies are to be published.

Roles

To view a role, go to Set Up > Roles > select role

Within the Role page, a new drop-down list has been added which displays the approval workflow assigned to the particular role.

If a role has not been assigned to an approval workflow, it can be done so by selecting it from the Approval Workflow drop-down list

Fig.13 - Selecting Approval Workflow for a role

Once the workflows have been created, the Common Feature can be enabled to switch on the approval function.

Contact your Fourth representative to arrange for the Common Feature to be enabled.

Creating a Vacancy

To create a new vacancy, go to ATS > Vacancies > + Create New
Complete the required details
Select Request Approval

Fig.14 - Creating a vacancy

A new side panel will appear for any notes to be entered to help the approver to understand the requirements of the vacancy request.

Enter the notes in the Requisition Note box
Select Submit

Fig.15 - Requisition Note

The vacancy will not be published until it has been approved by the allocated approver.

Viewing Vacancies

There have been changes made to the vacancy homepage which allows users to view open and closed vacancies, as well as those that have been requested but are not yet approved.

To view the vacancy list page, go to ATS > Vacancies

The page is split into two sections; Active and Pending vacancies.

Both the Active and Pending view headers contain a small icon displaying numbers.

These numbers represent:

In Active view - the number of active vacancies (114 in the example shown in Fig.16)
In Pending view - the number of vacancies that are 'awaiting approval'
Use the search criteria at the top of the list to find specific vacancies
More search options (Role, Division, Status, etc) can be used by selecting Advanced Filter

Fig.16 - Active/Pending vacancies

Active List

Under the Active Vacancy list, the following vacancies will be listed:

Currently active
Are due to become active
Are closed but have active applications assigned

Each 'active' vacancy card will contain the following information:

The vacancy status
The number of days remaining on the vacancy
The location of the vacancy
The vacancy role
The type of vacancy
Number of active applicants
Number of successful hires
Number of declined events

Fig.17 - Active Vacancy List and example vacancy card

Pending List

The pending list will display different vacancy statuses depending on whether the user is a vacancy requester or a vacancy approver.

For vacancy requesters:

Pending - vacancies that have been requested, but are not yet approved
Rejected - vacancy requests that have been rejected

The vacancy cards will contain the following information:

The vacancy status:
- Pending
- Rejected
The location of the vacancy
The vacancy role
The type of vacancy
Requisition/rejection note
Current Approving Step progress

Fig.18 - Pending Vacancy List (requester view) - 1 pending, 1 rejected

To view the progress of a pending vacancy through the approval process, select its vacancy card

A side panel will display information (as shown in Fig.19).

To see more information about the vacancy, select View Details

Fig.19 - Vacancy requisition approval step progress (requester view)

Details as shown below in Fig.20 will then be displayed.

Fig.20 - Vacancy Details (requester view)

To view the details of a rejected vacancy, select its vacancy card

The red cross icon (see Fig.21) shows at which stage of the approval process the vacancy was rejected.

As with pending vacancies, View Details can be used to see more information about the vacancy

Fig.21 - Rejected vacancy approval step progress (requester view)

For vacancy approvers

Vacancy approvers will see an additional status of Awaiting Approval, which will be displayed for any vacancies that are awaiting their approval.

Fig.22 - A pending vacancy, awaiting approval

The Awaiting Approval status is assigned to a card once the approval process has reached the step assigned to the approver.

To view the approval process, select the vacancy card

A side panel will open.

Then select View Details

Fig.23 - Vacancy Approval Process side panel (approver view)

From the Vacancy Details page, the approver can choose to:

Approve the vacancy
- The vacancy will move along the approval process
- If the approver is the final approver in the process, the vacancy will be published and moved to the Active view on the Vacancy homepage
Reject the vacancy
- The vacancy will not progress through the remaining approval steps
- The vacancy will appear as Rejected in the Pending view on the Vacancy homepage
View approving process
- user will return to the Approval Process side panel

Fig.24 - Vacancy details (approver view)

The approver can also Reject or Approve the vacancy straight from the vacancy card.

Fig.25 - Reject or Approve from a vacancy card

When rejecting a vacancy:

Enter a Rejection Reason and then select Reject

Fig.26 - Rejecting a vacancy

The vacancy will then remain in the Pending view within the Vacancy homepage with a status of Rejected. After 15 days, the vacancy will be archived.

When approving a vacancy:

Enter an Approval Note and then select Approve

Fig.27 - Approving a vacancy

An approved vacancy confirmation message will appear.

Fig.27 - Vacancy requisition was successfully approved

If the approval is part of an approval request process, the vacancy will remain in the Pending view within the vacancy homepage with a status of Pending

If the approval is the last step in the process, the vacancy will move to the Active view within the vacancy homepage and will be published

Additional Notes

Vacancies that have been created before the workflow has been enabled will not require approval to be published
Vacancies assigned to a workflow which is subsequently deleted will still have to follow the original workflow approval steps that were assigned to the deleted workflow
Vacancies that have closed can only have their dates amended to reopen. No changes can be made to the content of the vacancy
- If changes to the vacancy description, salary etc are required, a new vacancy will need to be created and approved before it can be published
A role can only be assigned to one approval workflow
Approval workflows do not need to be created for all roles