Version 7.35 introduces the following new features outlined in the contents list below.
This release also covers bug fixes and other small improvements which are outlined in these notes.
Please note that some screenshots in this document represent pre-release versions and may differ slightly in the production release. Release version 7.35 is scheduled for release in May 2024.
Contents
- Import Candidates from External Sources (Beta)
- External Search benefits
- Career Sites – Improved location searching for job advertisements
- Online Forms Approval History viewable on PDF form
- Rich text when adding notes to candidates
- Auto-suggest lookup for email templates on Send Email screens
- Prevent Request to Hire Approvers submitting multiple times
- Generate Rich Letter – support for User Profile Department and Division tags
- Candidate Application Search screen
- Two Factor Authentication of candidate registration & logins
- Improvements to Auditing
- Support multiple Single Sign-on providers for a client
- Create Application open API
- Minor bug fixes & Enhancements
IMPORTANT: Please get in touch with your Springboard Account Manager if you have any questions regarding the information provided in these release notes.
Import Candidates from External Sources (Beta)
We are excited to introduce the latest update to Springboard i.e., external search via Textkernel. This powerful feature will allow the Springboard users to search the candidates externally on other sources like LinkedIn, indeed, CareerBuilder etc. With Textkernel's candidate search, the users can quickly sift through large databases of candidates to find the most suitable matches for their job openings. This accelerated sourcing process will enable Springboard users to fill positions more efficiently and reduce time-to-hire.
Here is the full list of sources supported by Textkernel.
| careerbuilder_us | dice | job_site | reed |
| career_structure | dpg | jobserve | resume_library |
| caterer | efinancialcareers | just_engineers | retail_choice |
| cityjobs | emedcareers | stackoverflow | |
| cv_library | github | monster | totaljobs |
| cwjobs | indeed | mocked |
Enabling External Search:
There are two types of users that can be setup:
- Admin access – The admin screen can be accessed via the “Administration --> Admin Console --> External Search Admin” area.
The admin user is responsible for configuring the external sources on the Springboard instance. The sources can be set up at organisation level or the user level.
Different source requires different authentication methods:
- Direct SSO to the external source
- Username/ password credentials
- API keys
- Google API keys
They are also responsible for managing (enabling or disabling) the sources, and granting, or revoking external search access from the users.
Please contact the Peoplescout Support team to know more details on the sources and enable it on your Springboard instance. For RPO customers, please contact your Account Manager.
2. Recruiter access – The recruiter access would add the external search functionality to a user. They can then search for the candidates on the configured sources.
Using External Search functionality:
Once the external search has been enabled for a user, the module will be available from the left-hand menu navigation under “Candidates” as “External Search.”
Clicking on this will open the screen with two tabs i.e.,
- Candidate Search
- Candidate Import
Candidate Search
This tab is opened as the default tab when external search is clicked by the user. The screen contains the filters like job title, location, keywords, employer etc. that can be applied to formulate the candidate search.
The users can also select the preferred sources to search for the prospective candidates.
Sources are enabled from the “Administration --> Admin Console --> External Search Admin” area as mentioned above.
Once the filters values have been added, the user clicks on the “Search” button.
In the example below, the user performs a search on Job Title: Java developer, Location: Sydney and Source: Monster.
The user can review the candidates in a reading pane as displayed above and if they are interested in the candidate they can click on the “Import” button on the top right. Clicking on the “Import” will import this candidate to Springboard and create a candidate profile for them.
Some sources do support bulk import which means that the recruiters can select multiple candidates and click on import selection. All the selected candidates will be imported to Springboard as a batch.
The Textkernel shows the progress of the candidates import.
Candidate Import
The imported candidate(s) can be viewed and managed from the “Candidate Import” tab as batches. As mentioned above, if bulk-import was performed then the batch contains all the selected candidates. If a single candidate was imported, then the batch contains only the selected candidate.
Some of the key features for this screen are as follows:
Show batches imported by me check-box: This checkbox on the top left when ticked displays the batches/ candidates imported by the logged-in user. If unselected, it will display all the batches imported by all the users in the organisation.
Batch Name: The batch name signifies the name of the imported batch. When a candidate is selected and imported, the batch name is displayed as Source + Candidate Name.
The batch name can be renamed to something more meaningful by clicking on the “pencil” icon next to the name.
The user can then add a preferred name and click on the “Save” i.e. the green file icon to save changes or on the cancel icon to discard the changes.
A confirmation message will be displayed.
The column can be sorted by ascending or decreasing order.
Imported date: The date and time on which the batch was imported. The column can be sorted by ascending or decreasing order.
Imported by: The user’s full name that imported a batch.
Status: This column is used to signify the status of a batch. There are three valid statuses:
- Importing: The status of the batch when it is still being imported is set as “Importing.” All the subsequent actions like link to job, post to folder, and delete batch is disabled.
- Imported: The status of a batch is set as “Imported” when the candidates have been downloaded and created in Springboard. The text Imported is hypertext, clicking on which displays the batch information. The subsequent actions like link to job, post to folder, delete batch is enabled.
- The batch information shows the following fields -
- Batch Name
- Imported Date
- Imported By
- Batch status
- Candidate Details
- Processed – Number of candidates attempted to be imported
- Success – Number of candidates imported to the system.
- Failed - Number of candidates that failed import.
- Duplicates identified - Number of candidates that already exist in the system with same email address. The duplicate candidate details can be downloaded as CSV file by clicking on the CSV icon. The CSV file will be downloaded to the system with the candidate's name, email address, location, and last job title. The user should then review the candidate profile and information and perform the necessary action.
-
- Candidate Table
- Candidate full name
- Current/previous employer
- Location
- Reason – Reason of failure
- Candidate Table
- Distributed: The status of a batch is set as “Distributed” when the candidates have been imported and linked to a job and/or posted to a folder in Springboard. The text Distributed is hypertext, clicking on which displays the batch information. The batch information is the same fields as above except that this pop-up also contains the batch distribution information i.e.:
-
- Jobs linked with: The job reference number to which the batch has been linked with.
- Folders posted: The name of the talent folders to which the batch has been posted.
-
A warning message is displayed if there is no data to show regarding distribution information.
Actions: This column signifies what actions can be performed on a batch. There are three actions permitted:
- Link to job – This is available as
icon under the ”Actions” column. Clicking on it against a selected batch links all the candidates from the batch to the specified job reference number.
- Post to folder - This is available as
icon under the ”Actions” column. Clicking on it against a selected batch posts all the candidates from the batch to the specified talent folder.
- Delete - This is available as
icon under the ”Actions” column. Clicking on it against a selected batch deletes the batch record. Please note that there is no impact on the candidates imported with the batch.
Bulk-actions: The bulk-actions capability can be done from the “Actions” drop-down displayed on the top. The user can perform the actions as listed above on multiple batches. First, they need to select the batches by clicking on the checkbox and then select the required action under the highlighted drop-down as below:
External Search benefits:
Here are some key benefits of importing candidates from external sources to Springboard:
- Access to a Larger Talent Pool: External search expands the pool of potential candidates beyond internal referrals or existing applicants. This broader reach increases the likelihood of finding candidates with diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences that may not be readily available within the organisation.
- Faster Candidate Sourcing: By using external search capability with Textkernel's, the recruiters/admin users can find and source the high potential candidates to the system more efficiently and quickly.
- Automatic Data Extraction: The relevant candidate information available in the form of profile and resume from the sources will be extracted and prefilled while candidate creation on Springboard instance. This eliminates the need for manual data entry or file uploads, streamlining the recruitment process and improving productivity.
- Scale and Growth: External search can be extremely helpful for mass recruitment programs such as graduate hiring or expansion.
Career Sites – Improved location searching for job advertisements
We are pleased to announce the exciting new improvement on the careers sites i.e., location search based on the city and postcode for the configured search countries. This also provides the ability for further extension to add a search radius slider. This enhancement will significantly improve the user experience and will make it easier for job seekers to find relevant opportunities. This provides flexibility for users who may be familiar with different forms of location identification.
The radius search offers the option for users to specify a radius around their desired location, allowing them to find job opportunities within a certain distance from their chosen city or postcode.
The standard keywords field and location field will work together as existing behaviour.
The location field can be pre-populated by the user’s current location, which is detected via geolocation technology, or typed in to retrieve a list of potential matches based on the postcode or location name typed in.
The radius slider also has “Include Remote roles/jobs” option for the “remote” or “work from home” roles.
These are specifically posted on the backend at the "Create Ad screen" with a “Virtual/Remote” jobs option to indicate that they have no location.
The toggle allows either all remote jobs to be included in addition to those within x km of the location search, or not.
Online Forms Approval History viewable on PDF form
Springboard’s multi-recipient online forms with approval history are an integral part of the product and used by many customers to generate offer, contract and job ad information that can be approved by multiple parties.
With this release, the approval history of a form is now included as an additional page into the PDF version of the form attached into the Candidate Notes tab.
Rich text when adding notes to candidates
Notes added to candidates via the “Create Note” function can now include richer text formatting such as bullets, bold, italics and underline.
Auto-suggest lookup for email templates on Send Email screens
The Email Template selection drop-down is now user-typable auto-suggest field, making it easier to find the appropriate email template for clients with a large library of templates.
Prevent Request to Hire Approvers submitting multiple times
A small but notable enhancement this release results from observations that some Request to Hire approvers are clicking the final “Approve” button multiple times.
Whilst this did not result in multiple jobs being created, it could result in multiple emails being sent to the Request to Hire initiator.
This process has been improved to restrict the likelihood of multiple emails being sent.
Generate Rich Letter – support for User Profile Department and Division tags
Generation of Rich Letters such as contracts and offers now supports embedding the logged in user’s Department and Division, captured on the User Profile Page.
This can be useful for some clients embedding the logged-in user’s signature to the bottom of offer letters and contracts.
Candidate Application Search screen
The Application Search screen makes its triumphant return to the new look & feel. Removed from recent versions of Springboard as it was not extensively used, PeopleScout has returned access to the screen due to popular demand.
Two Factor Authentication of candidate registration & logins
Springboard now supports verification of candidate logins to career site portals via a two-factor code challenge sent to their nominated email address.
To enable this feature your career site registration and login may need to go through some minor updates, which can be accomplished by the Application Support team at no cost.
If you would like this change to be applied for your client, please contact Application Support.
Improvements to Auditing
PeopleScout's auditing and logging policies ensure that a wide variety of user and system events are logged to facilitate requests for information from clients.
With this release, improvements to auditing have been added to better log the following events:
- Users viewing the Job Details (requisition) screen
- Users adding and removing attachments to the system.
Whilst these events have always been logged, this logging has been improved to make it easier to provide reports on these activities to clients when requested.
Support multiple Single Sign-on providers for a client
Springboard can now support more than one Single Sign-on iDP for clients who may have multiple SSO providers within their organisation (common following a merger or acquisition).
Implementing more than one SSO requires additional consultation and configuration. Contact your Account Manager should this be required.
Create Application open API
With this release, Springboard now supports an open API for creating applications into the system from external sources.
The API supports:
- GET requests exposing the list of questions asked for a given job advertisement which need to be answered for any submissions
- POST request for submitting an application with all supported answers to questions
- POST request for submitting attachments to the application
Contact your Account Manager if you would like to learn more about creating applications in Springboard directly via an API.
Minor bug fixes & Enhancements
The following lists other items that have been fixed or improved as part of this release. If you would like further information on any of these items, please contact Application Support.
Career Site / Application Form
- Improvements to link out feature from one client’s careers site to another on clicking Apply Now
- Resolve issue affecting questionnaire Rich Text editors which require at least a one-word answer even though they are not mandatory.
- Resolve issue affecting some applications where very large responses larger than 4,000 characters on an application form are stored properly.
- Include client level configuration to define whether resumes should be copied to a new application when a candidate performs a pre-fill from prior application
- Resolve issue affecting candidates updating their email address for clients utilising email domain whitelist restrictions
- Job Alerts – Resolve issue when selection of a Location of “All” was not working under some circumstances for specific clients
Job Management & Request to Hire
- Include rejection comments / notes in an RTH when it is rejected
- Ability to jump immediately to any page within the Job Seach grid – Go to Page NN
- Resolve minor issue with placement of the ‘Create’ button on the Job Details screen under some scenarios
- Resolve issue handling attachments when retracting and relaunching an RTH
- Resolve issue where some “View Selection Reports” links could link to incorrect old archived RTH forms.
- Configuration to allow the default order of Move and Copy options in Link to Job to be reversed to improve workflow for certain clients
- Resolve intermittent issue where adding candidate comments can cause Springboard to crash
Candidate Management
- Enhancement to support “Status” column being rendered appropriately when performing a candidate search – show most recent Application Status.
- Enhancement to support “Application Source” being rendered within Talent Folder grids.
- Resolve an issue with rendering an application form immediately following a Link to Job action. This only affected newer application forms
- Candidate Review mode
- Hiring Manager Feedback
- Checklist changes appropriate to the Police solution
- Online forms – remove system message that would incorrectly appear on forms after generating some forms
- Resolve issues in New Look and feel with Candidate Diversity fields affecting some clients
- Resolve issue with filtering candidates in grid with apostrophe in their name
- Resolve issue with Page Number not updating when navigating from one workflow step to another on jobs with a large number of candidates.
- Resolve some issues with questionnaire and application score weighting following Release 7.34
- Resolve issue whereby documents attached to a sub-section within an online (orbeon) form do not get copied into the Documents tab as a PDF.
- Create New Interview – issue with editing Panel Member details after being created
- Bulkprint – ensure Screening Comments are included in a bulkprint when only “Candidate Notes” and “Screening Comments” options are selected
- Improvements to embedding a MS Teams link into emails
- Improvements to role permissions related to viewing and deleting attachments from candidate records affecting specific clients utilising sub-owner (branch) configurations such as retail stores
- Improvements to rendering a candidate’s State (NSW, Victoria, California etc..) on the profile form
- Improvements to handling of candidates deleted from the system – basic candidate records are scrubbed of PII and retained for basic reporting purposes but should not appear on candidate grids with obscure candidate names.
- Improvements to Spreadsheet uploader – Right to Work column selections.
Administration
- Resolve minor issues affecting the new Email Templates module
- Improvements to copying candidate custom properties, ensuring the “Springboard label on screen” is copied from the corresponding field
- Resolve issue with editing a column name within Administration -> Grid Config affecting some clients
- Allow usernames containing […] characters to be edited
- User Management – resolve issue where current version for a user is not visible
- Resolve issue resetting some candidate passwords if the username contains special characters
- Improvements to Email Inbox and document handling
Automation
- Improvement to Change Status action, providing option to modify or retain the process flags colour when a candidate is moved. This ensures automated action is consistent with behaviour of manually moving a candidate.
- Resolve issue where some hiring managers would not receive an email advising that a job advertisement had been posted
- Resolve issue where an application form would not be attached to an email sent from the Rules Engine under some scenarios
- Support a very large number of custom fields to be added to Rules Engine filter configuration
- When creating a Status Change rule and selecting ‘Reject,’ the reject reason field was not being displayed by default. This has been corrected.
Hiring Managers and Shared Services
- Resolve issue with some hiring managers unable to view certain documents in the Hiring Manager Feedback portal
- Stability improvements for bulkprinting application forms containing special characters within the question labels.
- Fix displaying default values in application forms rendered in the Hiring Manager Feedback portal.
Offer Letters, Reference Checks, Job Requests and Appointment Requests
- Resolve an issue with automatically moving candidates to the next step on accepting an offer approval involving digital signing of documents
- Fix a bug related to replacing email tags in the Digital Offer Approval Workflow emails
- Fix a bug related to replacing email tags in the Reference Check emails
- Fix issue with sending comments via email on accepting/declining an offer
- Resolve issue affecting some clients in Job requests – creating new users under Job Delegation
- Improve session timeout handling when viewing a Job request or Appointment Request within the system
Onboarding
- Minor improvements to Onboarding portal Accept button
Reporting
- Report Designer – Ensure ‘Next’ button performs an auto-save
Security, Architecture and Web Services
- Improvements to stability of email sending
- Fit2Work:
- Remove Check Status field
- Modification to handling “ApplicantToPay” field and Cost Centre
- Add Email Template name to request
- Vervoe
- Resolve issue with automation rules not executing under certain scenarios
- CVCheck
- Add Hiring Manager Name and Cost Centre to show for invoicing & reporting purposes
- TradeMe
- Job Release Schedule improvements
- DocuSign
- Support initials on each page
- QLD Only – use Known As name instead of First Name when creating new users automatically
- Apply with Indeed – improve handling conditional questions as optional
- Auditing improvements to users adding / removing documents attached to jobs, job advertisements, candidates, emails, and forms
- Support new application form framework within Create Application open API.
SMS
- Improvements to SMS send, receive and monitoring stability
Usability
- Improvements to the Interview Auto Communication screen in the event of very large email template names
- Accessibility Improvements to:
- Hiring Manager Calendar booking portal
- Job Details screen
- Rules Engine screens
- Process Designer screens
- New Application Email Templates Module
- Application form scoring
- Resume Mining
- Admin Console – Candidate Profile screens
- Tasks Module