17.3 Release Notes: Workflow Entrance Criteria
Note: These Release Notes are no longer updated. For updates, see https://care.icims.com/s/release-readiness.
This is a section of the 17.3 Release Notes. For more sections, please see
17.3 Release Notes.
This section contains the following entries:
Workflow Entrance Criteria
To improve the consistency of an organization’s hiring processes, user admins can set up workflow entrance criteria for specific recruiting workflow statuses. Once entrance criteria have been configured, candidates cannot be moved into a particular status until they meet the specific criteria.
Note: This feature is launching in mid-December 2017 and replaces Forced Workflow for recruiting workflows. Customers who previously used Forced Workflow (also called Forced Status List) for recruiting workflows have been migrated to the Workflow Entrance Criteria framework.
Sourcing and onboarding forced workflows are unaffected by this update.
Entrance Criteria Configuration
User admins can configure entrance criteria for specific recruiting workflow statuses within System Configuration. To do so, user admins should follow the pathway
Admin > System Configuration > Recruit > Workflow > Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses. Selecting
Edit launches the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses popup.
Once a specific recruiting workflow bin is expanded, and a status within that bin is selected from the list on the left side of this popup, the right side populates with the settings specific to that status, including
Entrance Criteria Filter. Selecting
Create Entrance Criteria launches a Recruiting Workflow Search Form popup.
Note: After entrance criteria have been initially set up and saved, the link beside the setting displays as
Edit Entrance Criteria instead.
Within the search form, user admins can add filters to set conditions that candidates should meet in order to be eligible to be moved into the selected status. For example, if a candidate should have filled out an employment application prior to being moved into the Reviewed status, the user admin can select the
Initial Review: Reviewed status and add a filter for
Standard Employment Application : Form Status is Completed (as in the image below).
- Note: The completion of any public-answer Recruiting Workflow or Person iForm can be used as entrance criteria. Private-answer iForms are not available for use with entrance criteria, as multiple versions may be completed for one candidate. For more info on iForm answer types and why some are considered private, check out the Answer Types section of the Introduction to iForms article.
The system displays an error message to users who attempt to move a candidate to a status for which they do not meet the prerequisites.
The default error message is To move the applicant(s) to the selected status, the following entrance criteria must be met: and can be updated by iCIMS Technical Support. The text indicating that a status is unavailable and any Match all/any of the following: text cannot be changed.
By default, if any filters used as entrance criteria are hidden from a specific user group, the names of those filters are still visible to that user group in the system-generated error message. To prevent users from seeing criteria that are hidden from them, the Entrance Criteria: section of the search form allows the user admin to add a custom unavailable status error message that can provide next steps.
Additionally, the user admin can use the Hide System-Generated Message checkbox in the Entrance Criteria section of the Recruiting Workflow Search Form popup search form to hide the names of the prerequisite criteria. The Hide System-Generated Message checkbox only functions if the user admin has input a custom error message.
In the examples above, the user admin left the Entrance Criteria message as default for the Submitted status.
The user admin configured the Interview Scheduled status to display a custom message and mask the entrance criteria.
If the user admin selected to display a custom status without masking the entrance criteria, the error message would display, then the custom message, then the list of criteria.
The output section of the search form is not used by entrance criteria and can be left as default.
Notes:
- New search filters have been introduced that are only available for use with entrance criteria. The Ever In (Any) and Ever In (All) filters allow the user admin to require that candidates have been in one or more selected statuses prior to being moved to a specific status.
- Ever in (Any), displayed above, requires that a candidate has been in at least one of the specified statuses at some point during the hiring process.
- Ever in (All) requires that a candidate has been in all specified statuses at some point during the hiring process.
Entrance criteria for a specific status are saved by selecting the
Save button on the Recruiting Workflow Search Form popup, then selecting
Save on the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses popup.
For organizations with workflows that vary by user group, entrance criteria can be set on a user group basis by first selecting a group from the User Group dropdown on the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses popup, then selecting
Create/Edit Entrance Criteria.
Entrance criteria for a status can be edited by selecting
Edit Entrance Criteria. To remove all entrance criteria from a status, select the user group for which that entrance criteria was applied, then select the
Reset to default value button beside the Entrance Criteria Filter for that status on the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses popup, then select
Save.
Notes:
- Removing an entrance criteria for one user group (e.g., Global) does not change any alternate entrance criteria specifically set for subgroups (e.g., Recruiter).
- Filters that are hidden from a specific user group can still be used as entrance criteria when configuring the workflow for that user group.
- For example, if a candidate must have completed an assessment before a hiring manager can submit them to an Offer Requested status, entrance criteria requiring the assessment status to be completed can still be set for the Offer Requested status, even if hiring managers do not have access to the Assessments panel of the Screen tab.
- When entrance criteria are added to a recruiting workflow status, the time it takes to process the entrance criteria is added to any future status change of this type. If the entrance criteria processes slowly, this may cause the status change and Platform to run slowly. To test the time the process may take, use the Search button to preview results for the criteria set before saving the entrance criteria.
Entrance Criteria Templates
User admins can also save entrance criteria selections as templates in order to reapply and reuse the same filter selections on multiple statuses to more efficiently set up their company’s designated workflow. Selected filters can be saved as an entrance criteria template by clicking the
Save Search Template icon. The Save Entrance Criteria Template popup then displays, and the user admin can add a title and description for the template.
Once an entrance criteria template has been saved, a user admin can select it as an option in the Search Template dropdown of the search form.
Notes:
- Entrance Criteria templates only display in the search form popup initiated by selecting Create Entrance Criteria/Edit Entrance Criteria from the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses setting in System Configuration.
- Entrance Criteria templates do not display as search templates in the Recruiting Workflow search form initiated by selecting Search > Recruiting Workflow. Similarly, search templates created from Search > Recruiting Workflow are not available as entrance criteria templates.
- Entrance criteria templates can be overwritten (like normal search templates). If a template has been selected in the dropdown, the Save Entrance Criteria popup displays options for the user to Create New Template or Overwrite Existing Template.
- If an entrance criteria template is overwritten, the changes to the template are applied to any recruiting workflow status using that template.
- Output templates are not saved with entrance criteria templates, as the system does not evaluate output selections in determining whether candidates meet entrance criteria.
- Sharing options are not configurable within the Save Entrance Criteria Template popup. This is due to restrictions being configured by user group using the User Group dropdown of the Recruiting Workflow Bins and Statuses popup.
From the Entrance Criteria popup, user admins can quickly sort and locate entrance criteria templates by selecting the
Manage Search Templates button to launch the Entrance Criteria Templates popup. Within this popup, user admins can also edit and delete templates, similar to other search templates.
Deleting an entrance criteria template cannot be undone and removes the entrance criteria from any recruiting workflow statuses. For more information about search template management improvements introduced in 17.3, see
17.3 Release Notes: Improved Search Template Management.
Using Entrance Criteria
After entrance criteria have been configured for a specific recruiting workflow status, those criteria are evaluated whenever a user in the Platform attempts to move a candidate into that specific status.
If a candidate does not meet the criteria specified for a specific status, that status is not available for a user to move the candidate into. The status is listed as unavailable within both the Take Action popup and the Advance/Reject buttons on the Recruiting Workflow Profile.
Selecting a status that is unavailable because the candidate does not meet the entrance criteria displays an error message that provides additional information.
Notes:
- The error list indicates all entrance criteria and does not indicate which criteria have not been met.
- The text below the unavailable message may display differently if the user does not have access to one or more entrance criteria and the user admin configured an alternate message to display.
Document Updates
The 17.3 Release Notes are no longer updated. For up-to-date information regarding changes made in monthly updates, see https://care.icims.com/s/release-readiness.
17.3 Release Notes
For more information on the 17.3 Release, see 17.3 Release Notes.
