Recruit update - March 2019 - 2

Whilst we're still working on the final touches and roll-out plan for the forthcoming Backoffice rebrand (click here to see an introductory video on the key changes), we've turned our attention to a general spring clean. Imagine we're one of those UV lights with high voltage wire netting around it - them bugs are going down!

We appreciate there's a lot of detail here, but rest assured, nothing is fundamentally changing in this release. We're simply addressing a wide variety of little niggles from our backlog. We expect these updates to be rolled out to all clients by the end of March.

Backoffice

Viewing candidates assigned to interview slots
The big number links on interview slot tiles showing the number of scheduled candidates previously had a typo which resulted in the link not taking users to the list of attendees unless a rogue quotation mark character was removed from the URL. This has been resolved, so the links now work as expected.

In addition, a new "View attendees" action is now available in all slot view modes which does the same thing. Previously, it was only possible to access the attendees list from Simple or Calendar view mode.

The "Find candidates" icon has also now been updated to be a search icon.

Interview slots now filtered as expected after selecting a vacancy
Previously, when a single vacancy was selected as a user's preference, the list of slots with vacancies assigned was not filtering as expected. The list will now only show slots already assigned to the relevant vacancy or slots which have no vacancy(s) selected.

Sorting of Vacancy(s) and Interviewer(s) columns in default interview views
These columns were previously not sortable in the default interview slot and attendee views and now are. In addition, interviewer names are now displayed as the default, rather than interviewer emails.

Improved messaging when adding users with duplicate or invalid emails
It was not previously obvious why new users were failing to be created due to an invalid email domain being used or due to a user with the same email address already existing in the system. The Add user form has been updated to make both of these issues much clearer to super users, so they may take the appropriate action.

Improvements to comments
Several enhancements have been made to the comments functionality:

• Resolved an issue where a particularly long comment could cause an error
• Last comment fields now available for views - date, user and comment (may be truncated if over 255 chars)

Vacancy Poster integration enhancement
An issue related to posting jobs with particularly long job advert text has been resolved.

Deleted users and contacts no longer suggested when forwarding by email
The "To" field on the email sending page was previously suggesting all users and contacts, including deleted ones. Deleted users and contacts are now excluded.

Suggestions for the email "To" field now work when both first and surname entered
Use of the space character was previously preventing search results from being returned, which meant that entering both first and surname was not returning the expected results. Search on multiple terms is now supported.

Improvement to merging of interviewer names in emails
Where multiple interviewers were assigned to a slot, the interviewer name and email merge fields were displaying the list of interviewers with no space between each name/email. Names/Emails will now be correctly displayed separated by commas.

Emails no longer sent to agents on editing an agent's details
An automated email was introduced in relation to GDPR for newly registered agents. The email was previously also being resent if an agent was subsequently edited. This will now no longer happen.

Visibility of Vacancy text fields in the email merge field list
Not all available vacancy text fields were being displayed in the merge field list in some circumstances. All available fields will now always be displayed.

Visibility of merge fields when editing existing personal comms templates
The list of available merge fields was not consistently being displayed as expected when editing existing personal comms templates and now is.

Alignment of visibility of forward by email action with the email pop-up page
The Forward by email action will now only be visible if a user has access rights to use that function. Previously, there were some circumstances in which the action was visible, but the pop-up page would display an "Access denied" message.

Links to Timeline pages now consistent on all list pages
Some data fields in list pages are shown as links to the relevant timeline page, but this was not consistently applied everywhere. It now is. This includes:

• Vacancy/Requisition titles
• User names and emails of users assigned to vacancy user roles
• Interviewer names and emails
• Candidate/Person names
• Agency/Agent names

Streamlining of available fields for user roles
Only User full name and User email fields for users will now be available and will return the correct data. Previously selection of a user role email field would also return the user name, rather than their email.

Show on map icon now only shown if a valid geo-code exists
Previously, the Show on map function was shown in action menus and on Timeline pages, even when there was no valid geo-code stored for a person, candidate or vacancy. The icon will no longer be displayed where this is the case.

Improvements to the Failed comms page
The performance of this page has been improved by making it consistent with other Timeline pages in the system. In addition, options to resend failed messages are no longer displayed, as resending a failed message will, by definition, result in exactly the same failure again.

Improvement to acknowledgement messages on Edit candidate page
The messages displayed when resetting eligibility or unsubmitting a candidate are now displayed in a green "Success box" style.

Improvements to duplicate spotter behaviour and performance
The duplicate spotter will now always work across all candidates, not just those within the currently selected preference. The pop-up page, however, will not allow users access to any actions for candidates who are not within their currently selected preference.

PDFs of Backoffice pop-up pages
When a Backoffice pop-up page is configured as a PDF action (e.g. to attach to emails), the PDF generated will be based on the printable version of the pop-up page, rather than the screen version. This means that all data in text boxes and in accordion sections will be visible.

"Older" link on configuration audit page not displayed when not relevant
The "Older" link was previously displayed, regardless of whether there were older audit entries or not. This link is now only displayed when older entries exist.

Change password function now validates current password
Users will now be required to enter their correct current password in order to change their password.

Live-linked backoffice list reports now correctly limited by preference
Where a user creates a live-linked report from a Backoffice list page, the resulting report will now always be limited by whatever their currently selected preference was. Previously, the data returned was always based on the user's default preference, rather than the preference selected when the report was generated.

Changing views on the Requisition list page no longer changes selected stage
The stage selected previously always changed back to the first one, whenever a user switched to a different requisition view. The currently selected stage will now be maintained when switching views.

Persistence of settings when turning off data retention
When switching the data retention settings back to "Retain all data indefinitely", the new setting was not being persisted when reopening the page again.

Requisition list page now shows deleted users
Where a user had been deleted, the Requisition list page was not displaying the details of the user who originally created the requisition, last actioned it, etc. Details of deleted users will now be displayed.

"Global" view checkbox no longer displayed to users who are not super users
The ability to create global views is only relevant to super users who are able to commit changes and so this checkbox has now been hidden for users who are not super users.

Correction to visibility of "Send to agencies" link in Vacancy timelines
The visibility of this function was connected to an incorrect secure area and was only visible if a user also had access to Cost tracking. This has been corrected.

Improvements to Edit candidate page
The links to edit vacancy eligibility responses or application form responses didn't previously take account of there being no vacancy eligibility form or no application form pages. It now does.

Download of custom reports with charts to CSV
After downloading to CSV, custom report charts were previously changing to a "No date to display" message. The chart will now continue to be displayed as expected.

Merge field errors in comms no longer displayed after corrections
Warnings associated with invalid merge fields in comms will now no longer be displayed once the problem has been corrected. Previously the warning would remain, even though the issue was resolved unless the page was reloaded.

Open and close dates for vacancy templates now displayed as blank in lists
These fields were previously showing as min/max dates (e.g. 31/12/9999), where there is no data. The lists will now show nothing for vacancy opening or closing date as expected.

Improvement to document indexing of multiple documents
Where multiple documents in a row were included in the data to be indexed, the last word of one document and the first word of the next document were being concatenated. This meant that a search for either of those words would not find the relevant candidate. A space is now included, so a candidate would now be found in this scenario.

Improvements to use of truncation for data columns which are also links
Use of truncation in columns where the data shows as links (e.g. vacancy title(s), interviewer name(s) now works as expected where there are multiple values. Previously the links would break and partial HTML could end up being displayed.

A new Info icon has also been introduced which users may hover over to view the data in full.

Improvements to candidate import/export/update functionality
A number of enhancements have been made in this area to better handle various known issues and unexpected data.

Removal of legacy code in various places
A number of changes have been made to simplify things in various places, including:

• Candidate report creation page
• Search pages
• Bandwidth test page
• Broadbean help link/page

User portal

Forgotten password emails for clients not using email as login
Users may now request a password using their login as well as their email address.

Ordering of multi-select classifier field items in read-only views
In some circumstances, the order of selected items for a multi-select classifier field was not consistent with the order of the items in the classifier itself. When displayed in read-only mode on any page, the order of selected items will now be as expected.

Visibility of Create requisition link
This link was visible in some circumstances where it should not have been and now no longer is.

Use of "Last stage" columns in requisition list views
Use of fields associated with the last requisition stage was not previously supported in the user portal as this caused issues when there was no last stage. e.g. For a user creating and saving a requisition without submitting it for approval yet. These fields may now be configured if required.

API

Update person or candidate data via the API
Two new API methods are now available to clients and third parties to allow candidate and or person data to be updated via an API call:

• Update application data - allows one or more Candidate form fields to be updated
• Update person data - allows one or more Person form fields to be updated

Update to Get a list of candidates API call
This call now includes a new field (PersonGuid) in the data returned for each candidate in the list. PersonGuid is a required field for the new Update person data API call, so this means that API users will not have to additionally use the Get a single candidate API call to retrieve the PersonGuid for a particular candidate.

Candidate portal

Only save a withdrawal reason if a candidate submits the page
A withdrawal reason was previously saved if a candidate selected a reason and then navigated to a different page, without actually committing their withdrawal. A withdrawal reason will now only be submitted if a candidate actually submits the Withdraw application page.

Ordering of vacancies by distance from selected location
In some circumstances, when a user entered both a location search and other search parameters at the same time, the vacancy search results list was displaying the vacancies in reverse distance order initially. Vacancies will now always be returned with those closest at the top of the list.

N.B. Vacancies with no location may also be displayed before those with a location dependant on your configuration.

Improvement to display of available slots
A date was previously displayed for both start and end times. This has been simplified to show the date only once.

i.e. 13/08/2018 09:00 - 09:15

Submission failures due to long, invalid postcodes
If a candidate enters a very long, invalid postcode, the data will now automatically by truncated so as to not cause a submission failure.

Persistence of Title field
In certain scenarios, the Title field was jumping back to the first option in the list. The currently selected option will now be persisted.

System Builder

Client activity report update
Addressed an issue which was preventing this report from showing all available information for users registered prior to September 2017. The time-out has also been increased to better deal with clients with a lot of data.

Prevent single or multi-select filtering from being used for date columns
All known system date columns and any data columns marked with a data type of "Date" will now be sortable by default, but will not allow single or multi-select filtering to be configured.

System fields such as Submitted date, Vacancy closing date, etc. will simply no longer display any filter options. Person values, Application values and Vacancy text fields which are set to the "Date" type and which have an invalid filter option selected will be picked up in a new pre-flight check. The system will not allow publishes until the invalid configuration has been corrected.

Add client button removed
All systems must now be created based on a template.

Submit/Back buttons removed from Summary config
These buttons are configured elsewhere, so have been removed.

Performance enhancements to the Printable view tab
This page was previously very slow to load. It now loads quickly.

Improvements to UX of User top-up form page visibility
The UX has been improved to make it clear that checking the boxes will hide the relevant page from the User top-up form navigation.

Duplicate spotter scripts renamed to relate to what they actually do
It is now clear what the functionality selected actually is:

• Email, Surname and First initial
• Postcode and Surname
• Other (requires custom script to be entered)

Prevent two duplicate forms being created in the same section using copy form function
It was previously possible to inadvertently create pages with the same name in the same section when using the Copy form function. This is now now longer possible.

Candidate.Email, Title, FirstName and Surname no longer available to select in literals
These fields were available for legacy reasons and were replaced by the Person.xxx equivalents some time ago. Inadvertent use of the legacy Candidate.xxx fields was a common cause of errors during the build phase, so these legacy fields have now been fully removed.

Removed duplicate interviewer email field
Two fields for interview email addresses were previously available in list capabilities. There is now only one and all configuration related to this, e.g. in queries, will be automatically updated to have the right one selected.

Redirects now work for Backoffice pop-ups named the same as a candidate form page
Previously redirects to Backoffice pop-up pages did not work as expected if there was a candidate form page configured with the same name. They will now work as expected (redirecting to the pop-up page).

Pre-flight check to prevent some fields being configured as multi-select filters
In addition to any fields configured with date as the sorting type, it will now also no longer be possible to publish a system where any fields containing any of the following text are configured as multi-select filters in list capabilities:

• firstname
• surname
• fullname
• email
• telephonenumber
• textnumber
• latitude
• longitude

Add candidate function now supported in systems with a company-wide eligibility page
It is now possible to configure the Add candidate function in conjunction with a company-wide eligibility form page.

Global truncation will now work as intended
Where configured in list capabilities, values for global truncation settings were not previously being respected. This will now work as intended.

Note that this means that some clients may end up with some fields being truncated as standard, which were not previously.

Use of Introduction page in a multi-form system, where one form is Eligibility-only
This configuration is now supported.

Use of Summary page in a system with an Eligibility page-only form
This configuration is now supported. The Back button will no longer be displayed on the Summary page in this scenario as you can't return to the Eligibility page. Previously, clicking Back would have caused an error if this was configured.

Simplification of Candidate.Agent.xxx and Agent.xxx fields
There was some confusion between the use of Candidate.Agent.xxx fields and Agent.xxx fields. The system will now display only one set of these fields and these may be used consistently and reliably wherever they appear.