erecruitment Status Pages 19 February 2013

Transcription

1 erecruitment Status Pages 19 February 2013 Table of Contents 1. erecruitment Project 2. Phase 1 3. Future 4. Summary Table 5. Training and Supporting Guidance 6. Registering as an Internal Applicant for University Staff 7. Applicants Experiencing Issues Submitting Applications 8. Generating the PDF Applications 9. Notifications 10. Closing Date Time 11. Further Particulars 12. Sending Communications to Candidates through s 13. Advertising Validation 14. Accepting Applications into the Back Office 15. Updating Candidate Statuses 16. Appointment Approvals erecruitment Project The erecruitment system was launched (Phase 1) on 8 October 2012 and following feedback from Users requirements for Phase1b have been agreed and prioritised with the Project Board and User Group. Project Board and User Group Membership. The agreed requirements will be implemented in three tranches, April, May and June Work is already underway to address any bugs which have been identified. The requirements for Phase 2 Talent Pools and Redeployment will be defined by users and stakeholders and agreed following implementation of Phase1b, anticipated to be late

2 Phase 1 has been gathered on the new erecruitment system and supporting processes. This document is a summary of some of the key issues that are showing as common themes or are impacting on a number of users. The Summary Table on Page 2 to 7 provides a listing of actions relating to the feedback and provides details of required action and timeframe. (The list is not exhaustive and we will respond directly to individuals regarding any feedback.) Future When providing feedback to the HR Systems team it would be useful if you could provide all relevant information. This may include the system area that you are using (for example; vacancies/applicant portal, recruiter web application or the back office) or any relevant staff request ID, Vacancy ID, Applicant number or notification. Please continue to refer to the guide for support in using the system. The FAQ page can be found at 2

3 Summary Table Key Red High Priority Action/Resolution Outstanding Amber Action /Resolution Outstanding Green Action Complete/No Further Required Ref Actions Timescale Status 1 The PDFs are not generating when requested or are taking an unexpectedly long time to complete. 1. Communication sent to all users that the expected times take to generate PDFs could be between a few to 20 minutes 2. to current software to be applied to stop certain document types producing images increasing the time to process 3. software to remove unreadable and distorted images 4. Regular monitoring of the PDF queue so that the process is restarted without undue impact to users 5. Replace the PDF software to elegantly handle errors without impacting users 1. December December December On-going 5. April Complete 2. Complete 3. Complete 4. On-going 5. In Progress 2 The PDFs are unreadable and the 1. Identify whether the font size for 1. Complete 1. Complete 3

4 format can be distorted. application forms can be increased 2. Recruiters to recreate individual application PDFs created before 6 th November before recreating the full PDF pack 3. Replace the PDF software to produce more usable PDF packs 2. November onwards April In progress 3. In progress 3 Notifications are not being received or missing details from Appointment approval notifications. 1. Investigate possible causes and agree solutions with Core 2. Users to alert HR Systems Team if they realise an has not been received 3. Users to alert HR Systems Team if they receive an Appointment approval notification with missing details. 1. ASAP 2. On-going 3. On-going 1. In progress 2. On-going 3. On-going 5 Accepting applications into the Back Office When submitting applicants from the web the "select all" button often says "deselect all" even though none are selected. There is currently a bug with the select all and deselect all buttons and Core are going to fix this. If this does happen and the button says deselect all press it and the button will change to Select all and you can then press it again. May 2013 In progress 4

5 6 Appointment Approvals The information received by the Approver did not provide salary details (stated salary 0 ). The Approver wrote a comment asking for the salary to be input and rejected the appointment. The notification was received telling the Recruiter that the post had been rejected because: and no reason was stated, it gave just a blank paragraph space. Beneath that was the appointment details as she had submitted them, complete with salary correctly input. This is a bug that is to be fixed. May 2013 In Progress 7 Reporting Boxi Reporting Facility to be developed March 2013 In progress 8 When sending regret s through the system, the user is required to input the senders name at the end of the however when sending to all regretted applicants this doesn t apply to all (like it does with from address and attachments) Unfortunately it is not possible to use the apply to all functionality for the body of the message. The only option is for us to add a generic signature. February 2013 In progress 5

6 and therefore the user needs to enter these details into every to be sent before sending the to all. 9 There is lack of consistency in the job postings appearing on the website. Further Particulars templates available in the Recruiters Guide: to be redrafted according to Grade and immigration requirements and with HTML code. February 2013 Complete 10 Further Particulars weblinks displayed in the job posting, within the information for candidates, are not direct links; they require to be copied and pasted into a browser. Investigate with Core possible solutions to enable formatting and direct links. HTML solution identified and implemented across the University. February 2013 Complete 11 The Core Portal times out very quickly, around 20 minutes. It is not uncommon for staff to receive interruptions whilst working on the system. The timeout has now been increased to 8 hours. November 2012 Complete 12 Some PDFs are being generated with missing data. 1. Investigate possible causes and agree solution with Core 1. Complete 2. On-going 1. Complete 2. Ongoing 6

7 13 has indicated that users expected the apply links from advertisers to direct them straight to the vacancy rather than the internal jobs landing page 2. Users to alert HR Systems Team if a PDF is generated with missing data Apply buttons now are direct links as the advertisers are ed the vacancy url. an example the link below takes you to vacancy rrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_i d= October 2012 Complete To use the link for other vacancies all you need to do is replace the vacancy reference number at the end of the link, (id= XXXX). 14 On a couple of occasions there has been duplicate standard wording appearing in a job posting. If this should happen please contact the HR Systems team. This has been resolved and should not reoccur. No Further Action Required Complete 15 Users reported that the MyEd channel was difficult to find The MyEd Channel has been added to the admin tab to the default layout for the MyEd staff profile. There may be some staff that don t have the standard staff layout and they would need to add this channel manually. No Further Action Required Complete 16 There are concerns that some staff A reminder to all staff regarding No Further Action Complete 7

8 have not realised that they must register as an internal applicant on the new system to view internal vacancies. internal registration has been sent and a statement has been placed on the Vacancies site to highlight the need for staff to register and login in to view internal vacancies. Required 17 Preference to retain 12 midnight closing date time Details of the 5pm closing date time have been added to the How to Apply Section and the Vacancy listings pages of the Vacancies website. December 2012 Complete 8

9 Training and Supporting Guidance Users have indicated that refresher training and additional/revised supporting documentation is required. Additionally that it may be beneficial to review the training approach to deliver more hands on training. User understanding and knowledge of the new system is integral to the smooth running of the recruitment process. As this is a third party product it was not possible to enable the level of validation as was delivered by the previous system. This increases the need for users to have a thorough understanding of their role and the workflow. The following actions are required; High level work flows have been published and more detailed lower level process workflow diagrams are being developed (In progress) Develop and publish supporting online user videos (In progress) User Clinics have been provided,, allowing users to attend a session to ask for overviews of specific areas of the system (In progress) Review Training approach and consider how users could obtain more hands on training. Hands on Training now being delivered. (Complete) Review user manuals to identify any areas that could be streamlined (In progress) Some staff have been unable to register as an internal applicant. The erecruitment system makes use of the universities Identity Management system (IDM) to supply UUN and data. If the data held against that member of staff is incorrect, missing key data or there are duplicate records this may need to be updated. In addition, the staff members address must be registered in the Edinburgh Directory (Eddir) to be fed in to the IDM. If a member of staff is unable to register as an Internal Applicant they should contact their local computer support representative to have their access on IDM checked and updated. No further action required. 9

10 Applicants Experiencing Issues Submitting Applications Applicants were reporting problems with completing free text areas of the application form or when trying to upload documents. These errors were resulting in a generic page not found error leaving applicants without any indication of the nature of the error. This left applicants unable to submit applications. This issue was originally identified immediately before the launch. The issue at that time indicated that the problem was with the security set up around cookies. This was resolved and agreement was reached to launch the system as planned. Following the launch and the volume of users increased the actual scale of the problem was realised. Initially assistance was given to individuals to allow them to complete their application while tweaks were made to the system. A week following the launch it was agreed with Core that this was not practical and a reduced security needed to be put in place to remove the impact to applicants. Due to security risks this approach could not continue indefinitely. Further tweaks have made to the rules and the logs monitored to consider if the impact to applicants has been significantly reduced. The Board are to consider a recommendation to switch back to an active security mode on 6th December. In addition to the changes to the rules the error message returned to users will be more indicative of the possible causes of the error. Possible reasons for experiencing an error include; the use of special or restricted characters, examples of these include the use of +, #, ~ or * keywords such as select, insert, update, delete or combinations of these open and close brackets documents uploaded in excess of 20Mb By clicking the back button users should be returned to their previous page where they will be able to edit the text entered. Should users continue to experience problems then they should contact the HR Systems Team. 10

11 Applicants have reported that they have completed all sections of the application form but they have no option to submit their application. The submit application option is only displayed once every required section of the application form is completed. Applicants should review every section of the application form, in particular, are the correct number of references provided or have all additional questions been answered. Generating the PDF Applications The PDFs are not generating when requested or are taking an unexpectedly long time to complete. Corrupt or protected documents uploaded by applicants can cause an error when generating the PDF's. This has the consequence of pausing the PDF generation queue and all remaining requests will be stalled until the process is manually restarted. This is not an ideal solution and Core were already planning to deliver replacement PDF software early The new software will skip the problematic document and move on to the next application. It may take up to 10 minutes for the PDF generation process to start as the process runs as part of a scheduled job. Depending on the number of other PDF generation requests, the number of applications and the attached supporting documents it is not unlikely that it could take up to 20 minutes for the PDF pack to generate. An update was made early November which stopped some applicant document types being converted to an image before producing the PDF. This should have improved the speed of the generation very slightly. The following actions are required; Regular monitoring of the PDF queue so that the process is restarted without undue impact to users (complete) Replace the PDF software to elegantly handle errors without impacting users (Phase 1b) The PDFs are unreadable and the format can be distorted. 11

12 An update to the software was made on 6 th November to stop certain aspects of the application pack being converted to images before the PDF conversion. It has been noted that the font size of the application forms is still small, this is being investigated with Core. Any individual applications that were generated before the PDF update on 6th November would need to be generated again. Generating the PDF pack for the vacancy will not recreate the individual application PDFs but will use the previous versions. By choosing Select All followed by Generate Applications and this will recreate the individual application PDFs. The PDF pack can then be recreated. Any issue with either duplication or missing text in the PDFs should be reported to HR Systems team to investigate. The following actions are required; Identify whether the font size for application forms can be increased (Complete) Recruiters to recreate individual application PDFs created before 6 th November before recreating the full PDF pack (complete) Replace the PDF software to produce more usable PDF packs (Phase 1b) Some PDFs are being generated with missing data. This is being investigated with Core. Should this occur then HR Systems team should be alerted so that the matter can be investigated. The following actions are required; Investigate possible causes and agree solution with Core (Complete) Users to alert HR Systems Team if a PDF is generated with missing data (in progress) 12

13 Notifications Notifications are not being received or missing details from Appointment approval notifications. This is being investigated with Core and has been raised as a priority issue as we appreciate this is causing problems and additional work for users. Should this occur then HR Systems team should be alerted so that the matter can be investigated. The following actions are required Investigate possible causes and agree solutions with Core (in progress) Users to alert HR Systems Team if they realise an has not been received Users to alert HR Systems Team if they receive an Appointment approval notification with missing details. Closing Date Time A preference for retaining the midnight closing date has been expressed. A closing time of 5pm was agreed with stakeholders as a beneficial change to allow for the applicant to contact the HR Systems team or recruiter should they experience technical issues. Under the old system the deadline at 12 midnight meant there was no technical support available. This timescale has been reviewed with the User Group with feedback in favour of 5pm. Details of the 5pm closing date time have been added to the How to Apply Section and the Vacancy listings pages of the Vacancies website. Further Particulars Recruiters are unable to format the further particulars element of the advert text: It is not possible to highlight headings making the advert text difficult to read, impacting the applicant experience. 13

14 It is also not possible to include active URLs allowing applicants to easily link to supplementary information. The current functionality was delivered for UoE during Phase 1. At that time it was known that certain formatting was not possible but this was accepted for consideration at a later date. It is understood that the requirement can be met without incurring significant costs by: Training all relevant users in how to obtain the required formatting and active URLs via an HTML editor, or; Reverting to the Core standard functionality of attaching a word document to the advert. The word document would contain all further particulars information and a short description would be displayed as the advert text. (see Oxford for example It has been agreed by the Project Board and User Group that a trial of the HTML editor option will be undertaken. No system changes are required at this time. Sending Communications to Candidates through s When sending regret s through the system, the user is required to input the senders name at the end of the however when sending to all regretted applicants this doesn t apply to all (like it does with from address and attachments) and therefore the user needs to enter these details into every to be sent before sending the to all. Unfortunately it is not possible to use the apply to all functionality for the body of the message. The only option is for us to add a generic signature. Advertising Validation The validation requires an advert code even when the post is not to be advertised. This should not be happening have raised this with Core and any issue will be fixed as part of phase 1b. Accepting Applications into the Back Office 14

15 Users do not understand the need for applications to be submitted into the Back Office. This is an additional and unnecessary step given the small numbers who withdraw/need to submit revised documents. When submitting applicants from the web the "select all" button often says "deselect all" even though none are selected. The functionality of the system requires us to accept applications into the Back Office. There is currently a bug with the select all and deselect all buttons and Core are going to fix this. If this does happen and the button says deselect all press it and the button will change to Select all and you can then press it again. Updating Candidate Statuses Updating applicant status appears to be only possible within the back office, much more cumbersome than previously as unable to pass to academic to do and forward on to HR. The formatting of the names and listing isn t that easy to use. Why does name put together both first and second name? Usability an issue as you need to scroll to find the name and clicking on the applicant, then typing in to get the status quickly and then picking up mouse again to save and again to ok that. The printed off shortlist which is so small for people to read. User suggested it would be more effective if it is possible to generate an excel list of all applicants for a vacancy. The applicant status must be completed in the Back Office and there is a list available under My Vacancies although we do plan to launch a BOXI Universe in February 2013 from which you will be able to run this kind of report and export it into excel. Appointment Approvals The information received by the Approver did not provide salary details (stated salary 0 ). The Approver wrote a comment asking for the salary to be input and rejected the appointment. The notification was received telling the Recruiter that 15

16 the post had been rejected because: and no reason was stated, it gave just a blank paragraph space. Beneath that was the appointment details as she had submitted them, complete with salary correctly input. This is a bug in the system and Core are looking into fixing this as part of Phase1b. 16