The purpose of this blog post is to provide an overview of the Applicant Status Configuration and an easy-to-follow guide to making changes to the status sets. Understanding the Applicant Status Configuration can sometimes be difficult in situations where the consultant is new to SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, facing specific troubleshooting challenges, or simply in need of a review. This guide should hopefully provide answers to all of those scenarios, and more.
Accessing the Applicant Status Configuration
Like other processes in SuccessFactors Recruiting, changes can be made in either the Instance or in Provisioning, with differing degrees of functionality. For example, new statuses can only be created in the back-end, while rearranging status positions and editing/adding Status Groups are only accessible features in the front-end.
After logging into either access point with the proper credentials, find your way to the Applicant Status Configuration:
Admin Center > Edit Applicant Status Configuration
Admin Center access
Provisioning > Applicant Status Configuration
Provisioning access
Editing the Applicant Status Configuration
To make edits to the configuration, either click the ‘Status Set Name’ of the status set you would like to make changes to, or under ‘Actions’ select Take Action > Edit. Similarly, in order to make edits to existing statuses, click the ‘Status Name’, or under ‘Actions’ select Take Action > Edit. Make changes as needed, click “Save” and then “I’m Done” when all edits to the Status Set are complete.
Making edits to the configuration
When making edits to a status, pay extra attention to a few very important fields:
You can easily make a status required by selecting the “Required” checkbox.
Labels:
- Internal Label: This is the text that internal users see to describe this status. In the example screenshot above, internal users will see this as the “Phone Screen” status in the candidate pipeline unless edits are made. For example:
The internal label as seen by a recruiter
- Candidate Label: This is the text that candidates will see when checking the status of their application. In the above example, candidates will view their status as “Reviewing all applications”.
- Next Step Text: This is the text that candidates see as the next step in the process when logged into the career site portal. In the above screenshot, candidates will see the next step is an “Interview”. Keep in mind that quite often, next step text is instead seen as something generic and consistent across statuses.
Settings:
Settings options
- Employee Referral Program Settings: If you would like the current status of a candidate to be visible to a referrer, select the checkbox and edit labels as you would like them to appear from their point of view.
- Settings: In most cases, you would probably want a status to be enabled for all candidates. You can, however, exclude a particular status from internal or external candidates for example.
- Hireable Options: Most statuses will likely not require any hireable options. In a status with “Hireable” checked, you can initiate onboarding. “Hired” is to be selected instead when you have a status that candidates are automatically moved into after being processed through Manage Pending Hires and onboarding.
- Email Templates:
Email template dropdown
There exist many potential recipients of email notifications. If a notification for a change in status is desired, you can select the template for each party. For example, you can set up the status to send an email to the hiring manager or recruiter team when a candidate enters the phone screening status. Be very aware of how many emails you are sending to your team as it can be easy to unintentionally flood their inboxes.
Permissions:
Permission options
- Selectable By: Individuals given permission in the “Selectable By” section have the ability to move a candidate to/from that status.
- Visible To: Those given permission from the “Visible To” section are able to view candidates within that status.
All of this functionality is the same between Admin Center and Provisioning so far.
You can also add statuses from other sets within Provisioning or the Admin Center by selecting “Add New Status”, checking boxes of desired statuses, and clicking “Add”.
Adding new statuses
To create an entirely new status within the set, you will have to navigate to Provisioning > Applicant Status Configuration > Edit Base > Add New Status.
In the “Edit Base Status” window, specify the Type, Name, and Category, then click “Save”.
Edit Base Status
You will then be able to add the status to your set with the dropdown in either Provisioning or Admin Center.
To edit groups within a status set (only possible within Admin Center), once again either select the group name or under ‘Actions’, select Take Action > Edit. Here you can change the label of the group, choose which statuses will appear under the label in the pipeline, or even delete the group itself.
Editing group settings
You can also simply move statuses to/between pre-existing groups in either Admin Center or Provisioning from a picklist.
If you would like to rearrange the order of your statuses in a status set, that action will have to be completed in the Admin Center, but it is a pretty straightforward task. For most statuses, you can simply hover your cursor over the “Take Action” dropdown and select either “Move Up” or “Move Down” to rearrange within a group.
Rearranging statuses
For larger sets this may be tedious as you have to move a status up or down one row at a time, but it is the only solution as of now.
To create a new group, select “Add New Status Group” and add a name for the configuration, a label for the pipeline, group type, and any statuses you would like to include. Only statuses of the same group type may be grouped together (for example, only In-Progress statuses are shown together below). Click “Save” when complete.
Creating new group
Creating New Status Sets
Creating a new status set itself is rather straightforward, but there are some important details to be aware of. First, only start the process of creating a new status set when you are sure you are ready. Once you begin the first steps, there is no way to delete it–even as a blank default template. Secondly, keep in mind that creating it and implementing it are two separate things. While you can create a status set completely within your web browser in provisioning, you need to edit the XML to actually assign it to a requisition.
To begin the process, click “Add New” on the Applicant Status Set Configuration page listing all the other status sets.
This creates a new status with a default name and statuses.
From here you can change the name, enter a description, and add or edit statuses like in any other set before selecting “I’m Done”.
If you plan to change statuses, as in if you are moving a requisition from one status set to this new one you have created, then old requisitions will continue to use that old status set and new requisitions will be based on this new set.
Common Troubleshooting Problems
- Name vs. Label: Oftentimes statuses have the same name as their labels, but there are other times where the label in the pipeline differs from the name you want to use when editing the XML. Be sure not to confuse these because it may lead to unintended errors.
In this example, “Interview 1” will appear in the XML, but “Interview One” will appear in the pipeline.
- Visibility of Statuses: If your statuses are not visible in the pipeline it could be for a few reasons. It is possible that you never added the status to that requisition’s status set or you did not enable the status for internal/external candidates in the settings.
- Missing Fields: You may find that by default your new status is missing the fields you would like to see within the pipeline in the front-end. You can edit the XML and associate that status with desired fields.
- Deleting Statuses: Statuses cannot be deleted per se, but one can disable a status. It is important to note that if a status is disabled then candidates will no longer be accessible if located within that status.
- Next Step Text Not Displaying: There are some reasons that Next Step Text might not appear to candidates on the RMK sites. The first possibility is that Mobile Apply is currently enabled. Once disabled in Manage Recruiting Sites this should be visible to the user. The next possibility is that the text color matches the background color and one or the other needs to change.