Use Case: Job Posting Portal
- Lisa Barnett
This use case provides how to create a Job Posting portal on your ShareVision site to share current open positions and manage applications for these positions. The features used in this use can can be adapted to improve your users' experience in a variety of other scenarios.
Rather than providing step by step instructions, this article will focus on identifying the different features and how to configure them on your site. Links are also provided to the existing knowledge base articles which include step by step instructions.
As a friendly reminder, you can click on any image to display it larger.
Job Posting Portal
The first step is to Add a New Portal to your site.
It is important to include the groups that will need to access this portal in the Portal Permissions. We recommend adding any group that will need access to use and any group that will be managing or updating the portal. In this example, we have added GRP All Staff so that all staff can view the Job Postings and submit applications. In addition, the GRP HR and GRP Managers groups have been added as these groups will be provided with elevated access to manage job postings, job descriptions and review all job applications.
The page that is displayed when the Job Posting Portal is selected in the Quick Start menu is called the Portal Landing Page.
Headings & Pages
The Job Posting Portal has 3 headings and 5 pages in the Quick Start Menu:
The headings and pages on the Quick Start menu will vary depending on the security groups that have been assigned to the user that is logged in and the security groups that have been provided access to each page on the portal.
ShareVision Administrators are responsible for assigning the appropriate security groups for each user. If you would like to view and/or change the security groups for a user, the View and Edit Groups for and Employee / Update User Groups article provides the step by step instructions.
Our Pages: Set Up and Configuration article includes more details about Page Access and Adding a New Page.
In this use case, any user in the groups that were provided with access to the Job Posting Portal can view the Current Job Postings and the Closed Job Postings pages because the following groups have been provided with access to both of those pages:
GRP All Staff
GRP HR
GRP Managers
Security groups do not need to be provided with access to headings. The headings will automatically be displayed if the user belongs to a group that has permissions to access to any of the pages listed in the heading section.
You can learn more about how headings work by reviewing the Headings section of the Manage Quick Start article.
For example, when a staff person, whose user account has not been added to the GRP HR or the GRP Managers group, views the Job Posting Portal, they do not have access to the HR and Managers heading or the pages below that heading which include All Applications and Job Descriptions.
Page Parts
Page part configuration is a very powerful tool which can be set up by your ShareVision Administrator to either restrict or allow changes by users to data and/or documents on your site. Just like with configuring access to pages, security groups can be used to allow or prevent users from viewing, adding or editing forms and uploading or editing documents.
In the screen captures below, you can see that only the HR Manager can edit the Job Postings and upload Job Descriptions on the Current Job Postings page.
On the Current Job Postings page, managers do not have the same options available to them:
Staff have the same access on the Current Job Postings Page as managers:
List Page Part Configuration
This section of the use case focuses on how configuring List Page Parts can enhance the user experience. That said, there is crossover to other topics like list and column settings because list page parts sometimes require fields on forms (columns on lists) to be setup in a particular way.
In the section above, examples of how the same pages appear differently depending on the user that is logged in was shown. The reason the HR Manager can add new or edit existing Job Postings is because they have been added to the GRP HR security group and this group has been provided with access to the New and Edit buttons on the Current Job Postings List Page Part. See List PagePart: Set Up and Configuration - PagePart Buttons to learn more.
Similarly, your ShareVision Administrator can configure the page part buttons on document page parts. In the example below, no one can add a new folder to the document library and only users in the GRP HR security group can upload new documents or edit existing ones. Refer to Documents PagePart: Set Up and Configuration - PagePart Buttons to learn more.
On the Current Job Postings, any user can select a job posting in the list and it will be displayed. Note that only a few of the fields on the form are displayed on the list page part.
Once a job posting has been filled, the job posting will automatically be removed from the Current Job Postings page and will be listed on the Closed Job Postings page instead. The job posting ‘moves automatically' because of the additional field filters set on the page parts for both the Current Job Postings
and the Closed Job Postings:
There are times where you may want to prevent users from displaying the form so that they cannot see all of the details on the form. For example, once a successful candidate has been selected, the Closed Job Posting page part can display limited details such as the Posting Date, Posting Number, Postion Title, Location, Closing Date and Time and the Successful Candidate. The Wage Rate, however, is not included in this page part and disabling users from viewing the form will prevent them from seeing this information.
On the list page part settings, in the pagepart buttons section, you can disable the option for users to view the form by selecting the Disable “Display” Form checkbox. Note that you can also select to allow the display form to be visible for users in selected groups. See List PagePart: Set Up and Configuration - PagePart Buttons to learn more.
The My Applications page allow users to apply for open positions and then limits them to only view their own applications.
The ShareVision Staff user applied for a Manager position. On the My Applications page, they can only see their application.
The ShareVision Manager user applied for two different Director positions. On the My Applications page, they can only see their applications.
To display only the list items for the user that is logged in, the form must have a field that captures the users name using a People or Group column type. In this example, the form has a an Applicant field which automatically captures the logged in user’s name when they add a new form.
In this example, the Applicant field on the form was set up on the list as a People or Group column and the user name comes from the GRP All Staff. Refer to the Create Column section of the Create a New Form for Users (Add a New List) article for more information.
The list page part on the My Applications page has 2 settings to make this work. Firstly, the Current Staff Field in the Data Source section of the list page part settings, is set up to automatically fill in the Applicant field on the form with the user name of the staff person that is currently logged in. The option to Lock Value is also selected which prevents the user that is filling in the form from changing the Applicant to another staff person’s name.
Secondly, the Additional Field Filters on the list page part needs to be configured so that only the application forms where the applicant’s name matches the user that is logged in will be displayed. You can use the [Me] value in the additional field filters to achieve this.
On the Job Application form, you can included reminder to upload their resumes. This is done by creating a column in the list settings and setting it up using the form headers feature.
Example of a form header:
Column Settings for the form header field displayed above:
To allow managers and HR to review applications that have been submitted, the All Applications page displays the applications submitted by all users. Access to the All Applications page has only been provided to GRP HR and GRP Managers.
Page Settings - GRP HR and GRP Managers have access. GRP All Staff does not.
Differences in the Quick Start Menu for Staff and Managers:
As HR is responsible for the job descriptions, the Job Description page is only available to them.
Page Settings - GRP HR has access. GRP All Staff and GRP Managers do not.
The Job Description page is only displayed for users that are in the GRP HR security group.
Using a HTML Page Part for Providing Instructions
You can use a HTML page part to provide users with instructions or other important details right where they need it. Using this feature can prevent your users from having to go and look for policies, procedures or other documentation which saves time and simplifies their work.
On the Job Descriptions page, a reminder of the process for updating the Job Descriptions available on the Current Job Postings page is provided. This helps to ensure that the HR Team doesn’t forget to publish the PDF version when new job descriptions are added or existing ones are updated. Note that you can add hyperlinks and can embed videos in HTML page parts.
Using Email Alert Manager to Notify Staff of New Job Postings
Use the Email Alert Manager to create an email alert when a new job opening is posted.
When a new job is posted, all users in the GRP All Staff will receive an email:
Important Information When Including a Link to an Item
When a link to an item is included in an email alert, users will be able to edit the item when they select the link in the email and it opens in a browser window. This occurs because the permissions assigned for adding, editing and viewing the form as explained above are set in the list page part settings and links from Email Alert Manager by pass the page part.
There are 2 ways to resolve the issue:
In the email alert, do not select the option to Include list item link in email body
Instead, add a hyperlink to the Current Job Postings page in the email body:
Use Form Security Configuration to Prevent Unintended Edits on Forms
See the section below for details.
Using Form Security Configuration to Prevent Unintended Edits on Forms
The Form Security Configuration feature is included with ShareVision Plus subscriptions. For ShareVision subscriptions, this add-on feature can be subscribed to for $249 / year plus applicable taxes.
One of the functions of Form Security Configuration is Field Security which allows your ShareVision Administrator to assign permissions to fields when:
a new form is being filled in - New Form Permission
an existing form is being edited - Edit Form Permission
an existing form is being viewed - Display Form Permission
Because the settings in this feature are not dependent upon the list page part settings, setting up field security to prevent any users that are not in the GRP HR security group from editing the form will prevent unintended edits on the form.
Example of how to set up Edit Form Perimissions to allow only users in the GRP HR security group to edit fields on the form:
If a user that is not in the GRP HR security group selects the Edit button on a Job Posting form
All of the fields are read-only and no changes can be made