Application Windows & Shortlisting

Accept applications only during dated rounds, queue and shortlist them, cap places, and run first-come-first-served rounds for placements.

How Application Windows Work

Normally a user input view accepts submissions at any time and sends each one straight to its first approver. Application windows change that for placements that run a competitive round: applications are accepted only between two dates, held in a queue nobody is told about, and when the window closes a co-ordinator chooses who goes forward. Everybody else is declined.

The feature is built around a placement (anything people apply for: a work-experience slot, a course, a clinic session) held in one datastore, and an application form whose datastore names the placement chosen.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Forms:

Application Periods — the dated rounds for each placement
Shortlisting — decide each closed round
Process Inspector — the Application windows section of a form, for checking the set-up

Admin Panel → Processes:

Shortlisting — the same console for co-ordinators, once granted

Architect Panel → Automation:

Tasks — Close Application Windows, which marks rounds ready and sends the closing notice

Each placement says how it takes applications

The placement datastore has an availability field, a Pills field whose options, in order, mean:

No - Hide from Directory: not open. Applications are refused.
Yes - Apply Any Time: the normal behaviour. Applications go straight to the first approver, optionally with a cap on places (see Rolling Capacity and First-Come-First-Served Rounds).
Yes - Only During Set Periods: applications are accepted only inside an open period, and queued for shortlisting.

A placement nobody has set reads as not open. A fourth option for dated rounds filled first come, first served is described in the capacity article.

What happens to an application

The form checks the dates before saving anything. Outside a window the applicant is told why, for example Applications for this placement open on or closed on a date, and nothing is created.
Inside a window the application is queued. The applicant gets their confirmation e-mail; nobody else is told. Their progress bar reads Awaiting shortlisting.
The window closes on its closing date, whether or not any task runs.
A co-ordinator shortlists the round. Up to the number of places are chosen, a reserve list may be ranked, and the rest are declined.
Shortlisted applications go to their next stage and the approver is e-mailed. From then on each is an ordinary request.
Reserves wait. If a shortlisted application is later declined, cancelled or timed out, its place is free and a reserve can be promoted.
Applications not chosen are recorded as an ordinary decline, so the decline e-mail, the progress bar and the Declined tab all behave normally. Their tracking page does not offer the apply-again link, because the window has closed.

Two clocks

Whether a window is open is a date comparison made on every submission, so applications stop on the closing date even if the Close Application Windows task never runs. But the Shortlisting console only lets you act on a round whose status is Ready to shortlist. The task sets that status on its first run after the closing date and e-mails the round's Notify addresses; without the task, set the status by hand in Application Periods.

Worked example

An NHS work-experience hub offers theatre placements in two October rounds, each advertised through September with six places. A student applies on 14 September; the form accepts it and queues it, and the student's tracker says Awaiting shortlisting. Applications close on 26 September. Next morning the task marks both rounds Ready to shortlist and e-mails the placement co-ordinator. They open Shortlisting, pick six for each round, rank three reserves, and confirm. The six students' parents are e-mailed for consent; everyone else receives the declined e-mail.

Recommendations

Use set periods only where you must choose; Apply Any Time with a places cap is simpler when first come first served is fair.
Enable the Close Application Windows task, or someone must set statuses by hand.
Name a from-address on the form's first approval stage; the closing notice is sent from it.
Check the Process Inspector before opening the first round.

Switching On Application Windows for a Form

Application windows are switched on per form, by naming three fields on the user input view. There is no global switch: a form with all three set takes part, and any other form behaves exactly as before. This article covers the one-off set-up; rounds themselves are added in Application Periods.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Forms:

User Input Views — the intake settings on the view, through Edit User Input View
Process Inspector — the Application windows section, which checks the result

Architect Panel → Automation:

Tasks — Close Application Windows

Admin Panel → Processes:

Shortlisting — grant this tile to your co-ordinators

What must exist first

A placement datastore, with an availability field that is a Pills field whose options are, in this order: not open, open at any time, open only during set periods. Pills store the position of the chosen option, which is what the platform reads. A dropdown or radio list will not work.
An application form over its own datastore, with a field that is a database dropdown pointing at the placement datastore. Both the searchable dropdown and the older dropdown work, and the column it shows applicants is the name the Shortlisting console uses for each placement.
Approval stages on the form. The queue holds an application before its first approver, so a form with no stages has nothing to hold it for.

The settings on the form

Intake: Placement Field: the row name of the placement dropdown on the application datastore.
Intake: Placement Datastore: the ID of the placement datastore.
Intake: Availability Field: the row name of the availability Pills field on the placement datastore.
Intake: Placement Start Date Field: optional. The row name of the start-date field on the application. Set it to allow several rounds on one placement to take applications at the same time; see Application Periods and Concurrent Rounds.
Intake: Places Field and Intake: Confirm Stage: optional, for capacity; see Rolling Capacity and First-Come-First-Served Rounds.

All three of the first settings must be filled in. Two out of three is treated as off, silently, so a half-finished form accepts applications at any time rather than refusing ones nobody meant to refuse.

Step by step

Create or convert the availability field on the placement datastore to the three-option Pills field. Existing placements that should stay open keep the second option.
On the builder, press Edit User Input View on the application form and fill in the three intake settings. Type row names exactly; nothing checks them as you save.
Give the form's first approval stage a sending account. The closing notice is sent from it, and with several accounts and none named it is not sent at all.
Open the form in the Process Inspector. Application windows should say the bindings are complete and that each names a column that exists.
Enable Close Application Windows on the Tasks screen. It runs daily, moves closed rounds to Ready to shortlist and sends the closing notice.
Give co-ordinators a security group with: Read, Add New and Edit Existing on the Application Periods datastore; Read and Edit Existing on the Application Queue datastore; Read, and Edit Existing to act, on the application datastore. Then grant them the Shortlisting tile. See Permissions.
Set a placement to Yes - Only During Set Periods and add its first period.

The placement page is yours

The platform decides whether an application is accepted and which round it belongs to. The page where applicants browse placements and pick a round is part of your application: if you allow concurrent rounds, that page should fill in the start-date field from the round the applicant chose.

What goes wrong

Nothing changes: one binding is missing or misspelt. The Process Inspector says which.
Every application refused: the placement is set to set periods but has no open period, or two rounds are open with no start-date field set.
Co-ordinators see no Shortlisting tile: it is ungranted, or they lack Read on the application datastore.
No closing notice: the task is off, the round's Notify is empty, or no sending account could be chosen.

Worked example

A college runs taster days. Its courses datastore gains an availability Pills field, and its Taster Application form already has a searchable dropdown course pointing at courses. The architect sets Intake: Placement Field to course, Intake: Placement Datastore to the courses datastore's ID and Intake: Availability Field to the Pills field's row name. The Process Inspector reads complete, the task is enabled, the admissions group is granted the datastores and the Shortlisting tile, and the first course is switched to set periods.

Recommendations

Check the Process Inspector after every change to the bindings.
Grant permissions before the first round closes, not after.
Convert placements one at a time to set periods.
Name the sending account on the first approval stage.

Application Periods and Concurrent Rounds

An application period is one round for one placement: when applications are accepted, when the placement itself runs, and how many places there are. A placement set to Only During Set Periods accepts applications only while one of its periods is open.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Forms:

Application Periods — every period, most recent opening date first
Shortlisting — each period's queue, and any periods that clash

The fields on a period

Placement Datastore: the datastore the placement lives in. Required.
Placement ID: the placement record's ID. Required. On some deployments this is a dropdown of placements by name.
Application Form: restrict the period to one form. Leave it empty to use it for every form that applies to this placement, such as an adult and an under-18 version of the same form.
Period: a name people will recognise, such as Week commencing 14 April.
Applications Open and Applications Close: the first and last days an application is accepted. This pair is the gate.
Placement Starts and Placement Ends: when the placement itself runs. This is what you advertise, and the start date is what tells concurrent rounds apart.
Places: how many applicants can be shortlisted. There is no limit on how many may apply to a competitive round.
Status: Open, Ready to shortlist, Shortlisted or Finished. Normally moved for you.
Notify: who to e-mail when the round closes and its queue is ready. Separate several addresses with semicolons.

Adding a period

Open Application Periods and add a row.
Choose the Placement Datastore and enter the Placement ID. Both are required, so a period cannot be saved without a placement.
Leave Application Form empty unless the period is for one form only.
Fill in both date pairs, the number of places and a Notify address.
Leave Status at Open, and save.
Check that the placement itself is set to Yes - Only During Set Periods; periods on a placement set otherwise are ignored.

On the work-experience deployment each placement record carries an Application Periods row action, shown only on placements set to set periods, which opens the list already filtered to that placement. Your application can have the same; ask whoever builds it.

What Status does and does not do

Open, Ready to shortlist and Shortlisted do not open or close anything. The dates do. A round with Status Open whose closing date has passed refuses applications.
Ready to shortlist is what the Shortlisting console needs before it lets anyone choose. The Close Application Windows task sets it; if the task is not enabled, set it by hand once the round has closed.
Finished is the exception: a finished round is no longer offered or accepted whatever its dates say. Use it to withdraw a future round as well as to end a past one.

Several rounds at once

One placement can take applications for several rounds over the same days, for example rounds starting 8 and 19 October both advertised through September. This needs the form's Intake: Placement Start Date Field to be set, and that field to be drawn on a stage of the form. The start date on each application then says which round it is for.

Without the start-date field, only one window may be open on a placement at a time. With two open, every application to that placement is refused.
Two open rounds that start on the same day cannot be told apart even with the field. Applications to those two rounds are refused; other rounds on the same placement are unaffected. Shortlisting marks each with Clashes with another open period - applications refused, so a co-ordinator sees it before an applicant does.
A start date that matches no open round is refused with a request to choose the dates again.

Worked example

A theatre department offers two rounds in October, each with six places. The co-ordinator adds two periods for the same placement: both open 14 September and close 26 September; one starts 8 October, the other 19 October. Because the form's start-date field is set and drawn on stage 1, a student who picked the 19 October dates on the placement page is queued for the second round. When the department later cancels a planned November round, the co-ordinator sets that period to Finished and it disappears from the placement page.

Recommendations

Give every period a Notify address.
Never start two open rounds on the same day for one placement.
Use Finished to withdraw a round, not by moving its dates.
Leave Application Form empty unless a round really is for one form only.

Shortlisting a Closed Round

When an application window closes, every application made during it is waiting in a queue nobody has been told about. Shortlisting is where a co-ordinator sees the whole queue at once, chooses who goes forward, ranks a reserve list and declines everybody else in one step.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Processes:

Shortlisting — the co-ordinator's console, once granted to their security group

Architect Panel → Forms:

Shortlisting — the same console for architects

You see only rounds on forms whose datastore you can read, and you can act only where you hold Edit Existing on it. Otherwise the page says you can see the round but not act on it.

The list of rounds

Rounds waiting for a decision are listed first. Each shows the placement name and period name, the form, its closing date, the number of places, the number of applications (and how many are still waiting) and its status. Two markers may appear: First come, first served, with places left, and a red Clashes with warning for a round that refuses applications. Press Shortlist on a round that is Ready to shortlist, or Open on any other.

Shortlisting a round

Open the round. The heading gives the placement and period; below it the form, application and placement dates, status, and a line of Places, taken, remaining and applications.
Read the queue. Each row shows the reference and the fields the form collected at stage 1, formatted as people read them, with the Outcome so far.
Tick Shortlist for each applicant to take a place. The count beneath reads how many of the places you have chosen; more than the number of places turns it red and disables the button.
Tick Reserve for applicants to hold back. The order you tick them in is their reserve ranking. Ticking one box clears the other: nobody can be both.
Press Confirm shortlist. A confirmation warns that the shortlisted applications go to their next stage and everyone not shortlisted or in reserve is declined, and that this cannot be undone here.

Shortlisted applications are sent to the stage they would have reached on submission, and that stage's approver is e-mailed. Reserves stay waiting. Everyone else receives the declined e-mail.

After shortlisting

Outcomes read Shortlisted, Reserve with its rank, Not shortlisted, Withdrawn, or Waiting.
A place is freed whenever a shortlisted application is declined, cancelled or timed out later, including by a supervisor from their e-mail link. Its outcome then reads (place released).
Promote a reserve into a free place. While every place is taken it is refused with Decline somebody first to free one.
Close this round when places are filled and reserves are no longer needed. It declines everybody still on the reserve list and marks the round Finished.

If you cannot shortlist

This period is still open, so the queue is not final: the status is still Open. If the closing date has passed, the Close Application Windows task has not run; enable it, or set the status to Ready to shortlist in Application Periods.
No tick boxes: you lack Edit Existing on the form's datastore, or the round has already been shortlisted.
A round you expect is missing: you cannot read its form's datastore.

Held applications

An application that an answer flag is holding is still shortlisted when you choose it, and keeps its place, but its next approver is not told until the hold is released from its progress page. See Answer Flags.

Worked example

A round for an outpatient clinic closes with fourteen applications for four places. The co-ordinator opens Shortlisting the next morning, reads the applicants' year group and statements, ticks four for Shortlist and three for Reserve in order of preference, and confirms. A week later one shortlisted student's parent declines consent. The round shows that place as released, and the co-ordinator presses Promote on Reserve #1, whose parent is e-mailed straight away. Once all four placements are confirmed they press Close this round, and the remaining two reserves are declined.

Recommendations

Shortlist promptly; applicants hear nothing until you do.
Keep a short, ranked reserve list.
Close the round once reserves are no longer needed, so they are not left waiting.
Grant Edit Existing on the application datastore only to those who decide.

Rolling Capacity and First-Come-First-Served Rounds

Not every placement needs a competitive round. Two lighter shapes stop applications once a placement is full: rolling capacity for a placement that is simply open, and first-come-first-served rounds that keep published dates but announce each application immediately instead of queueing it.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Forms:

User Input Views — Intake: Places Field and Intake: Confirm Stage, through Edit User Input View
Application Periods — the places on each first-come-first-served round
Shortlisting — shows who has taken each round's places

Architect Panel → Data:

Datastores — the placement datastore, then Table Designer, for its places and availability fields

Rolling capacity: open, with a limit

For placements set to Yes - Apply Any Time. Applications go straight to their first approver as usual, but once the placement's places are taken the form refuses new ones with All of the places on this placement have now been filled.

Add a number field to the placement datastore for the number of places, and fill it in on each placement.
On the application form, set Intake: Places Field to that field's row name.
Set Intake: Confirm Stage to the stage number at which a place is genuinely taken, normally where the placement supervisor accepts the applicant.
Both settings are needed; one without the other is treated as off. The three main intake settings must also be set.

A place counts from the moment a request is approved at or beyond the confirm stage, and is freed the moment that request is declined, cancelled or timed out. Nothing is stored, so there is no counter to correct. Counting from submission would refuse the third applicant for a two-place placement before anybody had read the first.

A placement with 0 or no number of places is treated as not stated, not as full, and stays open.

Several forms, one count

If several forms write to the same application datastore and name the same placement field, such as adult and under-18 versions, they share the count. Each form's own confirm stage applies to its own applications, because their stage numbers can differ. A sibling form that leaves its confirm stage at 0 contributes nothing to the count, so the placement over-fills; a warning naming that form is written to the error log. Set the confirm stage on every form, or on none.

First-come-first-served rounds

Dated rounds where applications are accepted in the order they arrive, with no shortlisting. The placement's availability Pills field needs a fourth option, after the three described in How Application Windows Work; the platform reads the fourth position as this mode. Add it in Table Designer with a title such as Yes - Use Set Periods without Shortlisting.

Windows and rounds behave as for set periods: dates, concurrent rounds and the start-date field all work the same.
Each application takes a place on submission and is announced at once: its next approver is e-mailed straight away.
A full round refuses applications before anything is saved, telling the applicant all the places for those dates have been taken and to choose another set of dates.
Freed places reopen the round when a request is declined, cancelled or timed out.
Shortlisting shows the round as Applications, explains there is nothing to shortlist, and lists who holds each place.

If the form also names a confirm stage, a round's places are counted from approvals at that stage instead. Because approvals arrive after submission, more applicants than places can then be accepted until approvals land. Leave the confirm stage unset on first-come-first-served forms unless you want that.

Worked example

A private-sector employer offers two placements and is happy to take the first two suitable students. Its placement record has Places set to 2 and availability Yes - Apply Any Time. The form's confirm stage is 3, Employer Acceptance. Five students apply; all five reach the employer, who accepts two. The placement is now full and the form refuses a sixth applicant. When one accepted student withdraws and their request is cancelled, the place frees itself and the form accepts applications again.

Recommendations

Choose the shape by fairness: competitive rounds when you must choose, first come first served when order of arrival is fair.
Set the confirm stage on every form that shares a placement field.
Fill in places on every placement you want capped; 0 means no cap.
Check the Shortlisting list for places left on first-come-first-served rounds.