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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

  1. Open Application Periods and add a row.
  2. Choose the Placement Datastore and enter the Placement ID. Both are required, so a period cannot be saved without a placement.
  3. Leave Application Form empty unless the period is for one form only.
  4. Fill in both date pairs, the number of places and a Notify address.
  5. Leave Status at Open, and save.
  6. 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.