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.