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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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Open the form in the Process Inspector. Application windows should say the bindings are complete and that each names a column that exists.
  5. Enable Close Application Windows on the Tasks screen. It runs daily, moves closed rounds to Ready to shortlist and sends the closing notice.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.