This month's release brings a mix of new features and improvements to existing functionality, with a focus on compliance, control and everyday usability.
Read on for a full breakdown of everything that's new.
- AI Skills Boolean Search
- MSP on Placement Records
- Document Templates & Docusign
- Off Limits Enhancements
- Activity Type Grouping
- Field Context Help
- Compliance Item History
- Lock Records
- User Group Permission | Change Active Company Suppliers
- Candidate Agency | Visibility of Agency
- Skill-Area Pills | Longlist Advanced Search
- Candidate Record | Compliance Progress
- Multi Language Support
- Weekly Hours Limit and Minimum Rest Hours
- Student Weekly Hours Limit
- Bulk Assign to Shift
- Shift Schedule Customization and Templates
- Dynamic Rates: Biweekly and Monthly Overtime Thresholds
AI Skills Boolean Search
Tracker Pro & Enterprise only
A new search button has been added under Resume Search > Boolean tab - Boolean from Skills. It automatically generates a Boolean search string from the skills you’ve entered under Advanced Search, which is a great time-saver.
Tip: You can also run these two areas as an OR search, so candidates only need to match one or the other, not both.
MSP on Placement Records
Tracker Launch, Core, Pro and Enterprise
You can now see the MSP associated with a job directly on its placement record when a job has an MSP value set. Previously, the MSP was only visible on the job itself, so anyone reviewing a placement had no way to see which MSP the job came from.
In turn, this appears at the bottom of the Placement Details block, in both the Full View and the Quick View.
The field is display-only and always reflects the MSP currently set on the job, so if the job's MSP changes, the placement updates to match. If the job has no MSP, the field stays hidden.
Document Templates & Docusign
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
We’ve made some enhancements that allow the uploading of a Word Document to utilise as a template to send via document (though these templates can also be used outside that workflow).
Document Templates
You can now add Word documents to the Document library (Tools & Settings > Collaboration > Document Library) to use as templates to send to Candidates and Contacts.
This improvement has been designed with merging in mind. Through working together we are able to build a SQL view containing the merge tag’s you require, that can be added to these documents before uploading. In turn, when generating these documents on a candidate, contact or placement record, these tags are populated. So, whether you are using Docusign or not, you’ll have completed documents. If you would like to explore setting up this option further, please speak with your Customer Service Manager.
Outside of this option, you’ll see in the workflow covered below, that when generating these templates against a record, you can open it, allowing you to manually ‘fill in the blanks’.
Generating a Document from a Template
Under the Action Menu on Candidate, Contact or Placement Records is the option to “Generate a Document”.
In the next steps you’ll be able to choose one of the documents you’ve added as a template, and clicking Prepare will give you the option to open it (this is useful if you’ve not gone the SQL View > Merge Tags route with us, and will allow you instead to ‘fill in the blanks’.
Regardless of which option you take, a copy of that template/document will now be attached to the record under a folder named Merge Templates.
Sending the Document
If you’re not using Docusign, and as that document is now attached to a record, you could just send it out via email, but the real benefit here comes from sending it out via Docusign.
Here, the workflow starts the same as it always has via the Action Menu > Send a Form > and clicking Docusign.
Here is where the workflow has changed, there is now a drop down to choose where to send a Source Document (e.g. one of those attached to the record), this is the new workflow, or you can choose Docusign Template - which is the previous workflow and has not changed.
Tick one or more documents and choose Continue in Docusign.
At this point, a new tab will load in the browser, where Docusign will load directly into the ‘prepare’ screen with the following information passed in from Tracker:
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Any selected documents will be pre-added to the Docusign envelope in the order they were selected.
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The candidate First Name, Last Name and Email address will be automatically included as the first recipient in the envelope, providing they have an email address on their record (this is a mandatory requirement from Docusign).
The workflow then continues within Docusign.
Sent Documents
Once a document has been sent through Docusign, the initial ‘sent’ document will be
attached to Tracker in the Documents block against the source record. In addition, the Form Sends
block can be used to track the status of a document at any time. Once a document has been signed by all parties, the signed copy will also be attached to the record in the Documents area.
Placement Record | New Documents block
Whilst Candidate and Contact records already had a Documents block available, as part of this project, the Documents block has been added to Placement records, and can be added in Layout designer.
Off Limits Enhancements
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
Off Limits lets recruiters flag a candidate, contact or company as restricted, for example from assignment, communication or everything. These enhancements makes Off Limits quicker to set, easier to see and more controllable.
Mandatory end date
Off Limits Until (date) is now mandatory on the Off Limits dialog for Candidate, Contact and Company records.
Edit Off Limits permission
A new user group permission, Edit Off Limits, replaces Clear Off Limits and covers both Candidate and Company Off Limits. Users with it can toggle, edit and clear Off Limits. Users without it can still hover over the Off Limits icon to see the details, but the icon can't be clicked and the dialog doesn't open. Existing settings carry over: groups that had Clear Off Limits ticked have Edit Off Limits ticked, and groups that didn't have it unticked.
Emailing Off Limits applicants
A new setting, Allow Emails to Applicants, is in Tools & Settings > Placement Settings, in the Parsing & Shortlist Settings section. When set to Yes, recruiters can send a single email to a candidate who is Off Limits for Communication or Everything, from the shortlist of a job the candidate applied to directly. It is off by default. Bulk emails stay blocked, the exception applies only to that job's shortlist and not to longlists or list views, and Off Limits indicators still show.
Cascading Off Limits from the company record
A company can be set as Off Limits for Bulk Communication to Candidates, and this now carries through to candidates whose current employer is that company.
Bulk communication to those candidates is restricted, and the candidate's Off Limits icon turns yellow where the restriction comes from their employer (Off Limits icons that are set directly show red).
Candidate Off Limits banner
A new setting, Show Candidate Off Limits Banner, is in Tools & Settings > Candidate Settings > General Settings. It is off by default.
When set to Yes, a banner on the candidate record header shows the candidate's Off Limits type, end date and reason.
If the candidate has no Off Limits of their own but their current employer is Off Limits for Bulk Communication to Candidates, the banner says so and names the company. If both apply, the candidate's own banner is shown.
Activity Type Grouping
Tracker Growth, Pro and Enterprise.
The Activity Types filter on the Activities block now has three group options, All Telephone Calls, All Appointments and All Emails, pinned at the top of the dropdown above the individual types. Choosing a group filters the activities to every type in that category in one click, instead of selecting each type separately.
The groups are built from each activity type's core type: Telephone and Sales Call for calls, Appointment, Event, Interview and WebEx for appointments, and Email for emails. Custom activity types are included automatically when they use one of those core types. Groups can be combined with each other and with individual types, and the dropdown label shows the group name for a single choice or the number of activity types when several are chosen.
The options are available on the Activities block for Candidates, Contacts, Companies, Jobs and Placements, and in the Quick View activity tab.
Field Context Help
Tracker Enterprise only.
Contextual Field-Level Help Text lets administrators attach their own explanatory text to specific fields. Users see it as a question-mark icon beside the field label, which opens a short popover when clicked. It gives users in-product guidance on what a field expects or means for your business, without leaving the record. It is available on five fields across Company, Contact, Candidate and Placement records.
Setting it up.
Administrators manage help text in a new Field Help Text section in Tools & Settings > Application Settings > Application Settings. Each supported field can have one entry of up to 2,000 characters. The supported fields are listed with blank text, so nothing shows to users until an administrator adds some.
Clicking “Select a Field”, puts you in Field Selection Mode...
...where you to navigate Tracker to find the field you want to add the help text too.
Deleting an entry removes the icon the next time the record loads.
What users see.
When help text is saved for a field, a question-mark icon appears to the left of that field's label. Clicking it opens a popover with the text, and clicking anywhere outside closes it. If no text is set, no icon appears.
Compliance Item History
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
Editing a candidate compliance item now shows two tabs, Details and History.
The History tab is a read-only log of every status change, newest first, with these columns: Status (shown as a coloured badge), Note, Changed by and Date & time. Changed by shows the user's full name, System for automatic changes such as an item expiring, or Portal when the candidate acts on the candidate portal.
A footer shows how many changes are recorded, and an item with no history shows "No history recorded for this item." History applies to candidate compliance items only.
Lock Records
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
Users with the Lock/Unlock Records privilege can lock or unlock any record (Resource, Placement, Contact, Client, Lead, Job or Assignment/Project) using Lock Record / Unlock Record at the bottom of the Action Menu. You will need to provide a reason for the record being locked.
The change takes effect immediately and the option switches to reflect the record's state, and the actions recorded in the Audit History.
Users with the View Locked Records privilege can open locked records as normal.
Users without it see the Oops! screen.
Permissions
Both privileges are off by default. Administrators can enable them under Administration > User Groups > User Group Privileges.
Lock/Unlock Records
View Locked Records
Automatic Lock on Linked Project During Placement Approval
When a Placement record meets the requirements to be submitted for approval and is submitted, any Assignment/Project record linked to that Placement is locked automatically. The lock is removed automatically when the Placement is approved or rejected.
This means linked Project records are protected from changes while a Placement is pending approval, and are released automatically once the approval process concludes.
Automatic locking is controlled by a system-level setting that is off by default, please contact us if you would like this enabled.
User Group Permission | Change Active Company Suppliers
Tracker Core, Growth, Pro and Enterprise.
The “Change Active Company Suppliers” permission means that users who do not have this permission cannot edit the Tracker Supplier record if it is linked to a placement in a working state.
When you are restricted, and the Supplier is linked to placements in a working state, the Save button will not show in the record banner, and you will see the Cannot Save Record pill in its place.
Candidate Agency | Visibility of Agency
Tracker Core, Growth, Pro and Enterprise.
Further recent improvements to the Agencies feature, the Agency name now appears in the candidate summary area. Where this Agency is linked to a Supplier record in Tracker this will show as a hyperlink. Click the hyperlink to open a quick view of that Agency (Supplier) record, from where you can also navigate to the full record.
Skill-Area Pills | Longlist Advanced Search
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
Skills in Tracker are organised in three levels: a category (such as Experience) can have one or more Areas, and each area has one or more Skills. Until now, Longlist Advanced Search could only search on individual skills, so you couldn't search on an Area. With Dynamic Skills Grouping turned on, Longlist Advanced Search lets you select either an area or a specific skill and mark it as Required, Optional or Excluded.
Turning it on
Go to Tools & Settings > Back Office > Skills Profile. In the Skills Layout section, set Dynamic Skills Grouping to Yes. It is off by default, and nothing changes until it is switched on. It is available to customers with 12 or fewer Skill Categories. If you have 13 or more, the setting is shown but can't be changed.
Longlist searching
In Longlist Advanced Search, the single Required, Optional and Excluded Skills fields are replaced by one field per skill category, each labelled with the category name.
You can now search on a skill area as well as on a specific skill.
In the experience field, type to search, pick an area or a skill to apply it, then choose whether it is Required, Optional or Excluded from the small drop-down arrow on the pill. A two-row key at the top of the section explains the pill colours for Area’s and Skills for Required, Optional or Excluded.
Candidate record
Skills on a candidate record now appear as pills, which can be re-ordered by dragging so related skills can be grouped together.
Additionally, for Skills created under the Skills List Category/Area that are Yes/No skills (as opposed to those with a List applied), are now separated out from Experience into their own Skills Lists area.
Candidate Record | Compliance Progress
Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
The Candidate Compliance Items block now shows a progress bar with the percentage of mandatory compliance items complete. It includes counts for total mandatory items, verified items and outstanding items (including pending & unverified).
The figures use all of the candidate's mandatory compliance items, regardless of any job requirements, so they differ from the requirements progress bar on a placement record.
Multi Language Support
Tracker Enterprise only.
Tracker now supports French translations across the platform. Once a database is enabled for multi-language support (speak to your Customer Service Manager to enable), administrators can add French translations for naming conventions, custom field labels, and Layout Designer tab names, and set each user's default display language on their user record.
Users can also translate the content of any full-width text field on the fly with the new globe icon - translating in place, then choosing to replace the original text or copy the translation to their clipboard.
This is Phase 1 of our multi-language rollout, with French as the first language supported.
Display Settings > Naming Conventions translations
A new language tab strip (French) in Naming Conventions settings lets admins maintain French versions of every naming convention field alongside the English ones.
Display Settings > Custom field label translations
A Translations section in the Custom Field modal lets admins set a French label for any custom field. Fields with a translation saved show a green "FR" badge in the Custom Fields grid.
Layout Designer tab name translations
The same Translations section is now available on record tabs in Layout Designer, so tab names can be translated too — also flagged with a green "FR" badge in the tab list.
Startup Language preference
Every user record now has a Startup Language setting (English or French), which controls which language that user sees translated values in.
Translate text fields
A new globe icon on full-width text fields (standard or custom) opens a Translate Field modal, so users can translate the field's content into French and either replace the original text or copy the translation to their clipboard - without leaving the record.
Weekly Hours Limit and Minimum Rest Hours
Tracker Enterprise only.
Two new settings help your schedulers keep bookings within the limits you set. Go to Tools and Settings > Assignment Settings > Shift Settings and enter a Weekly Hours Limit and/or a Minimum Rest Hours value. Both default to 0, which leaves that check off, and each can be used independently.
When a scheduler assigns a worker to a shift, or changes the times on an existing booking using Change Person's Shift Time, Tracker now checks the booking on save:
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If the worker's total for the week would go above the Weekly Hours Limit, a Weekly Hours Limit warning shows the resulting total and the limit. Choose Yes, book anyway or No, do not book.
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If the gap between the shift and the worker's nearest adjacent shift would be less than the Minimum Rest Hours, an Insufficient Rest Between Shifts warning shows the actual gap and the minimum. A reason is required to continue.
The warnings never block a booking, and a booking that lands exactly on a limit does not trigger one. If one save would breach both limits, you see a single combined warning.
Bookings that are over a limit also show the red compliance badge on the shift card in place of the worker's photo. If the worker also has a document compliance issue, the reasons are combined in one tooltip. The badge updates automatically if a later booking pushes an earlier one over a limit.
Every time a scheduler continues past a warning, a Safety Override entry is added to the worker's Timesheet Audit History (Timesheet > Audit History), recording who continued, when, the total against the limit and, for rest warnings, the reason entered.
Student Weekly Hours Limit
Tracker Enterprise only.
To help you manage working-hours limits for students, there is a new Student field (Yes, No or blank) in the Human Resources block of the candidate record, directly below Disability.
There is also a new Student Weekly Hours Limit setting in Tools & Settings > Assignment Settings > Shift Settings, where a value of 0 leaves the check off.
When a booking would take a candidate marked Student = Yes over that limit, Shift Planner shows a Student Hours Limit warning after clicking Save and Publish.
Additionally, the shift card shows the compliance badge with a tooltip.
Students are also checked against the general Weekly Hours Limit, and if one save breaks both, you see a single combined warning. As with the other hours warnings, you can book anyway, no reason is needed, and the override is recorded as a Safety Override in the Timesheet Audit History.
Bulk Assign to Shift
Tracker Enterprise only.
Filling a busy shift no longer means clicking Assign on every candidate. In Shift Planner, tick the candidates you want in the Candidates found for this Shift panel, open the Action menu.
You can choose:
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Assign Selected to this Shift to add everyone ticked to the active shift.
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Assign Selected to all visible Shifts to add them to every visible shift for the job. A confirmation shows the maximum number of assignments that will be attempted before anything happens.
Candidates who are already on the shift, have a exclusion set against the company, or would exceed the shift's open positions are skipped, and a summary message tells you how many were assigned and why any were skipped.
Assignments are staged just like single assigns, so click Save and Publish to commit them. Selection applies to the current page of candidates, so repeat the action on the next page if you need to. No extra compliance checks are added.
Shift Schedule Customization and Templates
Tracker Enterprise only.
The Shift Schedule on the New Orders form now handles days with different hours, and lets you save and reuse schedules you build. Click Customize to get started.
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Set a Start and End time for each day in each week of the rotation, for example a shorter Friday. Days that differ from the rest of their week are marked with a Differs badge.
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Save Template: Give it a name and optional description, and it saves the rotation length, days worked and every per-day hour (not job title, rates, number of roles or company).
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Templates: Use the new Weekly / Templates toggle at the top of the dropdown to search and apply a saved schedule to a new shift. You can still use Customize afterwards to fine-tune it.
Clear Schedule now also resets any customized hours.
Dynamic Rates: Biweekly and Monthly Overtime Thresholds
Tracker Enterprise only.
Overtime Rules now offer Biweekly and Monthly in the Type dropdown alongside Daily and Weekly, so overtime periods that run over two weeks or a calendar month can be handled inside your Dynamic Rate Rule Set.
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Biweekly: Choose a required Period Start Date to anchor the two-week cycle, and enter the threshold hours for the full period. Once a period completes, hours (including hours on shifts with a Holiday status, which count toward the threshold but do not earn the premium) are added up in date order and everything from the point the threshold is crossed gets the linked premium rate. Other absence statuses such as Sickness or No Show are not counted.
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Monthly: Enter a base weekly figure as the threshold. Tracker divides it by five and multiplies by the working days in the month (Monday to Friday, less any dates on the optional Non-Working Day Calendar you select) to size that month's threshold. For example, 37.5 hours over 22 working days gives a threshold of 165 hours. Leave the calendar blank to count every weekday.
Existing Daily and Weekly rules are unchanged. To get started, go to Tools and Settings > Dynamic Rates, open a Rule Set, then add or edit an Overtime Rule.
Quick note, you won’t be able to edit the existing rule with the new thresholds if it already has timesheets against it, but you can clone it and edit the new Rule.