Tracker Pro and Enterprise only.
These three features are closely interlinked so will be covered together here.
Company records now include a Compliance Items block for items related to the company, including Company Agreements, with details such as dates, status, expiry and the job types covered.
Placement Approvals lets you set a workflow where placements and extensions must meet set criteria (mandatory fields) and then be authorised, in one or more ordered approval steps, before a working status is applied.
We are going introduce them in the following order:
- Setting Up Company Compliance (including Agreements)
- Applying Compliance to a Company Record
- Job Record | view of Compliance & Agreement status
- Placement Record | Selecting relevant Agreement
- Turning On Placement Approvals
- Setting Placement Mandatory Data (including Agreements)
- Adding Approval block to Placement Record Layout
- Placement Record | Approval Requirements
- Sending for Approval & Approval Emails
- Re-approvals
- Permissions for Approving
- Placement Approval Requests Block
- Reviewing, Approving or Rejecting Placements
- Extensions
- Locking Assignments/Project Records during Placement Approval
- Summary of Key Points
Setting Up Company Compliance Items
Company Compliance items are configured in Tools & Settings > Company Settings.
There are different Item types for company compliance: Financial, Agreement, Insurance, Verification and Other, and they can be in the format or Dated or Yes/No Items.
Where these are set as default items they will be automatically added to a record at creation (as with candidate compliance).
Applying Compliance Items to Company Record
A new block is available to add to company records via Layout Designer: Company Compliance.
When adding (or editing) a compliance item onto a company record you’ll get different options depending on item format (e.g. dated or Yes/No) and whether or not it is of the Type “Agreement”.
When adding an Agreement, under the General tab, you can specify a name, agreement type, dates for completed/start/expire.
Particularly important is the Scope & Coverage tab. Here you set the Job Types this agreement is available to apply to. This is important for the “Submit Approval” workflow.
Job Record | View of Compliance & Agreement status
On job records, the Summary panel shows Yes or No pills indicating whether the company is compliant and whether Company Agreements exist.
Placement Record | Selecting relevant Agreement
On a placement record, a Company Agreement field appears as the last field in the Placement Details block. It only appears when the client has an agreement that covers the job type, and it lists the agreements that are still valid (dated agreements until they expire, and Yes/No agreements always). When a placement is extended, the agreement carries over to the new record unless it has since expired. This field will be referenced to confirm it is complete before the placement can be sent for approval.
Select the specific agreement this placement is being made under. It needs to be an active agreement. This links the placement to that agreement, which is different from the company simply having valid agreements.
Company Agreement can also be made a mandatory field for a chosen placement status. If it is mandatory, the placement cannot move to that status until an agreement is selected. If the client has no suitable agreements, the field is hidden and not enforced.
Turning On Placement Approvals
Placement Approvals is switched on in Tools & Settings > Application Settings > Placement Settings > General Settings, using the new setting Require Placement Approvals (Yes / No, default No). Placement Approval Requests applies to all non-shift jobs.
When it is set to Yes, working status values are removed from the status dropdown on the placement record. A placement can only reach a working status by being submitted for approval and approved.
Setting Placement Mandatory Data (including Agreements)
Mandatory fields define what a placement must have before it can be submitted for approval.
Set these in Tools & Settings > Customization > Mandatory Fields, choose Placements from the Record Drop down, and select the fields on the tab for each record type.
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Core Placement Fields: the fields already available as placement mandatory fields, now including Company Agreement (this is the drop down field in the details block of the placement record, see above).
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Candidate Custom Fields: any non-heading candidate custom field.
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Placement Custom Fields: any non-heading placement custom field.
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Job (Opportunity) Custom Fields: any non-heading job custom field.
Enforce Mandatory Fields must be set to Yes.
If a placement does not meet all the requirements (and the “Require Placements Approvals” setting is set to yes (see above), the status dropdown does not show any working status values.
Adding the Approval Block to the Placement Record Layout
Add the Placement Approval block to the Placement layout in Tools & Settings > Customization > Layout Designer (Record Screen: Placement). If you want approvers to land directly on it from the approval email, place it, and the Placement Approval Requests block, on a tab named exactly Approvals (see Approval Emails section).
Placement Record | Approval Requirements
The Placement Approval block on a placement record shows the mandatory fields that must be completed before the placement can be sent for approval.
Requirements are grouped by record type (Core Placement, Candidate, Placement and Job custom fields), and each area can be expanded to see what is missing or complete. A green tick means the requirement is met; a red cross means it still needs completing, and a pencil icon lets you update the field from here, wherever it is held in the system. If requirements are not met, a "Placement Requirements Not Met" message explains that the fields must be completed before approval can be requested.
Core Placement fields refer to standard fields on the placement record, there is a separate tab for Placement Custom Fields (where set as mandatory). Company Agreement refers to the Company Agreement field on the Details block of the placement being completed, to link the placement to a specific agreement (not that the company has valid Agreements). This needs to be an active agreement.
Sending for Approval
When the mandatory requirements are met, a Submit Placement Approval button appears in the placement banner.
Once clicked, the pop-out loads with:
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The Job Owner is shown.
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Choose the working status the placement should move to.
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Choose who should approve: add one approver, or build ordered approver groups (see Approval Emails section below).
Once submitted, the button shows Pending Approval and is disabled.
It shows Approved once approved, and Rejected – Resubmit for Approval if rejected, which lets the submitter send it again. The requested changes are held and are not applied until approval is complete.
The approvers receive an email to say the placement needs approval.
Approval Emails
You can use a single approver or several. For a simple process, add one approver in the Placement Approval Request window. When that person approves, the requested changes are applied.
For a multi-level process, arrange approvers in ordered groups. Group 1 is always shown; add further groups with the green plus in the Placement Approval Request window. A group can contain one approver or several.
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Group 1 is notified first. Later groups are notified only when it is their turn.
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Any one member approving clears their group, and the next group is then notified.
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The requested changes are held, and applied only when the final group clears.
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A rejection at any stage stops the process and leaves the placement unchanged.
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Only a member of the group currently responsible can approve or reject. Other users, including members of later or earlier groups, can open the request to view it, but the Approve and Reject buttons are disabled.
Each approver is notified by an approval email. It includes details such as Proposed Status, Start Date, End Date, Pay Rate, Charge Rate and Other Approvers, so approvers can see the key details before logging in.
The Click Here To Login button takes the recipient straight to the placement record (if they’re already signed in to Tracker). If the recipient's layout has a tab named exactly Approvals, that tab opens automatically. The name must match exactly, including capitals. If there is no such tab, the record opens on its default tab. To use this, add an Approvals tab to the Placement layout in Layout Designer.
Copying others in
A Send Also To (Cc) field in Tools & Settings > Collaboration > Placement Approval Requests lets administrators store one or more email addresses. These addresses are copied on every Placement Approval Request email. They are not treated as approvers, and are not listed under Other Approvers.
Re-approvals
Once a placement has been approved and is in a working status, users without access to edit working placements cannot change it. A user with that access can move it to a non-working status; if the approval requirements are still met, the Submit Placement Approval button becomes available again so the placement can be sent back through approval.
Permissions for Approving
Who can approve or reject a placement is guided by who receives the approval email. Anyone added as an approver on the Placement Approval Request can approve or reject it.
Users can approve via the Placement record, and/or if they have the User Group Privilege they can do so via Tools & Settings > Collaboration > Placement Approval Requests.
Placement Approval Requests block
A Placement Approval Requests block can be added to Job and Placement records in Layout Designer, and shows in both Quick View and full view. The Job block lists the requests for every placement on that job; the Placement block lists the requests for that placement only.
This means approvers can review and action requests without leaving the record. See the next section for more details on actioning these.
Reviewing, Approving and Rejecting
Requests are emailed and also listed in the Placement Approval Requests block on the Job and Placement, and in Tools & Settings > Collaboration > Placement Approval Requests.
In each of these you can use Search, Period and Status to find them.
Select Review to see the candidate, job, dates, pay and charge rates and more, then approve or reject. Approve and Reject are available to the people the request was sent to.
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Approving moves the placement to the working status chosen at submission (once the final approver group has cleared, where groups are used).
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Rejecting leaves the placement status as it was.
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Either way, an email is sent to the person who submitted the request telling them the placement was approved or rejected, showing who actioned it and the Job Owner, and including the reason for a rejection.
Extensions
When an Extension (of any type) is created on a placement with approvals enabled, it follows the same approval workflow. The extension record is only created once it has been approved, and it is linked to the original placement as normal.
If it is rejected, no extension record is created, the original placement is unchanged, and the submitter can start a new extension straight away.
Timesheets can continue to be submitted against the original placement while the request is pending. The existing Revoke and Resubmit for Approval flow is unchanged.
Automatic Lock on Linked Assignment/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. Note, if the linked Assignment/Project was locked manually, this would also be unlocked when the placement is approved or rejected.
This means linked Assignment/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.
Two new User Group privileges, both unticked by default, control access (Administration > User Groups > Privileges):
View Locked Records: users with this can open locked records normally. Users without it see an Oops! screen saying they do not appear to have access to the record.
