With Fountain’s Opening Approval feature, you can audit Openings created by your users before they become active. This helps reduce Opening creation errors, improving the quality of your job postings and ensuring that the appropriate amount is paid for your sourcing platforms. Additionally, this feature is especially helpful for enterprise organizations with several layers of administrator positions because it allows certain top-level recruiting managers to review and approve Openings.
Opening Approval Permission
To be an Approver of Openings, the user must have the correct permission enabled within their account. To enable this permission, follow the steps below:
When first inviting a user, select Custom Permissions, and then ensure the Manage approval and request approval on new openings permission box is checked. Click Save. If the user is already active in your account, follow the steps below:
Find the user's name in the list on the User’s Company Settings screen.
Click the Actions button to the left of the user’s name.
Click Edit User in the dropdown.
Under Permissions, select the Custom Permissions bubble, then check the Manage approval of openings permission box.
If you want the user to be able to create new Approval Groups, check the Manage Approvers group permission box as well.
Click Save.
Important Note:
Administrators will have both the Manage approver groups and Manage approval of openings permissions enabled by default.
Creating Approver Groups
You must create a group of approvers for the Opening Approvals feature to be enabled. If there are no Approval Groups created, your users can create Openings and turn them to active without any review required. To create an Approver Group, follow the steps below:
Within the Company Settings screen, click Opening Approvals on the left side under App Settings.
Within the Approver Groups tab, click the Add Approver Group button.
In the pop-up, type a name for the group such as West Region. Next, click the Approvers field to assign approvers to this group. Note: the user must have the Manage approval of openings permission to be assigned as an approver within an Approval Group. You can assign a minimum of 1 approver and a maximum of 4 approvers per group.
Click Save.
To edit an Approver Group, click the pencil icon to the right group’s name.
To remove an Approver Group, click the trashcan icon to the right of the group’s name.
Only users with the Manage approval groups permission can add new approvers via Company Settings.
Approving Openings
Once a user is assigned as an Opening Approver in an Approval Group, they will begin to receive communication when Openings are created that are pending approval where their Approval Group was selected. The user will receive an email where they can approve or reject the Opening. They can also approve or reject via the Opening Approvals Company Settings screen.
Email notifications:
the Pending Opening Approval email will be sent to the email connected to the user’s Fountain account. Within the email, the user can review the Opening details in the body of the email message or click the Opening’s name hyperlink to be brought into Fountain into that specific Opening’s detail screen. After review, the user will click either Approve or Reject within the email.
Opening Approvals Company Settings screen:
the user can also go to the Opening Approvals Company Settings screen to approve or reject the Opening. Within this screen, the user will click the Approvals tab. All pending approvals will be shown by default. However, the user can change the view by using the button towards the top left to show not approved, pending approval, or approved Openings. Click the Opening name to be brought to that Opening’s detail screen. After review, the user will click Approve or Reject. To bulk approve or reject Openings on this screen, click the checkboxes to the left of the Opening names and then click either Approve or Reject.
Review the Approval Status column to see the number of approvers in the Approval Group that have already approved or rejected the Opening.
All approvers in an Approval Group must review all Opening submissions for them to be approved unless auto-approval has been enabled. Auto-approval is discussed in the next section of this article.
If the Opening Approver rejects the Opening, they must type a rejection reason in the pop-up box.
If one approver in an Approval Group rejects the Opening, then the Opening will be rejected. The user will need to make the changes and submit again for approval.
When each Opening Approver makes a decision, the user who originally created the Opening will be notified via email whether the Opening is approved or rejected by the approver.
If the Opening is approved by all Opening Approvers, it will automatically turn to active and be live within Fountain’s Job Directory and any sourcing streams.
If the Opening is rejected by any Opening Approver, the user will see the rejection reason within the email so they can edit the Opening and resubmit for approval.
Setting Up Auto Approval
Users with the Manage approval groups permission can choose to set up auto-approval for all account Openings which will bypass the requirement for all approvers to decision an Opening before it becomes active.
To set up auto-approval, click the Auto-Approval tab in the Opening Approvals Company Settings screen. Then turn the Auto-Approve toggle to on. Next, enter a number of days in the Days field and click Save.
Openings will be auto-approved and become active if any approver in the selected group has not responded to the review notification within the specified amount of days.
Submitting a New Opening for Approval
Any user with the Create Positions and Workflows permission can create new Openings in Fountain. If at least one Approval Group was created, when a user creates a new Opening, the Opening status indicator will read Pending Approval by default. The user will need to select the appropriate Approval Group from the Opening Approval Group dropdown before they can save the Opening Details screen. Once saved, the Opening will be submitted for review by the Approval Group. Once the Opening is reviewed and approved, it will automatically change to Active.