With Fountain’s Opening Approval feature, you can audit Openings created by your users before they become active based on where the Opening is located. 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.
Benefits
Location-based approval logic: Openings associated with specific locations can require approval before activation.
Full approval lifecycle management: Recruiters can withdraw, resubmit, or review rejections on their approval requests.
Activation Resubmissions: These will automatically trigger email notifications to approvers, helping maintain visibility.
Strict control of edits: Any changes to active Openings can require re-approval, and inactive Openings cannot be reactivated without a new approval.
Additionally, Opening Approvals is compatible with Hire Go! Learn more in this article.
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 Rules (formally known as Approval Groups), check the Manage Approvers group permission box as well.
Click Save.
Important Notes:
Administrators will have both the Manage approver groups and Manage approval of openings permissions enabled by default.
Only users with the Manage approval groups permission can add new approvers via Company Settings.
Creating Approver Rules
You must create an Approval Rule for the Opening Approvals feature to be enabled. If there are no Approval Rules created, your users can create Openings and turn them to active without any review required. To create an Approver Rule, follow the steps below:
Within the Company Settings screen, click Opening Approvals on the left side under App Settings.
Within the Approver rules tab, click the Create Approval Rule button.
In the pop-up, type a name for the rule, such as West Region. Next, click the Select approvers field to assign approvers to this rule.
The user must have the Manage approval of openings permission to be assigned as an approver within an Approval Rule.
You can assign a minimum of 1 approver and a maximum of 4 approvers per rule.
Decide if this approval will be required for All openings or Specified openings. Fountain suggests specifying the Openings as all Openings will typically require a very high number of approvals.
If you've selected Specified openings, you'll also need to select the location(s) affected by the rule.
Click Save.
Tips!
To edit an Approver Rule, click the pencil icon to the right rule's name.
To remove an Approver Rule, click the trashcan icon to the right of the rule's name.
Submitting for Opening Approval
Any user with the Create Positions and Workflows permission can create new Openings in Fountain Hire.
If an Approval Rule exists for the location of the new Opening, the user must submit the Opening for approval on the Approval screen at the end of the Opening creation process.
This screen will include an optional Reason box where the user can explain why they need this Opening created, as well as a list of the approvers that will review the request. The user will click Submit for approval to submit the request or Save as inactive to save their Opening in a draft format.
Pending Approval Openings can be viewed on the Jobs screen in Fountain Hire by changing the Active filter to Pending Approval.
Once the Opening is reviewed and approved by all approvers, the user will receive an email notification, and the Opening will automatically change to Active.
Rejections and Resubmitting
If any of the approvers reject the submission, the Opening Owner will receive an email that includes the rejection reason.
To resubmit, a user will follow the steps below:
Find the Opening in the list of Openings on the Jobs screen.
Click the 3 dots button to the left of the Opening's name and then click Edit Job Details.
If needed, click the Rejection reason link to review why the submission was rejected and what needs to be updated.
Make the required edits to the Job Details screen, such as adjusting the pay rate or job type.
Scroll to the top and click Resubmit for Approval. The user will receive email notifications if the resubmission request is approved or rejected.
Canceling a Request
If the user needs to cancel the request, they will follow the steps below:
Find the Opening in the list of Openings on the Jobs screen.
Click the 3 dots button to the left of the Opening's name and then click Edit Job Details.
Click Cancel Request.
Approving Openings
Once a user is assigned as an Opening Approver in an Approval Rule, they will begin to receive email notifications when users submit for Opening Approval. They can also approve or reject via the Opening Approvals Company Settings screen or via the Jobs screen.
Email notifications
The Pending Opening Approval email will be sent to the email connected to the user’s Fountain Hire 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 Hire to that specific Opening’s detail screen.
After review, the user will click either Approve or Reject within the email. This will bring the user to the Opening Approvals Company Settings page, specifically the Approvals tab, where they will click either Approve, Reject, or Cancel in the pop-up.
Opening Approvals Company Settings screen
The user can also go to the Opening Approvals Company Settings screen to approve or reject the Opening submission via 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 can go back to the Approvals tab to 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.
Tips!
Review the Approval Status column to see the number of approvers connected to the Approval Rule that have already approved or rejected the Opening.
All approvers in an Approval Rule must approve the Opening submission for it to be approved unless auto-approval has been enabled. Auto-approval is discussed later in this article.
If the Opening approver rejects the Opening, they must provide a rejection reason. This reason will be visible to the user who submitted the original request to guide them in making updates before resubmission.
Approving via the Jobs Screen
Users that are set as approvers via an Approval Rule will have an Opening Approval option under the 3 dots button on the Jobs screen to the left of an Opening that is Pending Approval.
This will bring the user to the Opening Approvals Company Settings page, specifically the Approvals tab, where they can Approve or Reject the submission.
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 decide on 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.
Openings will be auto-approved and become active if any approver assigned to an Opening Approval Rule has not responded to the review notification within the specified number of days.
Opening Edits Require Approval Resubmission
If you want to protect edits to your Openings even further, you can enable additional functionality that requires any updates to specific Opening Details fields to require an Opening Approval resubmission if the Opening location is attached to an Opening Approval rule.
The fields that would require resubmission if updated are Opening Owner, pay rate, compensation, currency, pay range, job hours, job type, or industry. If updates are made to these fields, the user will need to click the Submit for Approval button instead of just saving the changes.
The Opening will remain active while the review is underway, but the changes will be pending as seen in the screenshot below.
Approvers of the rule will receive an email where they can approve or reject the changes.
If you are interested in using this additional edit functionality, reach out to your Fountain Customer Success contact or [email protected] to enable it in your account.