We are happy to introduce our new WP Job Openings Add-on – User Access Control. It is the third add-on we have developed for WP Job Openings.
Request from our users
Several of our users had contacted us asking for a solution to manage and restrict the capabilities of HR personnel managing the recruitment. This feature was especially significant when a company had several HR people handling recruitment.
We felt that there was a demand for this feature amongst select users; thus, there was no point in adding this to our main plugin and bloating it. So we decided to introduce it as an add-on.
Role Manager Interface in User Access Control Addon
User Access Control Add-on
This new add-on is the perfect solution to manage the capabilities of your recruitment team. For example, if you want to limit the edit access of a recruiter or give access to applications from a particular job location, this add-on will help you.
WP Job Openings gives full access to recruitment-related things for the HR user role. If you wanted to customize that, then this add-on is for you.
Option to restrict access by Job Specifications
Features
Create new user roles for managing jobs and listings.
Edit or restrict the capabilities of the existing HR role.
Restrict user access to own job listings and applications.
Restrict user access by Job Specifications or locations.
Who will find the User Access Control Add-on useful?
This add-on will be useful for you if you have these requirements:
Create custom roles for recruiters with limited access to job listings and applications.
Restrict an HR user from accessing WPJO settings and configurations.
Restrict access to job listings and applications based on locations or specific job categories for your recruiters.
Restrict access for a recruiter only to their own job listings and applications.
You can definitely expect more goodies from us in the near future. We are working hard to make WPJO the best recruitment tool for WordPress websites. You can join us by sharing your suggestions, feedback, and feature requests here. Also, drop us a hi on Twitter and Facebook.
Well, here we are! Another brand new update, with some most-sought fresh features 🎉
Application Status
The option to change the status of an application was introduced as a feature in our Pro version from early on. By default, all the applications are given the ‘New‘ status. You could change that to four other statuses we have shipped with the plugin by default – ‘In Progress‘, ‘Shortlisted‘, ‘Selected‘, and ‘Rejected‘.
You can use the application status option to manage your applications effectively by putting them on different statuses. The option lets you mark the qualified applications as ‘In Progress‘ or ‘Shortlisted‘ and unqualified ones as ‘Rejected‘. You can also mark the hired applicants as ‘Selected‘ to identify them easily.
For the basic application management system it was, these statuses that came by default with the plugin were more than enough. As the system grew, many small and medium companies switched from their existing, complex Application Tracking Systems and Recruitment Tools to our simple plugin to make hiring easier. We have been contacted by many such users to customize the plugin to add more application statuses and workflows. We have provided them with the customizations they required to meet their goals.
We found an increasing demand for having the option to add and manage application statuses from the dashboard and we have just added that as a feature in the version 3.2.0 release!
✅ Custom Application Statuses
As the beginning of our next big step toward the future of the plugin, we have added a new tab on our settings page – ‘Advanced‘. Under this tab, now you can add new application statuses and edit the existing ones and even reorder them using the simple drag and drop interface.
Any change you make here will be reflected though out the system in all the places application status is used – the application listing table, application detail page, the dashboard, export data, etc.
A closer look at the feature
As you can see in the screenshot, when you are adding and editing a status, you get the option to change the status label and its color. The color will be used to represent the status in the applications table and charts in the overview tab.
WPJO already had the option to send automated notifications to applicants that successfully submits an application. It also has the option for admins to set up templates and send out emails to applicants individually from the application detail page. One thing that is missing was the feature to send automated email notifications to applicants when their application status changes.
This update addressed that gap as well.
You have to set up the email templates under WP Job Openings > Settings > Notifications > Templates, check the option ‘Automatically send the notification on status change‘, select the desired template from the dropdown, and hit the save button!
Be careful while adding and selecting the email notification templates though. The wrong email for an application status could confuse the hell out of your applicants.
✅ Country Code Selection for Phone Number Field
No big deal, but a good-to-have feature some of our users requested. You have to enable the option in the phone field settings from your form builder. You can also select the default country to be shown in the form.
✅ ‘Position Filled’ Status for Job listings
The new ‘Filled’ status for job listings will help you differentiate the positions that are filled and open.
We are not done yet
There are several other improvements and fixes rolled out with this update. The update is being rolled out to all the Pro subscribers.
What keeps us going is your support, kind words, and criticisms. We are always open to suggestions and feedback! If you have a feature request, feedback, or any suggestions, please submit them here. We would love to hear from you.
Added: Advanced settings to manage application status (Settings > Advanced) with the option to send notification automatically on status change.
Added: HTML editor support for notifications.
Added: Country-based input option for phone fields.
Added: ‘Filled’ admin filter and state for job listings.
Fixed: ‘Disable Form’ issue in application shortcode.
Improved: Form builder error handling.
Improved: Elementor popup support for the application form.
Dev: Repeater field support (programmatically) for the application form.
Dev: Hooks to customize the export page.
Dev: Hooks to customize job display options.
Other minor bug fixes and style improvements.
WP Job Openings Pro V 3.2.0 is being rolled out to all the Pro customers. We encourage you to update your site as soon as possible to take advantage of the latest features and improvements.
We are introducing a most sought-after feature – Restrict duplicate applications.
The Issue of Duplicate Applications
Some job seekers apply multiple times to a job posting. Often they do it out of desperation, thinking it would improve their chances or because they have no way of knowing that their application was successfully submitted the first time. But it only serves to make the lives of recruiters harder. Finding and removing duplicate applications was a real headache for our clients and they were requesting a solution.
We decided to tackle the issue and soon zeroed into these factors in our brainstorming sessions.
Users should be able to identify duplicates quickly without any complicated entanglements like authentication and OTP
The potential fix should not be cookie-based as it is less secure and will not be effective all the time.
Candidates should be assured that their application was successful and thus need not apply again.
Well, now say goodbye to duplicate applications. We are addressing this issue in WP Job Openings Pro 3.1.0! 🎉
The Solution
We have now added a checkbox to activate the new feature under WordPress Dasboard > Job Openings > Settings > Forms > General
If the option is selected, the plugin will validate each application by email and phone number and restrict duplicate submissions.
This option will be enabled by default for all new Pro users. Existing users will have to enable this option manually to be able to prevent duplications.
How We Fixed It
We now validate the applications with the email address and phone number. When a candidate tries to submit an application, the plugin will check for previous applications with the same email ID or phone number. If such an application is found, the candidate will get a message indicating that they have already applied for the job. (Yes, the message can be customized too)
Other Changes In V3.1.0
Added: Shortcodes for Jobs count and Job Specifications (Settings > Shortcodes).
Added: Elementor popup support for form shortcode.
Improved: Form builder error handling.
Dev: Added hooks to customize administrative pages.
More Updates Are On The Way!
We are working to make the plugin more fascinating. We are fixing issues and working on some more amazing features. If you have any issue that’s bothering you or you would like a new cool feature, head to our roadmap and submit them.
Most companies are winding down for the holidays, and here we are releasing a brand new version of WP Job Openings and Pro. We have released version 3.0 of the free version 2 weeks ago and just rolling out version 3.0 of the Pro version this week.
Since the beginning, we have strived our best to keep the plugin improved in every single update, adding more value for our users. We actively listen to our users and release updates quite regularly. This is our most exciting update for the plugins yet.
Your favorite Job Listing & Recruitment plugin is better than ever!
There are significant code improvements and UI improvements for both the plugins with some brand new most-sought features.
WP Job Openings 3.0 (Free Version)
Version 3.0 is our most exciting update yet, with some significant UI improvements and new features like a dashboard to get a cockpit view of everything happening with your recruitment, new pagination options, and a much better job specifications management module.
WP Job Openings Pro 3.0
The Pro is even more powerful with extra features for the newly introduced dashboard, multiform support, advanced export options, etc.
✅ Dashboard / Overview page
In general, the dashboard is the most noticeable new thing in the update. The pro comes with an additional widget in the dashboard – a doughnut chart for analyzing the applications by their status. Also, you will get Month, Week, and Day-based filters for the Applications Analytics widget.
We have some ideas to make the dashboard more powerful with some:
✅ Multi-form support
We have wanted to add this as a feature for a long time. WP JO Pro already supports replacing the default form with any custom form. But we used to have only a universal form for all the job listings. This update changes that.
Now you can create multiple forms as per your requirement using our form builder and use them in the job listings as you like. Notification options for the forms also can be handled individually from the form builder.
✅ Export Applications
The new export screen lets you export applications based on different combinations.
✅ Pagination
Added number based pagination
More features
UI Improvements
Order by and Order support for job listing shortcode (Settings > Shortcodes).
Unicode character support for application print feature
What keeps us going is your support, kind words, and criticisms. We are always open to suggestions and feedback!! If you have a feature request, feedback, or any suggestions, please submit them here. We would love to hear from you.
Job listing UI improvements. The template file needs to be updated if overridden in the theme.
Added: Overview page with support for Applications Analytics widget, Get Started widget, Recent Applications widget, Open Positions widget, and Your Listings widget.
Added: Multiple pagination support – Classic or Modern.
Fixed: ‘Add New’ button for applications being displayed for Multisite network.
Fixed: Issue in removing duplicate job specification options.
Fixed: Email digest from address is not the same as the mail address for admin notification.
Improved: Admin dashboard widget.
Improved: Job Specifications settings.
Improved: HR user capabilities.
Dev: Deprecated job listing hooks.
Dev: Deprecated recent jobs widget hooks.
Dev: Hook to override the allowed HTML for the form.
Dev: Hook to customize expired job content.
Code improvements.
Other minor bug fixes.
WP Job Openings PRO 3.0
Admin UI improvements.
Added: Multiple Forms Support (Settings > Form > Form Builder).
Added: Order by and Order support for job listing shortcode (Settings > Shortcodes).
Added: Applications by Status Overview widget.
Added: Month, Week, and Day-based filters for Applications Analytics widget.
Added: Export Applications by Job Listing or Application Form.
Added: Unicode character support for application print feature.
Fixed: Conflict with Yoast SEO plugin, resulting in blank or duplicate applications.
Fixed: Placeholder not working in the application form.
Improved: Content handling based on user capabilities.
Dev: Improved the hook to customize the print styles for applicant details.
Code improvements.
Other minor bug fixes.
WP Job Openings Pro 3.0 is now available. We encourage you to update your site as soon as possible to take advantage of the latest features and improvements.
WordPress powers over 43% of websites on the internet and the power behind this juggernaut are the vibrant community. Yes, this open-source platform thrives and is on a roll due to this amazing community. And we are proud to say that we too are part of this community and we are diligently contributing our share too.
Our Love for WordPress
Right from its inception, Awsm Innovations always had a fascination for WordPress. Our core development team today boasts of having the coveted WordPress Core Contributor badges.
We strongly believe in giving back to the community and have always paid our dues. We have pledged our resources for the Five for the Future initiative, and financially supported Big Orange Heart and the PHP Foundation.
And this year we came across another worthy movement – WPGivesAHand.
“WordPress Gives A Hand” Movement
WPGivesAHand is a WordPress-wide charity movement created by friends from across the WordPress community and makes donations on special events from all over the world. For Christmas, all the WordPress companies/developers that have joined this movement will contribute a portion of their product sales between December 20 and 26th, 2021 towards charity.
We couldn’t help but join this movement when we came to know about this noble venture. We will donate 15% of the sales revenue from WP Job Openings to WP Gives A Hand, which will be used for the Hope Community Village, Kerala, India.
Hope Community Village offers long-term family care to orphan and destitute children, by giving them a loving home with a mother, family, education, and opportunities. They help the children in need to build their lives again by giving them a home and a family.
We believe children are the future and thus it is our responsibility to ensure their wellbeing. We are only happy to make a contribution that will help build a better tomorrow.
How to join us?
If you like to join us in becoming part of a worthy cause, you can purchase our WP Job Openings from here any time between December 20 and 26th, 2021. You can also spread the word about this movement by including the hashtag #wpgivesahand in your social media posts.
We really hope you will join us for the celebrations!
WP Job Openings
