Overview
Opening approvals allow your team to establish an approval process for new openings based on department and location. This ensures new headcount requests go to the right set of approvers in the correct order.
Opening approvals can include multiple steps. Each approver in the chain receives an email prompting them to approve or request changes to the opening.
Requirements
- Your team uses Gem ATS.
(Admin) Set up a new opening approval process
Only Gem ATS admins can set up an approval process.
We recommend organizing approvers into multiple steps. This ensures that approvals are requested and confirmed in sequential order. For example, to have approvals go up the org chart for that team, you can set up the approval process as follows.
- Step 1: Hiring manager
- Step 2: Senior leader above the hiring manager
- Step 3: Executive above the senior leader
To set up a new approval process:
- Select your account at the bottom of the main sidebar, then select the Admin settings option in the dropdown.
- Select the Gem ATS header.
- Select the Approvals tab.
- Select the Opening approvals header to open the opening approvals settings.
- Select the + New approval process button.
- In the Opening approval settings section on the left, enter a name for your approval process. Select one or more dropdown options to add locations and departments for this approval process.
- In the Step 1 section, select a user to be the first approver in this process. To set the hiring manager as an approver, select the + Add approver by role button, then select the Hiring manager on the opening option. If the user set as the hiring manager changes in the future, this setting automatically updates.
- To add additional approvers to this step, select the + Add approver by name button, then select each user from the User dropdown.
- By default, the Require approver(s) to approve in this step setting is set to all. To change this, select all, then select a different number of approvers from the dropdown.
- To add additional steps, select the + Add approval step button, then select the users and the number of required approvers for each step from the dropdowns.
- After you've added all of the required approvers, select Save in the top right. The page updates to confirm the new approval process is saved and active.
How an approval process works
When an approval process is active, it's automatically applied to new openings in the department or location defined in the approval process criteria. If you want to apply an approval process to a specific department or office, you'll need to select those settings for that approval process.
The opening approval process for a specific opening is displayed on the opening details page for that opening.
The opening can't be opened until the approval process is complete.
Approval process priority
You can't create approval processes that have overlapping department and location settings. For example, the following two approval processes can't exist at the same time.
- Approval process A
- Department: Customer SuccessLocation: San Francisco
- Approval process B
- Department: Customer Success / SupportLocation: San Francisco / New York
If a new approval process is created with overlapping department or location settings as a current approval process, the following error message is displayed to prompt you to edit the new or existing approval process to remove the overlapping criteria:
Error message text: This approval process would apply to the same jobs as the approval process [Process name]. Overlapping values: [Values].
An exception to this is if you create an approval process for All Locations or All Departments. In this case, if there's a more specific approval process for a certain department or location, the specific process will be applied over the general one.
Edit an existing approval process
Only Gem ATS admins can edit an approval process. To do so:
- Select your account at the bottom of the main sidebar, then select the Admin settings option in the dropdown.
- Select the Gem ATS header.
- Select the Approvals tab.
- Select Opening approvals header to open the opening approvals settings.
- Select the approval process name you want to edit from the list of approval processes. You can search the list by entering the approval name in the search bar.
- Select any of the settings on this page to update them.
- Select Save in the top right. The page updates to confirm that the new approval process settings are saved.
View opening approval status
To view the approval status of an existing opening:
- In the main sidebar, scroll down to the ATS header and select the Openings option.
- Select the opening name you want to view the approval status of from the list of openings. You can also search the list by entering the opening name in the search bar.
- From the opening details page, select the Approval tab. Each approval step lists its approvers and their current status. If an approver has approved the request, the timestamp of their approval is displayed.
Approve, reject, or request changes to an opening
Immediately after a new opening is created, the opening status automatically updates to Pending approval and the first-step approvers receive an email requesting they review the opening.
Approvers can respond to an opening approval request directly from the email or from the opening in Gem. When doing so, they'll have the following options:
- Approve: If they approve the opening, the approval process moves to the next approver.
- Request changes: If the approver requests changes to the opening, it goes back to a draft state, and the opening creator is notified via email. The approver can optionally leave a note when requesting changes, which is sent to the opening creator via email.
- Reject: If they reject the opening, it goes back to a draft state, and the opening creator is notified via email. The approver can optionally leave a note when rejecting the opening, which is sent to the opening creator via email.
After all approvers have approved an opening, the opening status updates to Approved, and the opening creator can open the opening.
Approvers have the option to edit a note after it’s been added if the approval status is approved or pending, and the offer hasn’t been opened. To do so, select the Edit note button from the Note for approvers section. Note that the email sent when this note was added won’t be edited, only the note in Gem.
Open an approved opening
After an opening has been approved by all required approvers, you'll have the option to open the opening. To do so:
- In the main sidebar, scroll down to the ATS header and select the Openings option.
- From the list of openings, select the one you want to open. You can also search the list by entering the opening name in the search bar.
- From the opening details page, select the Approval tab.
- The status is automatically set to Approved. Select the status dropdown, then select the Open option.
- On the Opening pop-up, select the Open this opening button.
The opening status updates to Open. You can review the approval process at any time on the Approvals tab.
Opening reapprovals
You can set custom fields to activate an opening reapproval process. This restarts the approval process when changes are made to the opening.
Reapprovals can also be disabled entirely by admins.
Have any issues or questions on this topic? Please feel free to contact your dedicated Gem Customer Success Manager directly or our Support team at support@gem.com.