Organization and control functionality afforded by Programs with Recruitment Limiting Filters
This article applies to Team and Legacy editions.
Within the Centercode platform, Programs allow you to better organize your various beta projects into groups, typically based on beta types, product lines, or organizational teams at the Community level. For example, for a hardware company with multiple product lines, your Programs might be broken into organizational teams - mobile devices (tablets and smartphones), media players, and laptops. Each program might have particular testing objectives, measures of success, and messaging - all of which can be supported by dedicated templates, recruitment requirements, and pre-built reports.
To create a new Program:
- Click your Community logo in the upper left, and select Community management > Programs and projects
- Select Create a program
- Fill out your Program name
- Click Submit to complete
Once you’ve created your Program(s), you can select an existing project or create a new project template for each Program - one that’s specifically aligned with beta Projects in that Program.
Recruitment Limiting Filters
When creating a new Program or editing an existing one, you may configure a Recruitment Limiting Filter intended to provide a safety net or universal blocklist for that Program’s projects. This filter can be configured to identify specific criteria set by you, then prevent any accounts meeting those criteria from joining your Projects, adding them to a Blocklist for that Source. Blocklisting a user based on a Program filter will guarantee that the user will not be able to join any projects in said Program while providing them with a neutral “unavailable opportunity” message.
To create a Recruitment Limiting Filter in a Program:
- Click your Community logo in the upper left, and select Community management > Programs and projects
- Click into a Program of your choice
- Click Basic settings in the upper right
- Under Recruitment limiting filter click the + icon
- Set your specific filter criteria
- Click submit to set your Recruitment Limiting Filter
Click here for more information on building custom Filters.
Keep in mind that your Recruitment Limiting Filter prevents matches from joining your Projects through your Recruiting tools. Users who meet the criteria will receive the blocking message, but those who meet the criteria after joining your Project have bypassed the point where the Filter applies.
How the Recruitment Limiting Filter affects recruitment
Recruiting, as well as each individual Source, utilizes the Recruitment Limiting Filter when determining which addresses will be added to Source Pools or will be allowed to convert through the Opportunity. When viewing your Opportunity Candidates / Source Pools, you’ll be able to see how many accounts have been filtered out by this feature with a quick glance. It’s important to keep in mind that different Sources will handle blocklisting in different ways even though blocklisted users will always be unable to join a Project.
- URL link - Users accessing a URL link to an Opportunity who match the Recruitment Limiting Filter will be able to see the landing page and click to apply. Once they have established a session (logged in or created a new account), the RLF will block their access and prevent them from joining the Project. “The page you are attempting to access is unavailable.”
- Imported Candidates - Users who may have accidentally been included in an import to a project that matches a Recruitment Limiting Filter will get the following message when attempting to view an Opportunity: “This Opportunity is no longer available”.
- Recruited Candidates via Community Filter - Users who happen to match a Community Filter to be invited into a project that also matches a Recruitment Limiting Filter will get the following message when attempting to view an Opportunity: “This Opportunity is no longer available”.
- Single-use keys - If a user is given a single-use key, but meets the criteria of a Recruitment Limiting Filter, the key will be consumed but the user will not be allowed to convert through key Source for your Opportunity.
- User Referrals - If a user is referred by another but meets the criteria of a Recruitment Limiting Filter, the referrer’s referral token is consumed, but the invited user will not be allowed to convert through the Referral Source.
- Teams access - Existing Community users who are on the appropriate Community Team but otherwise match the Recruitment Limiting Filter will not be shown the Opportunity on the Community Homepage as other team members would. If provided the link by another team member, the user attempting to access the Project will receive the following message: “The page you are attempting to access is unavailable.”
Program Templates
As Programs are a way of organizing your validation tests, you can additionally designate chosen Projects as Program Templates. These templates are merely a way of highlighting certain Project Templates as specially aligned with Program goals and processes. Program Templates are displayed in a special grouping when an administrator is choosing the appropriate template to be cloned when creating a new Project.
To create a Program Template:
- Within the chosen Project, click Management > Project configuration > Project template in the upper navigation bar
- Select the Program template checkbox
- Click Submit
Program templates are only displayed as cloning sources within their particular Programs. This helps prevent other organizational teams from cluttering your Templates list at the time of new Project creation. Aside from being easier to identify and administrate, Program Templates function in exactly the same way as Global Project Templates or pre-existing Projects when selected for cloning purposes.
Conclusion
Utilizing Programs is a great way to organize your various Projects and bring a bit of order into a shared beta management platform. Furthermore, establishing a Recruitment Limiting Filter within your various Programs will guarantee that Candidates you don’t want participating in your testing opportunities will never gain access to your Projects.
If you encounter any issues with Programs, your Recruitment Limiting Filter, or Project Templates, please let us know! We’d be happy to guide you through these processes and address any other questions you may have.