Your job is in Cockpit. Then the retyping starts: the same text again on the careers site, again on the job boards, and when someone applies you paste the details and the CV back into Cockpit. Every change you make twice, and by Friday afternoon you no longer know which version is the right one.
With the Cockpit connection you do the work once. You publish the job in Cockpit; Booston picks it up, puts it on your website and can run campaigns on it. Applications come back into Cockpit complete with CV, cover letter and source, and the stage a candidate is in stays the same on both sides. The end goal: Cockpit stays your only point of entry, and everything that happens outside it comes back together there by itself.
After this article you know which data goes back and forth, how to set the connection up step by step, which fields from Cockpit land where in Booston, and what to do when something does not come through. You will find the screen at Menu → Settings → Connect → Ats.
Before you start
- The ATS connector module is switched on in your environment. If it is off, you will not see the Connect screen. What a connection does in general is covered in Connecting your ATS and Booston: which data goes back and forth.
- You have an API key from RecruitNow for your Cockpit environment. You request it from RecruitNow; see Step 1: request your API key from RecruitNow.
- You know the web address of your Cockpit environment. It is usually
https://yourcompany.recruitnowcockpit.nl. - Your user role has access to Settings. Roles and permissions are covered in Users: giving access, choosing roles and logging in through your ATS.
- There is at least one published job in Cockpit. Without a publication there is nothing to check.
What the connection gives you
The connection is not a one-off import but a continuous exchange in two directions. That gives you four things:
- One point of entry. You enter the job in Cockpit and nowhere else. Change it there and it changes everywhere.
- Online and in campaigns straight away. A published job goes on your website and can join your campaigns on job boards and social media.
- Applications back in full. Name, contact details, CV, cover letter and the source of the applicant all land as a candidate in Cockpit.
- Statuses in step. When a recruiter moves a candidate to the next stage in Cockpit, Booston sees it too — your reporting in Analytics stays correct.
The connection runs on the latest version of the RecruitNow API. You will not notice anything in daily use, other than your jobs being fetched considerably faster than before.
Which data goes back and forth
Below is exactly what goes over the wire, in which direction, and which setting switches it on. The names in the Setting column are the switches you meet in Step 4: choose which data flows run.
From Cockpit to Booston
| What | When | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs — title, the six text fields, publication period, address and coordinates | Every 10 minutes | Job, job attribute and recruiter import |
| Job attributes — including industry, function, function level, education, experience, contract type, employment type, working days, category and department | Together with the job | Job, job attribute and recruiter import |
| Salary — the lower and upper bound plus the period, in euros | Together with the job | Job, job attribute and recruiter import |
| Recruiter — the owner of the publication in Cockpit, with name, email address and phone number | Together with the job | Job, job attribute and recruiter import |
| Candidate status — the stage the candidate is in inside Cockpit | Every night | Candidate review score and status import |
From Booston to Cockpit
| What | When | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant — name, initials, gender, date of birth, address, email address, phone and mobile | Immediately on application | Candidate export |
| CV and cover letter — as a file on the candidate | Immediately on application | Candidate export |
| Source — the source plus the full UTM details, so which campaign and which channel the applicant came in through | Immediately on application | Candidate export |
| Consents — agreement for email contact, mediation and WhatsApp contact, with date and time | Immediately on application | Candidate export |
| Retry — an export that failed earlier is offered again | Every hour | Candidate export retry |
How fast it goes
- Jobs are fetched by Booston every ten minutes. Booston first requests the job list from your Cockpit environment and only fetches the jobs that genuinely changed in full. That saves time on your side and on Cockpit's.
- A full synchronisation runs every night. It fetches everything again, including what looked unchanged, so small differences never run on for more than a day.
- Applications do not wait for that round: they are exported the moment they come in. If that fails — because Cockpit is briefly unreachable, for example — Booston retries every hour.
- Candidate statuses come in overnight. So you see a status change from Cockpit in Booston the next morning.
Step 1: request your API key from RecruitNow
The connection works with an API key from RecruitNow. That key is your access to your own Cockpit environment.
- Request the API key from your contact or account manager at RecruitNow. Mention that it is for a connection with Booston.
- Ask for the web address of your Cockpit environment at the same time, if you do not have it yet.
- Store the key somewhere safe. You will enter it in Booston yourself and do not need to share it with anyone.
Step 2: start the connection and pick Cockpit
From here you work in Booston. The setup runs through a wizard; you can go back at any point and nothing is actually saved until the last step.
- Go to Menu → Settings → Connect → Ats. As long as nothing is connected, it says Ats is not connected.
- Click Connect. The wizard opens on the first step, Select ATS.
- At Select Ats, pick Cockpit. The list is searchable and shows the logo for each system.
- Click Next.
Step 3: fill in the Main settings
On the Main settings step you tell Booston where your Cockpit environment is and what it may sign in with.
| Field | What you enter |
|---|---|
| Username | The username you received from RecruitNow. |
| Password | Your API key from Step 1: request your API key from RecruitNow. This is what Booston connects with. The field does not show the value, not even after saving. |
| Url | The web address of your Cockpit environment, for example https://yourcompany.recruitnowcockpit.nl. |
| Qualifier | Leave empty if you want to fetch all jobs. If you only want the jobs of certain branches, this is where those branches go. |
| Multilingual | Leave off. Cockpit delivers a job in one language; it arrives in the default language of your environment. |
Then click Next.
Step 4: choose which data flows run
On the Functionality step you switch on what may run between Cockpit and Booston. The options sit in two blocks.
Under Sync are the data flows themselves:
| Setting | What it does | Advice |
|---|---|---|
| Job, job attribute and recruiter import | Fetches jobs, job attributes and recruiters from Cockpit. | On. Without this option nothing comes in. |
| Skip job import on zero results | Skips the import if Cockpit returns zero jobs, instead of setting everything in Booston to inactive. | On. This is your safety net when something goes wrong on the Cockpit side. |
| Candidate export | Sends applicants with CV, cover letter and source to Cockpit. | On. |
| Candidate export retry | Offers a failed export again every hour. | On. Only works if Candidate export is on. |
| Candidate review score and status import | Fetches the stage the candidate is in inside Cockpit. | On if you work with workflow statuses in Cockpit. |
| Postback job URL export | Would write the job URL back to your ATS. | Off. Nothing happens with it on Cockpit. |
Under Real time connection settings is what Booston does with a signal from Cockpit. Cockpit can report changes itself, instead of Booston asking every ten minutes.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Register webhooks | Registers Booston with Cockpit for the notifications. Switch this on and save, and Booston arranges the registration itself — Webhook ID and Webhook secret fill in on their own. |
| Webhook ID and Webhook secret | The number and the key of that registration. You do not have to fill these in yourself. |
| Activate webhooks | The master switch. With this off, Booston ignores every notification and only the ten-minute round remains. |
| Job import | Processes a notification about a new, changed or withdrawn job or publication. |
| Candidate progression import | Processes a notification about a changed candidate status. |
| Candidate score import | Processes a notification about a changed review. |
Click Next.
Step 5: activate the connection
The last step is called Activation. There is a red warning here, and rightly so: the switches on this step overwrite existing settings and affect your whole environment, including your website and your campaigns.
| Switch | What it does | When to switch it on |
|---|---|---|
| Apply default attribute settings for this ATS | Sets all default attribute settings for Cockpit correctly in one go: active, correctly labelled and linked to the right Cockpit field. | On a first setup. This saves you the most manual work. |
| Purge existing jobs and reload from ATS | Deletes the existing jobs in Booston and fetches them again. | Only if you have jobs from an earlier connection that are wrong. |
| Purge exisiting job attribute values and reload from ATS | Deletes the existing attribute values and fetches them again. | Only if your attribute values have become polluted. |
| Purge all recruiters and reload from ATS | Deletes all recruiters and fetches them again from Cockpit. | Only if your recruiter list is no longer correct. |
- Switch on Apply default attribute settings for this ATS if this is your first setup.
- Leave the three Purge switches off, unless you deliberately want to start over.
- Click Save.
Booston then fetches your jobs. When that is done, the overview appears with You are connected.
Step 6: set up your job texts
The connection now knows where to fetch the job. Next you decide which texts from Cockpit land where in Booston.
Go to Menu → Settings → Attributes → Job attributes. At the top is the Title and description attributes block: the title plus a series of text fields, each linked to a text field in Cockpit.
Cockpit delivers six text fields, plus the title of the publication:
| Text field in Cockpit | What it is usually used for |
|---|---|
| Summary | The short summary at the top of the job. |
| Function description | The description of the role itself. |
| Client description | The company or client profile. |
| Requirements description | What you ask of the candidate. |
| Offer description | What you offer the candidate. |
| Additional description | An extra text block for anything that does not fit elsewhere. |
On the Booston side you decide per text attribute what happens to it. There are three positions:
- Attribute off. Booston does not import the linked Cockpit field.
- Attribute on with Autopopulate by ATS on. Cockpit fills the text and overwrites it on every change.
- Attribute on with Autopopulate by ATS off. You write the text yourself in Booston, and Cockpit leaves it alone.
Click the edit icon behind an attribute to set it up:
| Field | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Label nl / Label en | The heading above the text on your website, per language. |
| Text search | Whether this text counts in a search on your website. |
| Search rank | The order in which the attributes are shown. |
| On job detail page | Whether the text is visible on the job page. |
| In job box | Whether the text is used as an introduction in a job list. |
| Autopopulate by ATS | Whether Cockpit fills this field. |
Check the result at Menu → Recruitment → Jobs and open a job.
Step 7: set up the other job attributes
Below the text block are the other job attributes. These are not individual texts but attribute values — the values a job picks from, and the ones a candidate filters on across your website.
This is what Cockpit delivers:
| Group | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Role and field | Industry, function, function level, category |
| Candidate profile | Education level, experience level, cognitive level |
| Employment | Contract type, employment type, working days, shift type, work location preference |
| Practical | Driving licence, means of transport, maximum travel distance |
| Organisation | The department the job belongs to |
| Location | Street, postcode, city, region and country |
| Salary | The lower and upper bound and the period, in euros |
It works the same as with the texts: if an attribute is off, Booston does not import the value. If you want Cockpit to fill it, switch Autopopulate by ATS on. If the attribute is on but Autopopulate by ATS is off, you fill the value yourself at Menu → Recruitment → Jobs by editing the job.
These attributes add two settings compared with the text fields:
| Field | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Job alert | Whether the attribute value is available in the job alert form. |
| In job alert mail | Whether the attribute value is mentioned in the job alert email to candidates. |
Which values come in from Cockpit is visible under Manage job attribute values. There you give each value a label per language, link it to a Google for Jobs category if you want, and add an image.
New values are added by themselves: as soon as Cockpit sends a job with a value Booston does not know yet, that value is added. You can then rewrite it independently of Cockpit — your translation or your tidier spelling stays. How to organise and display attributes further is covered in Managing attributes for jobs and candidates.
Publishing jobs from Cockpit
The connection is live. From now on, publishing is something you do in Cockpit.
- Create the job request in Cockpit and fill in the fields you switched on in Booston.
- Add a publication to it. The publication is what Booston fetches, not the request itself.
- Check the publication period. The start date has to be today or in the past if you want the job fetched now; the end date has to be in the future.
- Make sure the publication is on your Cockpit job site. Booston fetches what is offered there.
At the next synchronisation the job is in Booston. Check it at Menu → Recruitment → Jobs. In the Ats ID column you see the number that ties the job to Cockpit.
If you remove the publication in Cockpit, or the end date passes, Booston takes the job off your website. So there is nothing for you to clean up. The job itself stays in Booston, including all applications and campaign history — if it comes back from Cockpit later, that same job becomes active again.
Receiving applications and sending them back
When someone applies to a job that is online through Booston — on your website, through a job board or through an ad on social media — this is what happens:
- Booston records the application with personal and contact details, CV and cover letter.
- The candidate goes straight to Cockpit, linked to the right publication, including the source and the full UTM details of the campaign the application came from.
- The consents the candidate gave on the form come along: agreement for email contact, for mediation and for contact over WhatsApp, each with date and time.
- Your recruiter carries on in Cockpit. Status changes come back to Booston, so your reporting stays correct.
Because the UTM details travel with it, you see in Cockpit not only that someone applied but also through which campaign and which channel. That is exactly the information you need to decide where your budget is best spent — in the Jobboard network, for example, or in Meta job ads.
Open applications
If someone leaves their details without responding to a specific job, that candidate arrives in Cockpit as an open enrollment, with CV and consents but without a link to a publication. An open enrollment always needs an owner in Cockpit; Booston picks the first user in your Cockpit environment who is linked to a department.
If an export fails, for instance because Cockpit is temporarily unreachable, the candidate stays in Booston and Booston retries every hour, as long as Candidate export retry is on. So you never lose an application. How to create and complete candidates in Booston yourself is covered in Creating and editing candidates.
Statuses back in Booston
The connection keeps a candidate's stage the same on both sides. When a recruiter moves a candidate to a next workflow status in Cockpit, Booston takes it over and translates it into its own statuses.
This is how the most-used Cockpit statuses carry through to Booston:
| Status in Cockpit | Status in Booston |
|---|---|
| Terugbelverzoek gedaan, Meer info gevraagd, Intake gepland | Contact |
| Op intake geweest, Sollicitatiegesprek gepland | Appointment |
| Voorgesteld aan contactpersoon, Assessment gepland, Arbeidsvoorwaardengesprek gepland | Presented to client |
| Voorgesteld aan kandidaat, Herplaatsen na ziekte | Presented to team |
| Geplaatst | Hired |
| Afgewezen | No potential for us |
This runs through the Candidate review score and status import setting on the Functionality step. With it off, the status in Booston stays whatever it was.
Changing the connection later
Once the connection is live, the wizard disappears. At Menu → Settings → Connect → Ats you then see You are connected with two expandable blocks underneath: Main Settings and Ats Functions. Those are the same fields as in the wizard.
- Expand the block you want to change.
- Adjust the setting.
- Click Save.
If you want to stop the connection altogether, click Disconnect. The exchange stops; your jobs and candidates in Booston stay where they are.
What you cannot arrange yourself
- Switching on the real-time notifications. The registration has to be right on both sides. Email support@booston.io and we will switch it on and check that Cockpit really is sending the notifications.
- The branch filter in Qualifier. It works with the branch numbers from Cockpit. Email us which branches should take part.
- Linking a Cockpit field to a Booston attribute. Which Cockpit fields map to which attributes is fixed per ATS. If you need something different, email support@booston.io.
- Starting a manual, full synchronisation. Useful after a big clean-up in Cockpit. Request it through support@booston.io.
Troubleshooting
No jobs are coming in
First check in Cockpit whether the job has a publication and whether the publication period is right: start date today or earlier, end date in the future. If that is correct, check in Booston that Job, job attribute and recruiter import is on and that your API key is still valid.
The job is there, but texts or attributes are missing
Then the matching attribute is off, or Autopopulate by ATS is off. See Step 6: set up your job texts and Step 7: set up the other job attributes.
A change in Cockpit still is not there after fifteen minutes
That can be correct: without real-time notifications Booston fetches every ten minutes and processing takes a little longer after that. If the change is still missing after half an hour, report it with the job number from Cockpit.
An application is in Booston but not in Cockpit
Check that Candidate export is on. If it is, the export probably failed and is retried every hour as long as Candidate export retry is on. If it keeps failing, email support@booston.io with the name of the candidate and the job.
A candidate arrives as an open enrollment even though a job was chosen
We know about this and we are fixing it. It happens with candidates you create yourself at Menu → Recruitment → Candidates: the chosen job drops away and the candidate ends up in Cockpit without a publication. Report it through support@booston.io with the name of the candidate and the job, and we will link it afterwards.
Statuses are not being updated
Check whether Candidate review score and status import is on. If it is, the changes come in overnight and you see them the next morning.
Frequently asked questions
Does the RecruitNow API key cost extra?
That is between you and RecruitNow. Ask about any costs when you request it.
Can I edit a job text in Booston without Cockpit overwriting it?
Yes. Switch Autopopulate by ATS off on that attribute. Booston then leaves the field alone and you write it yourself.
What happens to a job I delete in Cockpit?
It disappears from your website at the next synchronisation. The job stays in Booston with all its applications and statistics, and becomes active again if it returns from Cockpit.
Can I click through from Cockpit to Booston without logging in again?
Not yet. That is possible with a number of other ATSs today; how it works is covered in SSO: working in Booston from your ATS without a separate login.
Do my jobs come in in English as well?
No. Cockpit delivers the job in one language, and it arrives in the default language of your environment. You write a second language version yourself in Booston, on an attribute where Autopopulate by ATS is off.
Can I connect several Cockpit environments to one Booston environment?
No, one Booston environment connects to one ATS environment. If you work with several brands or branches, email support@booston.io — we solve that with multiple environments.
Does Booston see my whole candidate database?
No. Booston only sees the candidates who came in through Booston, plus the stage those candidates are in. Candidates who were already in Cockpit stay there.
Coming soon
- AI texts that stay put. If you have a job text optimised by AI, the nightly synchronisation currently overwrites that text with the one from Cockpit. Soon your optimised text will stay until that same field changes in Cockpit, and you will be able to view the original Cockpit text at any time and restore it with one click.
- The ATS step in the guided setup. New customers will go through one guided flow when setting up their environment, in which connecting your ATS is a fixed step. You will no longer have to work out the order to set things up in yourself.
- Clicking through from your ATS to Booston on more systems. We are expanding the number of ATSs you can click through to Booston from without logging in again.
As soon as this is live, we will update this article. Everything else that changes in Booston you can follow through Updates: what is new in Booston.
Need help?
Stuck while setting things up — on the API key, the branches or the attribute settings? Email support@booston.io or call 085 0044 215 and include:
- the name of your environment;
- what you want to achieve;
- the message you see, if there is an error.
Would you rather walk through the settings together? Book a free 30-minute online demo — then we will go through it together. Job Done!
