Your job is in HelloFlex. Then the double work starts: the same text again on your careers site, again on the job boards, and as soon as someone applies you retype the name, phone number and CV into HelloFlex. Every change twice. On a busy day you forget one, and a wrong salary sits online for a week.

With the HelloFlex connection you do the work once. You publish the job in HelloFlex and Booston picks it up, with the text, the job category, the salary, the location and the contact person attached to it. Applicants go back to HelloFlex with CV and motivation letter, linked to the right job. When your recruiter moves the candidate to the next stage there or gives a rating, that comes back into Booston. The end goal: HelloFlex stays your only point of entry, and everything you publish there appears on your site and in your campaigns by itself.

After this article you know which data goes back and forth, what to prepare in HelloFlex, how to set the connection up yourself with the setup wizard, and how to check that a job came in correctly. You will find the screen at Menu → Settings → Connect → Ats.

Before you start

• The ATS connector module is switched on for your environment. If it is off, you will not see the Connect screen.
• You have access to the Connect module in HelloFlex, because that is where you create the API user Booston signs in with. If you do not have that module, ask HelloFlex for it.
• Your user role in Booston has access to Settings. Roles and rights are covered in Users: granting access, choosing roles and signing in through your ATS.
• There is at least one active, published job in HelloFlex. Booston only picks up jobs that are both active and published in HelloFlex. Without one there is nothing to check.
• Your environment works in one language. The HelloFlex connection picks up one language version per job.

What the connection gives you

The connection is not a one-off import. It is a continuous two-way exchange, and that gives you four things:

• One point of entry. You enter the job in HelloFlex and nowhere else. Change it there and it changes everywhere within ten minutes.
• Online and in campaigns right away. A published job appears on your website, in your Job feed and can join your campaigns on the Jobboard network and in Meta job ads.
• Applicants back in HelloFlex. Name, e-mail address, phone number, CV and motivation letter end up as an application in HelloFlex, attached to the right job.
• Statuses and ratings in step. When a recruiter moves the candidate to the next stage in HelloFlex, or gives a rating, Booston sees it too. Your reports keep adding up.

Which data goes back and forth

Below is exactly what travels the line, in which direction, and which setting switches it on. The names in the Setting column are the switches you will meet in Step 4: choose which data flows run.

From HelloFlex to Booston

From Booston to HelloFlex

How fast it goes

• Jobs are picked up by Booston every ten minutes. HelloFlex does not send a signal when something changes, so count on at most ten minutes between publishing in HelloFlex and seeing the job in Booston.
• Every night a full round runs. It picks up everything again, including what looked unchanged, so small differences never last longer than a day.
• Applications are not part of that round. They are sent to HelloFlex the moment they come in. If that fails, for instance because HelloFlex is briefly unreachable, Booston tries again every hour.
• Candidate statuses and ratings come in every evening. A stage you change in HelloFlex today shows in Booston tomorrow morning.

Which fields come across

Booston automatically lines up the fields of a HelloFlex job with the attributes in Booston. You do not have to connect anything by hand. You only decide which fields you use, and you do that in Step 6: set up your job texts and Step 7: set up the other job attributes.

A few more things happen on pickup:

• Only active, published jobs come across. A draft, a closed job or a job that is not published is invisible to Booston.
• If a job disappears from that list, it comes off your website in Booston. So you never have to clean up.
• Every job comes in in one language, the default language of your environment.

Step 1: create an API user in HelloFlex

Booston signs in to HelloFlex as a separate API user. You create it yourself in the Connect module of HelloFlex. It gives you two things: a client ID and a password. You fill those in later at Step 3: fill in the Main settings.

1. In HelloFlex, go to the Connect module and open API Users. You will find the screen at https://.helloflex.com/apiuser/list.
2. Click Add in the top right corner.
3. Enter a recognisable name at Friendly name, for instance Booston. You will see this name later in the history of a job or application whenever Booston did something with it.
4. Enter a strong password at Password. This is the password Booston signs in with.
5. At Organization, pick the office or organisation whose jobs Booston may see. If you work with several offices and want all of them on your site, pick the highest level.
6. Open the Access tab and give the API user access to jobs and applications. Without that access nothing comes in and nothing goes back.
7. Save and open the detail page of the API user. It shows the client ID, a long code with hyphens. Copy it together with the password.

More detail is in the HelloFlex documentation on API users.

Step 2: start the connection and pick HelloFlex

1. In Booston, go to Menu → Settings → Connect and click the Ats tab.
2. If it says Ats is not connected, click Connect. The setup wizard opens.
3. At Select ATS, pick Helloflex from the list. You will recognise it by the logo.
4. Click Next.

For HelloFlex the wizard has four steps: Select ATS, Main settings, Functionality and Activation. You move back and forth between the steps with Previous and Next. Nothing is saved until you click Save in the last step.

Step 3: fill in the Main settings

The Main settings step holds the connection details. The labels are the same as for other ATSs, but for HelloFlex you fill in something other than a normal login.

Then click Next.

Step 4: choose which data flows run

On the Functionality step you switch on what may run between HelloFlex and Booston. Under Sync are the data flows themselves.

You will not see the Real time connection settings block for HelloFlex. HelloFlex does not report a change to Booston itself, so everything runs through the ten-minute round. Click Next.

Step 5: activate the connection

The last step is called Activation. It shows a red warning, and rightly so: the switches on this step overwrite existing settings and affect your whole environment, including your website and your campaigns.

1. Switch on Apply default attribute settings for this ATS if this is your first setup.
2. Leave the three Purge switches off, unless you deliberately want to start over.
3. Click Save.

Booston then shows Synchronization in progress and picks up your jobs. This can take a few minutes, because Booston fetches every job separately. When it is done, the You are connected screen appears.

Step 6: set up your job texts

The connection is in place, but you have not yet decided which texts you take over from HelloFlex. You do that at the attributes. Start with the texts, because they decide what your job page looks like.

Go to Menu → Settings → Attributes → Job attributes. The texts are in the Title And Description section. HelloFlex delivers one text field, the description of the job. In Booston it lands in one text attribute. The other text attributes stay empty unless you fill them in Booston yourself.

Per attribute, two switches decide what happens:

• Status off means: the attribute is not active in Booston and the text is not picked up from HelloFlex.
• Sync with ATS on means: HelloFlex fills this text automatically, and overwrites whatever is in Booston on every round.
• Status on but Sync with ATS off means the field stays empty until you fill it in Booston yourself on the job. Handy for a fixed company description or a benefits block that does not exist in HelloFlex.

Click the pencil icon to configure an attribute further: the heading above the text on your job page, the order, and whether the text counts in the search. How that works exactly is in Managing attributes for jobs and candidates.

Step 7: set up the other job attributes

In the other sections, General, Salary, Location, Media and Other, you manage the attributes with fixed values: job category, industry, employment type, education level, salary, location and so on.

The two switches work the same as for the texts. Status decides whether the attribute exists in Booston, Sync with ATS whether HelloFlex fills in the value. If you switch Sync with ATS off while Status is on, you fill in the value yourself via Menu → Recruitment → Jobs → edit job.

Next to the pencil icon is a list icon. It opens every value that came in through HelloFlex, for instance every job category or every employment type. If a job comes in with a value Booston does not know yet, it is added to the list automatically. You can then give such a value a different name for your site. If you use an abbreviation in HelloFlex, you simply show the full word on your site.

Publishing jobs from HelloFlex

The connection is in place. From now on, publishing is something you do in HelloFlex.

1. Create the job in HelloFlex and fill in the fields you switched on in Booston.
2. Set the job to active and publish it. Booston only picks up jobs that are both.
3. Check the start and end date. An end date in the past keeps the job off your site.
4. If you want the job to stand out on your site, mark it as a top job in HelloFlex. It then comes into Booston with the Boost marker.

On the next round, so within ten minutes, the job is in Booston. Check it via Menu → Recruitment → Jobs. The Ats ID column shows the job's code from HelloFlex.

From that moment the job joins in everywhere: on your website, in your Job feed and in your campaigns. If you close the job in HelloFlex, withdraw the publication or the end date passes, Booston takes it off your website. So you never have to clean up.

Receiving applications and sending them back

When someone applies for a job that is online through Booston, on your website, through a job board or through an ad on social media, this happens:

1. Booston records the application with personal and contact details, CV and motivation letter.
2. Booston creates the application in HelloFlex right away, with first name, name prefix, last name, e-mail address and phone number, and attaches it to the job that was applied for.
3. The CV and the motivation letter go along as attachments.
4. Your recruiter carries on in HelloFlex. The stage and the rating come back into Booston every evening.

If an export fails, for instance because HelloFlex is briefly unreachable, the candidate stays in Booston and Booston tries again every hour, as long as Candidate export retry is on. So you never lose an application.

Three things are good to know:

• HelloFlex only accepts pdf, doc and docx as attachments. If a candidate uploads their CV as a photo or another file type, HelloFlex currently refuses the whole application. The candidate is still in Booston, with a note that the export failed. See Coming soon for what changes here.
• An open application does not go to HelloFlex. HelloFlex wants every application attached to a job. If someone leaves their details without a job, that candidate stays in Booston. How to complete and manage such a candidate is in Creating and editing candidates.
• A phone number HelloFlex does not understand does not block the applicant. If HelloFlex refuses the application because of the number, Booston sends it again right away without the phone number. The applicant still comes in, and the number is still in Booston.

Statuses and ratings back in Booston

Your recruiters work in HelloFlex: they invite, reject and rate. Every evening, for every application that reached HelloFlex through the connection, Booston picks up two things:

• The stage the application is in within HelloFlex. Booston translates it into its own status, such as in conversation, hired or rejected. Which HelloFlex stage maps to which Booston status is set up for you by Booston.
• The rating your recruiter gave in HelloFlex. Booston copies it to the candidate.

That way you see in Booston not only how many applicants a channel brings, but also how many of them your recruiters actually like. That is exactly what you need to divide your budget in Analytics.

This flow runs when Candidate review score and status import is on and the candidate attribute for the stage is active in Booston. If that attribute is off, Booston skips the whole round.

Changing the connection later

Go to Menu → Settings → Connect → Ats. Once the connection is in place you see two cards:

• ATS with the text You are connected and the Disconnect button.
• Settings, with the Main Settings and Ats Functions blocks that you expand and collapse.

Change what you need and click Save. Unlike the first setup, the four switches from Step 5: activate the connection no longer appear here. So a normal change never throws away your jobs by accident.

What you cannot arrange yourself

• The translation of HelloFlex stages into Booston statuses. Which stage from your HelloFlex process maps to which Booston status is set up for you by Booston. If something is off in the flow of your candidates, tell us which stage you use in HelloFlex and which status you expect in Booston.
• The filter in the Qualifier field. If you only want part of your jobs across, for instance from one office or in one language, we set that filter up together with you.
• The frequency of the synchronisation. It is fixed for your whole environment and cannot be set per customer.
• Switching on the connection itself. If the Ats tab is not in your menu, the module is not active on your environment. The helpdesk arranges that.

Troubleshooting

No jobs come in at all

Check the Main settings first: is the client ID of the API user at Username and the matching password at Password? Then check in HelloFlex whether the API user still exists and has access to jobs on the Access tab. If all of that is right, check whether a job in HelloFlex is both active and published.

One job is missing, the rest is there

Look at that job in HelloFlex. If it is not active, not published, or its end date is in the past, Booston skips it. If you work with a filter in Qualifier, it may fall outside that filter.

Jobs come in, but fields stay empty

Then the attribute has Status on but Sync with ATS off. Switch it on in Menu → Settings → Attributes → Job attributes. The field is filled on the next round. If a field stays empty while both switches are on, the field is not filled in within HelloFlex itself.

Applicants do not end up in HelloFlex

Check whether Candidate export is on under Ats Functions. Then look at the candidate's attachments: HelloFlex only accepts pdf, doc and docx. If it keeps failing for every candidate, the API user in HelloFlex probably has no access to applications, or the password has changed.

The connection worked and suddenly went quiet

Usually the API user's password in HelloFlex has changed or the user has been deleted. If needed, create a new API user and enter the client ID and password again at Main Settings.

A candidate's status does not move along

Statuses come in once every evening, so a change made today shows tomorrow. If it still does not show tomorrow, check whether Candidate review score and status import is on and whether the stage you use in HelloFlex is known to us.

Frequently asked questions

Can I create jobs in Booston instead of in HelloFlex?

You can, but that is not what this connection is for. Everything set to Sync with ATS is overwritten on the next round by the value from HelloFlex. If you want to manage a field in Booston, switch Sync with ATS off for that attribute.

Does the connection work with several languages?

Not at the moment. Booston picks up one language version per job, in the default language of your environment. If you want your site in a second language, translate the attribute values in Booston and manage the translated texts there yourself.

Do I need a separate connection for every office?

No. At the API user in HelloFlex you pick, at Organization, the level whose jobs Booston may see. Pick the highest level and all offices come into one Booston environment. If you want a separate site per office instead, create an API user and a Booston environment per office.

What happens when I close a job in HelloFlex?

On the next round that job is no longer in the list HelloFlex returns, and it disappears from Booston and from your website. The applications for that job are kept.

Does my recruiter see in HelloFlex that an application came through Booston?

The application comes in under the API user you created in HelloFlex. Give that user the name Booston at Friendly name and it shows in the history right away.

Does Booston's match score also go to HelloFlex?

No. For HelloFlex the rating runs one way: what your recruiter enters in HelloFlex comes to Booston. Booston's AI match score stays in Booston.

Coming soon

• A CV in the wrong format no longer blocks the applicant. Booston will check the file type itself, before the application goes to HelloFlex. A CV HelloFlex will not accept gets a clear message in Booston instead of a failed export whose cause you cannot see.
• Applications HelloFlex cannot accept are recognised right away. An open application without a job and other details HelloFlex refuses are caught beforehand, with a readable reason on the candidate.
• Better retries during an outage. If HelloFlex is briefly unreachable, Booston tries again by itself, with a little more time in between each attempt, until it succeeds.
• AI-optimised job texts stay in place. If you let the AI module improve a text from HelloFlex, the ten-minute round no longer overwrites that improvement. The original HelloFlex text stays visible and can be restored with one click.

As soon as this goes live, we update this article.

Need help?

Stuck, or unsure which setting fits your situation? E-mail support@booston.io or call 085 0044 215 and mention:

• the name of your environment;
• what you want to achieve;
• the message you see, if there is an error message.

Would you rather walk through the settings together? Book a free 30-minute online demo and we go through it with you. Job Done!