Your job is in Otys. Then the retyping starts: the same text again on the careers site, again on the job boards, and as soon as someone applies you paste the name, the CV and the motivation letter back into Otys. Every change twice, and by Friday afternoon nobody knows which version is the right one.

With the Otys connection you do the work once. You publish the job in Otys and Booston picks it up — with every text field, match criterion, salary, location and the recruiter attached to it. Applicants go back to Otys complete with CV, motivation letter and source, and the procedure status you set there comes back into Booston. And recently you no longer have to leave Otys at all: from Otys Go! you open Booston without logging in again. The end goal: Otys stays your only point of entry, and everything that happens outside it comes back together there.

After this article you know which data goes back and forth, how to set the connection up yourself with the setup wizard, how to configure your job texts and attributes, and how your colleagues work in Booston straight from Otys. 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 an Otys API key (the OWS key for your Otys environment). You request it from Otys; see Step 1: request your Otys API key.
• Your user role 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 published job in Otys. Booston only picks up jobs that are set to publish in Otys; without a published job there is nothing to check.
• You know which languages your environment uses. Otys publishes a job per language; you switch on the languages Booston should take along in the wizard.

What the connection gives you

The connection is not a one-off import but a continuous two-way exchange. That gives you five things:

• One point of entry. You enter the job in Otys and nowhere else. Change it there and it changes everywhere.
• 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 full. Name, contact details, CV, motivation letter, the full candidate profile and the applicant's source all end up as a candidate in Otys, linked to the right job.
• Statuses in step. When a recruiter moves the candidate to the next procedure status in Otys, Booston sees it too — so your reports keep adding up.
• Working from Otys, without a second login. This is the newest addition: Booston opens inside Otys Go!, and the vacancy screen carries a small Booston block that switches on the campaigns for that job in one click. See Working in Booston from Otys.

On top of that the connection is multilingual: Otys delivers a job per language and Booston keeps those languages apart, without you entering anything twice.

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 Otys to Booston

From Booston to Otys

How fast it goes

• Jobs are picked up by Booston every ten minutes. With the real-time notification switched on, Booston handles a change almost immediately: Otys only reports that something changed and which job it concerns, and Booston then fetches the complete, current record itself. That way the content is always the content of that moment.
• A full round runs every night. It picks everything up again, including what looked unchanged, so small differences never last longer than a day.
• Applications do not travel in that round: they are exported the moment they arrive. If that fails — because Otys is briefly unreachable, for instance — Booston tries again every hour.
• Candidate statuses come in overnight. A status change you make in Otys today shows up in Booston tomorrow morning.

Step 1: request your Otys API key

The connection works with one key: the API key of your Otys environment. Booston signs in to Otys with it and picks up your jobs from there.

1. Request the API key from your contact or Key-user at Otys. Only a Key-user can create one.
2. Ask at the same time which document types you use for a CV and a motivation letter, and which procedure status a new applicant should land in. You fill those three values in at Step 5: fill in the custom mappings.
3. Store the key safely. It gives access to your jobs and your candidates.

Step 2: start the connection and pick Otys

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. Under Select ATS, choose Otys from the list. You will recognise it by the logo.
4. Click Next.

For Otys the wizard has five steps: Select ATS, Main settings, Functionality, Custom mappings and Activation. You move back and forth with Previous and Next; nothing is saved until you click Save on the last step.

Step 3: fill in the Main settings

The Main settings step holds the connection details.

Then click Next.

Step 4: choose which data flows run

On the Functionality step you switch on what may run between Otys and Booston. The options sit in two blocks.

Under Sync are the data flows themselves:

Under Real time connection settings is what Booston does with a notification from Otys. Otys can report by itself that a job has changed or been withdrawn, instead of Booston asking every ten minutes.

Click Next.

Step 5: fill in the custom mappings

Otys is one of the few connections with a Custom mappings step of its own. Here you tell Booston where an applicant should land in your Otys environment. The values differ per Otys environment; you request them from your Key-user or from Otys.

Click Next.

Step 6: 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 work through your whole environment, including your website and your campaigns.

Setting up an environment for the first time, you usually want all four on: you then start from the standard Otys configuration and nothing from an earlier situation lingers. Moving an existing environment over from another ATS to Otys, leave them off and check with the helpdesk first.

Click Save. You will see Synchronization in progress; Booston is picking up your jobs at that moment. That can take a few minutes. Once it is done, the You are connected screen appears.

Step 7: set up your job texts

The connection is in place, but you have not yet decided which texts you take over from Otys. You do that at the attributes, and you start with the texts: they determine what your job page looks like.

Go to Menu → Settings → Attributes → Job attributes. The screen is divided into sections: Title And Description, General, Salary, Location, Media and Other. The texts are in Title And Description.

Every text field in Booston is automatically linked to a text field in Otys — the summary, the job description, the requirements, the company profile, the company culture, the salary text and the ten free text fields. So you do not have to tie a field to a field yourself; you only decide which fields you take over.

You control that per attribute with two switches:

• Status off means: the attribute is not active in Booston and the matching text is not picked up from Otys.
• Sync with ATS on means: Otys fills this text automatically. This is what you want in most cases.
• With Status on but Sync with ATS off, the field stays empty until you fill it in yourself on the job in Booston.

Click the pencil icon to configure an attribute further. The most important fields:

Step 8: set up the other job attributes

In the other sections — General, Salary, Location, Media and Other — you manage the attributes with fixed values: industry, contract type, education, hours, salary, location and so on. With Otys those come from the match criteria on the job.

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

In the edit screen of an attribute with values you have a few extra fields compared with the texts:

Next to the pencil icon is a list icon. It opens all the values that came in through Otys, for example all industries or all contract types. When an Otys job comes in with a value Booston does not know yet, that value is added to the list automatically. You can then adjust it — handy if you use an abbreviation in Otys but want the whole word on your site, or if you need the value in a second language. There is more on this in Managing attributes for jobs and candidates.

Candidate attributes: the value lists from Otys

Besides the job attributes, Booston has candidate attributes: the fields on the candidate themselves, such as country, nationality, driving licence, spoken languages, industry and experience level. With Otys this is one of the strongest parts of the connection, because the lists of possible values come straight from Otys.

This is how it works:

1. Go to Menu → Settings → Attributes → Candidate attributes.
2. Switch Status on for the attributes you want to use.
3. Switch Autopopulate by ATS on for the attributes Otys should fill.
4. Booston then picks up the value list from Otys and puts it ready on the attribute, in every language your environment uses.

From that moment those fields run both ways: on your application form the candidate picks from exactly the values Otys knows, and on export the value comes back into Otys as a known value instead of loose text. So your recruiter has nothing left to retype or correct.

Publishing jobs from Otys

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

1. Create the job in Otys and fill in the fields you switched on in Booston.
2. Set the job to publish.
3. Check the publication period. The start date must not be in the future if you want the job picked up straight away, and the end date must be in the future.
4. If you publish multilingually, make sure the job is published in every language you have switched on in Booston.

At the next round — or straight away, if the real-time notification is on — your job is in Booston. Check it through Menu → Recruitment → Jobs. If you work multilingually you will see a separate line per language on the same job: those are the language versions of one Otys job.

Take the job off publication in Otys, or let the end date pass, and Booston takes it off your website. So there is nothing to clean up.

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:

1. Booston records the application with personal and contact details, the candidate profile, the CV and the motivation letter.
2. Booston searches Otys for a candidate with that email address. If one exists it is updated; if not, it is created.
3. The CV and the motivation letter travel along as attachments, under the document types from Step 5: fill in the custom mappings.
4. The candidate is attached to the right job as a procedure, in the starting status you set, including the source and the full UTM data of the campaign the application came from.
5. The recruiter attached to the job is set as the owner of the candidate in Otys.

Because the UTM data travels along, in Otys you see 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; what else you can do with it is in Analytics: seeing which channel brings you applicants.

If an export fails, because Otys is temporarily unreachable for instance, 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.

Statuses back in Booston

When you move the candidate to a next procedure status in Otys, Booston takes that over during the nightly round. Otys works with several status columns; Booston looks at the most advanced status that is filled, so the stage in Booston always matches how far the candidate really is.

Which Otys status maps onto which Booston status is fixed for your environment. If something is off in the flow of your candidates, report which status you use in Otys and which status you expect in Booston; see What you cannot arrange yourself.

Working in Booston from Otys

This is the newest addition to the connection, and for your recruiters the biggest difference in their daily work: they no longer have to log in separately. Booston opens from Otys Go!, with the right environment and the right job already waiting for you.

There are two entrances, and they sit side by side.

Booston as a screen inside Otys

The first entrance is Booston inside the Otys screen — the same way of working you may know from other connections. You click the Booston action in Otys and Booston opens in the Otys window, without its own menu bar, so you stay in the screen you were working in anyway.

The Booston widget on the vacancy screen

The second entrance is a small Booston block on the vacancy screen in Otys Go!. It shows you at a glance how that job is doing at Booston:

If the job is not in Booston yet, the widget says so and the button stays. Clicking it then is exactly what sets the import in motion: Booston picks up that one job and puts it ready.

Where you land

You come in on the job itself, on the screen with two tabs:

If you click through without a job selected, you land on the overview instead of on a single job.

Who gets in and who does not

When someone clicks through for the first time, Booston looks for a user with that email address. If there is none, Booston creates one automatically and sends that person a password link, so they can also sign in directly later on.

Whether that new user can work straight away depends on one setting: Auto-activate iFrame / SSO users, at Settings → Users & Permissions in the iFrame / SSO user activation card.

You cannot flip that switch yourself; it is visible to Booston only. Email support@booston.io with the position you want. If you want everyone who may work in Otys to be able to work in Booston straight away, On is the position you are after — that saves you a manual step per new colleague. Everything about roles, activating and what you can do with a user created through SSO is in Users: granting access, choosing roles and signing in through your ATS. The background to this way of working is in SSO: working in Booston from your ATS without logging in separately.

Changing the connection later

Once the connection is in place, 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.

1. Expand the block you want to change.
2. Adjust the setting.
3. Click Save.

The four switches from Step 6: activate the connection do not appear here any more, so an ordinary change never throws your jobs away by accident.

If you want to stop the connection completely, click Disconnect. The exchange stops; your jobs and candidates in Booston stay where they are.

What you cannot arrange yourself

• The translation of Otys procedure statuses into Booston statuses. Which status from your Otys pipeline maps onto which Booston status is something Booston sets up for you. Email support@booston.io with the status you use in Otys and the status you expect in Booston.
• The mapping of an Otys field onto a Booston attribute. Which Otys field or match criterion maps onto which attribute is fixed per ATS. If you want to deviate, email support@booston.io.
• The real-time notifications from Otys. The registration happens on the Otys side; we arrange that together with Otys.
• Auto-activate iFrame / SSO users. Decides whether someone clicking through from Otys has access immediately. Email support@booston.io with the position you want.
• The frequency of the synchronisation. That is fixed for your whole environment and cannot be set per customer.

Troubleshooting

No jobs come in at all

First check in Otys whether a job really is set to publish and whether the publication period is right. If that is fine, check in Booston whether Job, job attribute and recruiter import is on and whether your API key is still valid. A revoked or replaced key is by far the most common cause, and it produces no visible error message.

One job is missing, the rest are there

Look at the publication period of that job: a start date in the future or an end date in the past holds it back. If you work multilingually, also check whether the job is published in Otys in the language you expect in Booston — a language that is not switched on there is skipped.

Jobs come in, but fields stay empty

Then the attribute has Status on but Sync with ATS off. Switch it on at Menu → Settings → Attributes → Job attributes; the field is filled at the next round. If it stays empty, check whether the field is filled in Otys itself on that job.

Applicants do not end up in Otys

Check whether Candidate export is on under Ats Functions. If it keeps failing, look at the job: an application can only be attached to an Otys job if that job actually comes from Otys. An open application, or a job you created by hand in Booston, has no Otys job to attach to.

The applicant is in Otys, but in the wrong step

Then Candidate source ID is not filled in, or filled in wrongly. Ask your Key-user for the right value and enter it at Main Settings → Ats Functions, or through the Custom mappings step if you run through the wizard again.

CV and motivation letter sit on the candidate without a type

Check Resume file ID and Motivational file ID. If those are empty, the files are still sent along but stored without a document type, and your recruiter will not find them where they expect them.

A colleague cannot get in through Otys

Check first whether their Booston user is set to active. With Auto-activate iFrame / SSO users off, a new visitor is created inactive and a Manager has to release them.

Frequently asked questions

Can I create jobs in Booston instead of in Otys?

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

Does the connection work with more than one language?

Yes. Switch Multilingual on in the Main settings and Booston picks up every language version the job is published in within Otys. Attribute values that Otys does not translate, you translate in Booston at the attribute values.

Do I have to set anything up in Otys to see the Booston screens there?

Yes. A Key-user switches the Booston integration on in Otys and decides where the button or the block appears. After that, anyone working in Otys can click through; who actually gets in you arrange on the Booston side with Auto-activate iFrame / SSO users.

What happens if I delete a job in Otys?

At the next round that job is no longer in the list Otys returns, and it disappears from Booston and from your website as well. With the real-time notification on, that happens almost immediately.

Does the connection cost extra at Otys?

For the connection itself you need access to the Otys web service. Whether that is part of your subscription is something to check with Otys.

Can I work with several Otys environments on one Booston environment?

No. A connection works with one API key and therefore with one Otys environment. Several Otys environments means several Booston environments.

Coming soon

• More room for Booston inside Otys. The screen that opens inside Otys is getting taller, so you have to scroll less while setting up a campaign. If your configuration works without an embedded screen, Booston will open on the full page instead of on a sub-screen.
• Sharper fields and statuses. We are tightening up which Otys field ends up on which Booston attribute, and making sure the status of the job on the Otys side always matches what Booston shows.
• All running campaigns in one place. The Campaigns tab will bring together all the running campaigns for that job, so from Otys you see in one glance everywhere the job is running.
• The connection as a step in the guided setup. For new environments the ATS connection will become a fixed step in the setup wizard, with the same steps you have met above. As soon as this is live, we will update this article.

Need help?

Not getting there, or unsure which setting suits your situation? 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!