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Getting started with ATS Management

Track every applicant from their first form to their first day, and turn the people you hire into workers without retyping their details.

ATS Management is the applicant tracking area of Agency Accelerator. It brings recruitment into the same place you already manage your workers, so you can follow each applicant through your hiring process, collect their details with your own application forms, and create their worker record once you are ready to take them on.

Until you take someone on, they are a candidate. A candidate has an application record in ATS Management, which holds their details, documents, notes and a full history of what has happened to them. When they reach the end of your hiring process, you convert them into a worker. Their details move across to a new worker profile with its own CW number, so nobody has to type them in a second time.

This article explains how ATS Management is laid out and the order to set things up in. Each part then has its own detailed article.

 

Before you begin

  • ATS Management is part of Agency Accelerator Pro. If you cannot see ATS in your left-hand menu, contact our Support Team.
  • Think about the steps you already take when hiring. Telephone screening, interview, references, DBS check, offer: these become the stages of your pipeline, so it helps to have them in mind before you start.
  • Know what a worker record needs. To convert a candidate into a worker, their application must include their first name, last name, email address, date of birth, National Insurance number and DBS number. Collecting these early saves chasing them at the end.

 

Opening ATS Management

  1. Log in to Agency Accelerator.
  2. Select ATS in the left-hand menu.
  3. ATS Management opens. The breadcrumb at the top of the page reads Employees > ATS Management, and three tabs run across the top: Pipeline, Recruitment Forms and Candidates.

 

The three tabs

Pipeline

The Pipeline tab is a board where you manage candidates day to day. Each column is a stage of your hiring process, and each candidate appears as a card in the stage they have reached. You move a candidate on by dragging their card to the next column, and you open their card to see their full record.

This is also where you add candidates yourself with + Add candidate, and change your stages with Customise pipeline.

Recruitment Forms

The Recruitment Forms tab holds the application forms you build for candidates to fill in. Each form is tied to a role, and to the pipeline and stage its applications land on. A new form stays as a Draft until you publish it. Once it is Live, you can share its link with candidates, see how many submissions it has received and choose who is emailed when a new one arrives.

Candidates

The Candidates tab lists every candidate across all of your pipelines in one table. You can filter it by pipeline, stage, source and whether the candidate has a worker record yet, and search by name or email address. It is the quickest way to find one person, or to see everyone who came in through a particular form.

 

Words you will see in ATS Management

  • Pipeline: one way of hiring, with its own set of stages. You can have more than one, for example a separate pipeline for nursing roles and for support worker roles.
  • Stage: one step in a pipeline, shown as a column on the board. Each stage has a name and a colour, and belongs to its own pipeline only.
  • Final stage: the stage that means a candidate is ready to be taken on, usually Hired. It carries a Final flag on the board, and it is the only stage where you can convert a candidate into a worker.
  • Candidate: someone who has applied, or whom you have added, and who does not yet have a worker record.
  • Recruitment form: an application form you build and share. Candidates' answers and documents go straight onto their record.
  • Source: how a candidate reached you. It shows either the name of the form they completed or Added manually.
  • Worker record: the full worker profile created when you convert a candidate. It has its own CW number, such as CW-2026-AA-04883.

 

How it all fits together

  1. Set up your pipeline. Name your stages after the steps you really take, and choose which one is your final stage.
  2. Build and publish a recruitment form. Choose the role, and the pipeline and stage its applications should land on, add the questions you need, then publish it.
  3. Bring candidates in. Share the form's link so candidates can apply, or add people yourself with + Add candidate, for example when a CV reaches you by email.
  4. Move candidates through your stages. Drag their card as they progress, send them an application form if they have not filled one in, and keep notes on their record.
  5. Convert the people you hire. When a candidate reaches the final stage, select Review & convert to Worker, check their details and create their worker record.

From there, you carry on onboarding them from their worker profile, just as you would with any other worker.

 

Setting up for the first time

Work through the setup in this order, so each step has what it needs from the one before.

  1. Customise your pipeline. Rename the stages, set their colours and choose your final stage. See How to set up and use your candidate pipeline.
  2. Create your first recruitment form and publish it. See Creating and publishing recruitment forms.
  3. Add or invite your first candidates, then check they appear where you expect on the board.
  4. Get to know the Candidates list, so you can find anyone quickly as numbers grow. See Finding and managing candidates.

Tip: Ask the colleagues who interview and onboard workers to agree the stage names with you before you set them. The names appear on every card and every candidate record, so it pays to choose ones the whole team recognises.

 

Good habits worth adopting

  • Name stages after what really happens. "Telephone screening" tells a colleague far more than "Stage 2" does.
  • Make the final stage mean ready to hire. Converting a candidate is only possible on the final stage, so it should be the point where your checks are complete.
  • Give unsuccessful applicants a stage of their own. It can feel unkind to file people away, but a board full of candidates you are no longer considering makes it harder to see the ones who need you today.
  • Collect NI and DBS numbers early. If your recruitment form asks for them, converting a candidate takes one click instead of a round of chasing.

 

If something looks wrong

  • You cannot see ATS in the left-hand menu. ATS Management is a Pro feature. Check which plan your agency is on, then contact our Support Team if you expected to see it.
  • There is no Review & convert to Worker button on a card. The candidate is not on the final stage. Check which stage is set as final in Customise pipeline.
  • You cannot create a worker record. The application is missing details a worker record needs. The conversion window lists which ones, and lets you add them.

If something still does not look right, contact our Support Team and let us know the candidate's name and the pipeline they are on.

Happy hiring! 🎉