Building a robust applicant tracking system on Zoho Creator

Home care providers in the UK play a critical role in social care delivery, encompassing a wide range of activities, including the provision of personal care to individuals with long-term care needs, rehabilitation services for people leaving the hospital, or crisis interventions to prevent hospital attendance. This publicly funded home care is available to both older people and younger people with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, or mental health issues.

One of the leading home care providers in the UK faced challenges in managing their carer recruitment process, as they relied on spreadsheets and legacy applications to manage the recruitment process and track applicants. Below are a few examples of the various challenges they encountered in the existing recruitment processes:

• Inefficient applicant tracking processes
• Manual data sharing between different departments
• Lack of real-time reporting
• Missed communications

After using several types of off-the-shelf software solutions, the home care provider realized that what they needed was an effective, custom-made applicant tracking system (ATS).

What is an applicant tracking system?

An applicant tracking system facilitates the management of applicants to job vacancies in an organization. It provides the whole gamut of requisite modules necessary to take care of all the activities that take place in a typical recruitment process.

The ATS solution built on Zoho Creator

The home care provider started scouring the internet for a viable way to develop their custom ATS solution. They discovered the ability of low-code platforms to engineer custom software rapidly and easily, and decided that this would be a viable option for their unique software needs. Developing a solution on their own would take a bit of time, so they took an alternative route: enlisting the help of a Zoho partner to do the heavy lifting for them. After searching the internet for companies that offered custom solutions built on Zoho, they zeroed in on UK-based Zoho partner Thoughtlogik.

To begin with, Thoughtlogik helped the home care provider build an enquiry management solution on the Zoho Creator platform.

Then, Thoughtlogik developed a robust ATS on top of Zoho Creator for them. The system includes these features:

• Recruitment management
• Candidate database
• Job applications
• Interview scheduling
• Reviews and ratings
• Activity tracking for tasks, notes, and emails.

As a result, the new ATS system developed was integrated with the existing enquiry system. Once the enquiry was closed and won, the recruitment for the client was created in the ATS system from the enquiry system, eliminating back-and-forth communication between the enquiries and recruitment departments. This also reduced manual data entry and provided the recruitment department with complete context about the client care needs from the enquiry system, which helped in screening suitable applications based on those needs.

Zoho Creator feature spotlight

To streamline the recruitment process and job application pipeline, Thoughtlogik used the Zoho Creator Blueprint feature. Blueprint allows for the automation of workflows and the standardisation of processes. By using the Blueprint feature, the client was able to establish a clear and structured recruitment process and application pipeline, enabling them to improve the efficiency of the entire recruitment process.

Environments were enabled on the platform, providing significant benefits for ongoing development activities. By having different environments, Thoughtlogik was able to deliver new features and enhancements while the application was being used by live users. This ensured that new features and enhancements were fully tested before being implemented in the live environment, reducing the risk of issues occurring during live usage and version control the changes.

How the Zoho Creator solution benefited the client:

Improved recruitment efficiency: The new ATS system developed by Thoughtlogik has helped the client to streamline their recruitment process, eliminating inefficiencies in applicant tracking, manual data sharing between departments, and missed communications.

Better screening of suitable applicants: The recruitment department now has complete context about the client care needs from the enquiry system, which helps in screening suitable applications based on the client care needs.

Streamlined job application pipeline: By using the Zoho Creator Blueprint feature, the recruitment process and job application stages have been streamlined, enabling the client to manage the recruitment process more efficiently.

Real-time reporting: The new system has enabled the client to have access to real-time reporting, which can provide valuable insights into the recruitment process and help them make informed decisions.

Seamless feature deployment: Environments in Zoho Creator enabled the delivery of new features and enhancements without affecting the live application. This means that new features can be developed and tested in a separate environment, ensuring that they work as intended before being deployed to the live environment.

This robust ATS system built on Zoho Creator streamlined the company's processes. It has resulted in improved efficiency, productivity, and profitability. The home care provider is now able to handle patient requests hassle-free, and has improved its user satisfaction manifold.

This blog is written by Zoho partner, Thoughtlogik.

Partner background:

Thoughtlogik is a Zoho partner headquartered in the United Kingdom, with development centres in India. They specialise in offering consultation, implementation, customisation, integration, and development services for custom business applications and ERP applications to clients worldwide. As a certified Zoho partner, their primary objective is to offer simple and scalable technology solutions that assist businesses in achieving their objectives. With a team of certified Zoho Creator developers, Zoho CRM Admins, Zoho Desk Admins, and Zoho Analytics Admins, Thoughtlogik provides comprehensive Zoho solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises, fully leveraging the power of Zoho.