Release Notes - 25.10.03 (October 25)

Release: This release consists of the development undertaken under the sprints: 25.10.01, 25.10.02, 25.10.03.

Key Features: Parse Job Spec to Create New Requirement, Create Placement Search From Candidate, Company and Contact Search Result, All Licenced Users (Reporting Parameter), Minor UI Updates, Bug Fixes & more...

Upgrade Date: 09/11/25

Enhancements

REQUIREMENTS - Parse Job Spec to Create New Requirement

It will now be possible to parse the job specification document to create a new Requirement.

What this means for you:

If you have a documented job spec you will be able to either drag and drop the file on to a 'Parse Requirement' option on the left navigation menu or from the Quick Create 'plus sign' (top right) select 'Parse Requirement'.
When the parsing process has completed, similar to Candidate and Contact parsing, you will be taken to a Summary page which lists the values that have been parsed and shows you the relevant fields.
The parsing process will attempt to assign the Company automatically, but you will also be able to lookup the Company and Contact yourself.
This includes auto skilling based on the Job Specification (including skill alias matching).
If you are happy to create the Requirement, press 'Save'.

How do I enable this:

This feature will be enabled by default
For Administrators who wish to disable this feature, there is a User Group Permission > View Requirement Parsing > 'Allows a User to view "Parse Requirement" on the Navigation Menu'

SEARCH - Create Placement Search From Candidate, Company and Contact Search Result

This release will enable the option to convert a Candidate Search Result into a Placement Search Result, which lists all of the associated Placements linked with the selected Candidates. Likewise, a Company or Contact Search Result will also be able to create a Placement Search, consisting of the Placements linked to those records.

What this means for you:

When in the main Search area of Colleague, and reviewing a Candidate, Company or Contact Search Result, it will now be possible to select a number of records (or select all) and from the 'Selected Records' toolbar menu option (or the right click menu) choose to 'Create Placement Search'.
This will take the User to a Placement Search Result, listing all Placements associated to those records.
A User can then edit the criteria of the Placement Search Result to filter the Placements using additonal criteria.
There will also be a 'Go Back To Search' option in the toolbar to return to the original search result.

How do I enable this:

This will be a standard feature enabled for all Users

REPORTS - All Licenced Users (Reporting Parameter)

Our standard reports have now all been updated with an 'All Licenced Users' tickbox under the Users dropdown parameter.

What this means for you:

If you wish to report are all the licenced users on the system, you will now only need to tick this box.

How do I enable this:

This will be enabled for all standard reports

API - Search Requirements & Placements (including Custom Fields)

In response to recent Developer enhancement requests, our API has been updated with several new calls.

Social Media Links

With regards to Social Media Links, in addition to the ability create Social Media Links (Linked In URL), you can now also:

Find Existing Social Media Links
Update Existing Social Media Links
Delete Social Media Links

Requirements

When searching Requirements, it will now be possible to search over custom fields.

The search will now also supports a Job Title split function in the API call ("splitJobTitle": true).

This will look for all references of the searched job title, for example searching on 'IT Manager' would find 'IT Support Manager' or 'Manager of IT Department' or 'Company IT Manager' (rather than the previous 'Exact Match' technique).

Placements

The API will now support the search and retrieval of Placement data. This uses the same advanced search technique as available against Candidates, Companies, Contacts and Requirements.

All API updates will be deployed alongside this latest Colleague release.

OFFERS - Enable Offers based on a UGP

Following this release, it will be possible to enable Offers on a User Group Permission basis rather than being a system wide setting.

Offers are an optional stage to the booking process. This creates an Offer record that a User can then Reject or Accept to create a Placement. This is often relevant for Permanent teams, but less relevant in Temp/Contract teams.

What this means for you:

Previously when you enabled or disabled Offers is was a system wide setting for all Users.
If your Users are divided into Perm and Contract teams, it will now be possible to configure their User Groups so that one set of Users will use Offers when making Placements, and the other will be able to bypass Offers and go straight to making Placements.

How do I enable this:

There is still a Global Setting under the 'Offer' section called 'Enable Offers'. This is a 'catch all' setting to turn on and off Offers for all.
There is then a UGP specific setting, within User Group Permissions > Enable Offers > 'Grants the ability to Use Offers in the System' - set to Full Access to enable Offers for that User Group (or 'No Access' to bypass Offers)

Minor UI Tweaks

Ability to edit a Social Media Link URL

Following the release, Users will now be able to edit a Social Media Link URL.

When on a record, from the 'View More' menu > select 'Social Media Links'. You will notice there is now an 'Edit' column added to the table. Click on the pencil icon to edit the Social Media Link:

IR35 Status Field

In line with UK legislation, there is now an 'IR35 Status' field added to the Requirement.

This is a lookup field, and can be updated via the Lookups area in Admin.

By default, the lookup will include:

Inside
Outside
N/A

The field will only appear on Contract and Rolling Contract Requirements, Offers and Placements.

Potential Value Calculation Setting

There is now a Global Setting to set whether the 'Potential Value' field on the Requirement auto calculates based on Revenue or Margin.

If the 'Potential Value' field should be based on Revenue (i.e. Charge Rate * Duration), the example calculation would be performed:

Charge Rate £200 daily
Contract has the duration of 12 weeks (weeks are calculated based on 5 days)
Potential Value = 200 * 5 *12 = 12,000.

If the 'Potential Value' should be based on Margin (Charge Rate - Pay Rate), the example calculation would be performed:

Charge Rate £200 daily
Pay Rate: £100 daily
Contract has the duration of 12 weeks (weeks are calculated based on 5 days)
Potential Value = (200-100) * 5 * 12 = 6,000.

The Global Setting which sets this feature will be under the 'Requirement' section

'Calculate Potential Value As Revenue' Yes/No

All existing data will remain as entered (unless requested otherwise).

Mobile UI TEL Protocol Global Setting

There is now an additional 'Click to Dial' prefix Global Setting for the Mobile UI of Colleague.

This is to support the setup of ensuring calls made via the Colleague Mobile UI go via Teams or an installed application on the mobile device, rather than via the mobile operator.

This will support the upcoming Teams integration, which Colleague are working on.

With MS Teams being the example, to ensure all calls made from the Colleague Mobile UI go via Teams, within this Global Setting you would enter:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/call/0/0?users=4:

Update to 'Attach Spec CV' option on the Email form

Further to the introduction of the 'Attach Spec CV' option on the email form (when emailing a Contact record), after you have selected to 'Attach Spec CV' and looked up a Candidate record, it will now automatically attached the Candidate's Default CV:

Bug Fixes

Placements Created without the Address ID existing in the Address Table

An issue was raised when creating new addresses via the Placement record, resulting in the Address ID not being assigned to the Address Table.

This has now been resolved.

Create Portal User JSON syntax error

Further to updates made to the Users table, the Portal user creation process was generating an error.

This has now been resolved.

Add to List from Search Result issue

When creating a new List via a Search Result, returning to the Search Criteria and thn going back to the Search Results, the new List was not available on the 'Add to List' dropdown.

This has now been resolved, and has been updated throughout the system to ensure new Lists are added dynamically to the lists dropdown.

Scan Document not finding Skills Aliases

Issue with the 'Scan Document' feature failing to find skill aliases has been resolved.

GDPR notifications not coming through

An issue which would cause GDPR notifications to be delayed or fail to appear has now been resolved.

Interview history not being created when you edit participants

When creating an interview and editing the participants, the history that is added afterwards was not including the additional participants.

This has now been resolved.

Invalid website address message when creating Company

When creating a new Company, if you copied a valid website address into the Company website field, it would bring back an invalid web address alert due to an automatic 'on change event' edit that the field undertakes when the address is not empty.

This has now been resolved.

No Primary Address error when you delete a primary address and don't set another as primary

If there are two addresses against a Candidate, and the User deletes the Primary address, and doesn't set the other address as the new 'Primary' it would cause an error when loading the Candidate record.

This has now been resolved.

Apollo Integration from Contact Record Issue

Following performance enhancement work undertaken on the Contact record, for optimal loading time, an unintended side effect was that we broke the 'Apollo' integration when on an individal Contact record.

This has now been resolved.

Company Selection not bring back results with accents

The Company Selection screen search has been updated to accomodate 'accented' characters (such as á, é, í, ó, ú).

These were previous being reverted to QWERTY alpahnumeric characters (i.e. a, e, i, o, u) and so failing to find the Company record, if it contained an accented character.

The same fix is in place on the other selection screens and the Quick Search.

Placed By and Offered By User Issue on Selection Screens when pressing Show Criteria

It was raised that when running an Offer or Placement Selection Screen search and choosing to edit the criteria, the 'Placed By' or 'Offered By' User field would get pre-populated with the Current User in error.

This has been resolved.