Understanding Confidential Fields

Overview

This article outlines frequently asked questions about Confidential fields.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are Confidential fields?

Confidential fields can be used to restrict visibility of certain fields in your system to a subset of your users.

Confidential fields allow any of your users to enter information into a standard or custom field but upon saving the record, the field will only be visible to those users you determine need to be able to view the information.

For example, you may want to allow your recruiters to enter EEOC data such as gender so that your company can report on your EEOC compliance but you want to ensure that only those running the report can see this field so that the information cannot be used as part of hiring process. You would want to add the gender field to your Confidential field list in this case.

What's the difference between Confidential and Encrypted fields?

Confidential fields are used when you want to ensure the data is only visible to those with a need to know. Encrypted fields should be used when you want to store sensitive data that needs to be encrypted at the database level. You can elect to have a field be both encrypted and confidential or just confidential.

Visit About Encrypted Fields for more details.

Encrypted fields require additional steps when you receive a Data Backup or if you use Data Mirror.

Which fields can be Confidential?

Only Candidates and Placements can have confidential fields. You can elect to add any standard or custom Candidate or Placement field to your list of confidential fields. If you wish for the field to be encrypted, you should see the previously mentioned article to set up the encrypted field first. Then you can add the encrypted field to your confidential field list.

How can my team tell which fields are Confidential?

It will not be obvious to your team that the field is Confidential. You can add a hint or description to the field to ensure your team is aware that the field will not be available upon saving. For details on how to add a hint see Filling in Custom Field Details.

How can I get Confidential fields set up?

If you have never set up confidential fields before you will need to get a list of field names together that you'd like to make confidential. Once you have that, please contact Support and provide the analyst with your list fields.

Once enabled by Support you can toggle which of those fields are visible in the app by using the System Setting candidateViewableConfidentialFields.

EEOC Fields

If your company uses these fields and wants to remain EEOC compliant, you should define these fields as confidential to control which users can view the data once entered in the candidate's record. By default, Bullhorn has the following specified Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) fields:

Date of Birth
Disability
Ethnicity
Gender
Veteran