Creating Your Own Notifications

Overview

This article explains how you can create your own notifications for members of your internal team using Bullhorn Automation.

There are universal notification settings that allow you to enable or disable common notifications such as job views, job applications, clicks, and opt outs. Those settings are "all or nothing" as they can only be switched on or off.

Many clients prefer to control which notifications go out, or to set up notifications for specific activities. This article will help guide you through those steps and give you a few ideas on what you can create notifications for!

Steps to Create your own Notifications

  1. The first step is to identify which activity or behavior you'd like to base a notification off of. For a starting point, take a look below at our list of Common Use Cases for Notifications.
  2. Next, you need to build a dynamic list for that behavior.
    • An easy way to build a dynamic list is by going to Contacts > Advanced Search (upper right hand corner) and build your search with the activity or behavior in mind. You'll be able to see who matches the search, and if everything is as desired, you can save your dynamic list right by clicking Save as List, entering a name for your list and pressing Save.
  3. Build an automation. The dynamic list you just created will be added to the automation.
    • You'll most likely want people to enter more than once into the automation so that the notification happens each time the activity occurs. If so, make sure to either include wait steps, or within the automation settings set a number of days before someone can re-enter the automation. This will prevent your emails getting flooded with the same notifications!
  4. Add a notification step to your automation. You can choose from three notification options:
    • Immediate: With immediate notifications, everything can be completely customized. This will send out a single notification per record that passes through this step. You can change what information appears, who receives the notification (you can choose to send to someone else besides the owner), what the subject line is, and more.
    • Daily: This allows you to send internal notifications on a daily basis, rather than sending them individually. As records pass through the step, Bullhorn Automation will wait until 11:59 PM EST, and will send out a notification at 12 AM EST with a list of all records that passed through that step. This sending time is hard-coded and cannot be changed.
    • Weekly: This option allows you to send internal notifications on a weekly basis. As records pass through the step, Bullhorn Automation will wait until Sunday at 10:59 AM EST, and will send out a notification at 11 AM EST with a list of all records that passed through that step. This sending date and time is hard coded and cannot be changed.

  5. Create your notification. Please note that merge tags are not available if you selected the Daily or Weekly option in the previous step. By default, only the Name, Email, Phone Number and ATS Link fields are included and cannot currently be customized.
  6. Add an End Step, and your custom notification is ready to go live!

Common Use Cases for Notifications

The power of doing notifications this way is that you can build automations based on any behavior or activity that is searchable within Bullhorn Automation, and you can combine multiple factors together. The possibilities are almost endless! Here are five common uses for notifications:

  1. Candidate views a job, but does not apply for the job.
  2. Candidate or Contact clicks a specific URL or button (can be set up for specific emails or within a chosen time frame too).
  3. Candidate or Contact opens an email but does not click any call-to-action links or buttons.
  4. Candidate or Contact views a specific page on your website.
  5. HR or Payroll gets a notification when a Candidate is placed.

Tips

  • If you choose “Sales Contact Owner” as the recipient in the Notification Settings, and also include a work email address in the “To” field, then everyone listed will have visibility on all notifications going out. Use this option with caution, as it can lead to an overwhelming amount of emails.
  • Once you’ve saved a notification as “Immediate”, you cannot change it to a Daily or Weekly notification.
  • If you want a Candidate/Contact to enter into the automation more than once, be sure to do one of the following to prevent your inbox from being flooded with duplicate notifications:
    • Add wait steps into the automation.
    • Add a number of days to the Re-Entry Settings within your Automation Settings, so the Candidate/Contact has to wait that amount of time before re-entering the automation.
  • If you have set up same-day notifications for interviews, and the interview date is entered after the time listed in the wait step for the date-based automation, then the notification will not go out.