San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 08, 2011

Newton Software, the developers of smart, corporate applicant tracking software, just revealed another key feature aimed at helping human resources and corporate recruiting departments in the creation and improvement of their online requisition approval process. The new feature empowers organizations to better control recruiting resources with an automated, email-driven job requisition approval tool.

Read more about Newton’s job requisition approval functionality….

Job requisition management isn’t t just for large companies anymore.  Now small and medium sized businesses can leverage Newton to create user friendly, effective job requisition approval processes. Designed by recruiting industry experts (like the rest of our product), our latest feature enhancement is our answer to the rigid, nonintuitive requisition management tools prevalent in most applicant tracking systems.

Our products team has been working on this feature for over a year and they’ll be the first to tell you that Job Approval Management is a full product in itself. Those of us on the marketing side of the house are proud of our product team’s effort and congratulate them on shipping their 4th major release of the year – unheard of in the HR Technology industry.  And, they’re not done. Rumor has it (hint) they’ve started working on Newton Mobile and a host of other useful features that we know will be equally elegant and thoughtful.

Here is a preview of Newton’s Job Requisition Approval Manager.

Newton Software develops corporate applicant tracking software for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Unparalleled usability, industry leading user adoption rates and exceptional customer service set Newton apart.

Automated Job Approval features aren’t a new thing. We’ve decided it’s high time to make the job approval process better. We’re excited to announce the arrival Newton’s Automated Job Approval feature, the latest addition to our popular corporate applicant tracking software.

First, we have something to admit. This was the hardest feature for us to design to date. We’ve been redesigning and enhancing this feature for nearly a year. We could have shipped our original design months ago, most vendors would have so they could add Job Approval to their feature matrix ASAP.  Instead,  as with all of the enhancements we make to Newton, we wanted this feature to work great.

3 reasons to love Newton’s Automated Job Approval feature.

1.  Easy for Hiring Managers and Approvers

What we’ve learned is that when applicant tracking software achieves something valuable without being distracting or requiring hours of training, only then will it live up to its potential. The 80/20 rule applies here: we want to do well what 80 percent of your users do all the time and together we will create a great user experience that promotes adoption.  With Newton’s Job Approval feature, managers can simply login and request to get a job approved with a few simple steps.  And, job approvers will love the easy approval process: Green is go. Red is no.

2.  Ultimate Flexibility

Hiring is dynamic. Your tools need to be flexible. Newton’s email driven Job Approval Process is the most flexible on the market. Some companies don’t really want to reinvent the wheel. They have a ‘requisition form’ that works well and they just need a vehicle to expedite and track the actual process. We do that.  Some organizations want to start over and create an optimized automated requisition process.  We do that too.

3.  Ultimate Visibility

If you know anything about Newton Software, you know that we are the ones that bring transparency and visibility to corporate recruiting programs. If you don’t know us, we used to be corporate recruiters and we understand that having visibility into all aspects of the recruiting process is not only critical – it’s power.  True to form, we’ve provided our users with a dashboard that allows them to see where all their approvals are in real-time.  Anything less would be…..annoying.

If you’re a Newton user, please contact our support team to enable the Automated Job Approval Process starting on Monday, August 1st. Support@newtonsoftware.com

If you’re investigating Newton for your organization, please know that we may not have every feature that other ATS systems have.  BUT, the features we do have, the 80% that people use all the time, are easy-to-use, intuitive and work great. Please contact us for a demo today, we’ll prove it to you. Sales@newtonsoftware.com

This past weekend, our technical team made some final adjustments and now,  Newton, our popular applicant tracking software, joins services from industry leaders like Microsoft, IBM and Netflix in Amazon’s AWS cloud computing environment. Our decision to move to the cloud was as much driven by the growth and success of our business (quite profitable) as by the operational efficiencies that the Cloud offers.  Amazon Web Services provides us the scalability and agility for continued fast-paced growth and the reliability to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations.

This isn’t another one of those ‘all hat no cowboy’ marketing stunts. Newton’s product team has been testing and preparing for our Cloud  activation since Amazon announced its public availability in 2009.  We’ve anticipated moving to the cloud for since the beginning and our development team has meticulously architected our applicant tracking software to take full advantage of the cloud computing infrastructure.

Moving to the Cloud gives us a huge advantage over our peers.  We will continue to innovate and scale with better infrastructure, fewer resources and less operational overhead. Translation: we will continue to offer cutting-edge, easy-to-use applicant tracking software to more customers with less effort at more affordable prices.

Why should Newton customers care?

Scalability:

Amazon AWS enables us to increase capacity within minutes, not hours or days. We can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. This allows us to automatically scale Newton up and down depending on our customers’ needs. This scalability critical as Newton Software averages nearly 20 new customers a month and is by all accounts the fastest growing ATS in the marketplace.

Reliability:

Amazon AWS offers a highly reliable environment where database instances can be quickly and predictably commissioned. If a server fails (because they just do from time to time), Newton will just bounce to a server that is working without a noticeable service interruption. Amazon AWS service runs within Amazon’s proven, SAS 70 datacenters. That’s right, if you can buy a book on Amazon, you can status a candidate in Newton. The Amazon AWS SLA commitment is 99.95% availability in any Amazon AWS region. This means that Newton is ultra-reliable all over the world all the time.

Speed:

This is where our product  team gets really geeked up. By switching to the Cloud, Newton has become even faster. And, it allows our team to do some really innovative things too.  Most recruiting software bogs down when running complex reports. Not Newton! We  leveraging extra computing power and read-only database technology to enable users to run complex customized reports instantly.

Security:

Amazon AWS has some of the world’s most trusted brands on the platform and Amazon takes security very seriously. Amazon Web Services’ security controls are evaluated every six months by an independent auditor in accordance with Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS70) Type II audit procedures.

Newton Software has only begun.

We’ve worked hard to establish Newton Software as an innovator in a space that has for two decades purely focused on processing and storing resumes.  Today, we stand, for the most part alone, as the only modern, pure-play ATS on the market.  As our peers continue to drift (rather aimlessly) into talent management and human capital management, they now purely just maintain their applicant tracking modules, all but abandoning new development.  Not us. We just invested in the infrastructure necessary to help us more effectively solve the problems that still linger in corporate talent acquisition departments,  hiring managers’ cubes and executives minds. We’ve just begun.

We’re in the cloud! Newton, our popular applicant tracking software, joins leaders like Microsoft, IBM and Netflix in Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing environment. 2010 has been a banner year for Newton.  We’ve added over 100 new customers and our revenue has grown by over 1020%. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) will provide us the agility and scalability for continued fast-paced growth and the reliability to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations.

This isn’t just some egregious cloud marketing sizzle. There’s steak here. Newton’s product team has been interested in cloud computing since Amazon announced its public availability.  We’ve anticipated moving to the cloud for some time and our development team has meticulously designed our applicant tracking software to take full advantage of the cloud computing infrastructure. Moving to the Cloud gives us a huge advantage over our peers.  We will continue to innovate and scale with better infrastructure, fewer resources and less operational overhead. Translation: we will continue to offer bombproof, easy-to-use applicant tracking software to more customers with less effort at more affordable prices. Good plan huh?

Why should Newton customers care?

Moving to Amazon’s EC2 platform makes Newton even more agile and provides existing and future customers significant advantages.

Scalability:

Amazon EC2 enables us to increase capacity within minutes, not hours or days. We can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. This allows us to automatically scale Newton up and down depending on our customers’ needs. This scalability proved critical in November as we added over 15 new businesses to the Newton platform and actually improved performance.

Reliability:

Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly and predictably commissioned. If a server fails (because they just do from time to time), Newton will just bounce to a server that is working – instantly! The EC2 service runs within Amazon’s proven network infrastructure and datacenters. That’s right, if you can buy a book on Amazon, you can status a candidate in Newton. The Amazon EC2 SLA commitment is 99.95% availability in any Amazon EC2 region. This means that Newton is ultra-reliable all over the world all the time.

Performance:

This is where our development team gets really geeked up. By switching to the Cloud, Newton has become even faster. And, it allows our team to do some really innovative things.  For example, we’re adding a very slick, powerful custom reporting engine to Newton. Most applicant tracking software bogs down when running complex reports. Not Newton! We’re leveraging EC2’s extra computing power and read-only database technology to enable users to run complex customized reports instantly. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Security:

We’re completely confident in Amazon’s ability to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our customers’ data. They’ve got some of the world’s most trusted brands on the EC2 platform and Amazon takes security very seriously. So do we. See for yourself. Amazon Web Services’ security controls are evaluated every six months by an independent auditor in accordance with Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS70) Type II audit procedures.

Newton Software continues to innovate.

Once again, Newton Software is innovating. Others may try to follow though; they’ll have some huge challenges. Most applicant tracking software is 10 year old legacy enterprise software that relies on legacy networks (not the Cloud) for operating power. ‘Switching’ to the Cloud won’t be a viable option for most. Alternatively, Newton was born on the web and now we’re going to leverage the world’s most cutting edge web-based infrastructure to help completely ‘disrupt’ the applicant tracking world in 2011 (and years to come). Good for Newton customers and partners. Bad for lumbering, legacy applicant tracking systems.  Long live the cloud.

What’s happening in your recruiting program right now?  This second?  If you’re anything like I was when I was a corporate recruiter, your answer is likely- “stuff”.  And, if you’re still using email and spreadsheets to track recruiting then it’s impossible to really know what’s happening right now.  Even if you’re using applicant tracking software, chances are that it can’t tell you what’s happening in real-time. It may pollute your inbox with a bunch of messages but, we all know that’s not a good solution.

Introducing Newton Tracking, a powerful, customizable, feed that will help you manage tasks better, respond to requests faster, and provide you with unparalleled visibility into your recruiting program.  The new Tracking utility in Newton is designed to allow corporate recruiters and HR professionals to be everywhere at once answering questions like:

Has a manager reviewed that applicant I sent her yet?

Do I need to schedule any interviews today?

Are we getting new applicants for the job we just opened?

Does the VP want me to make an offer to that candidate?

You decide what to track you’ll manage your preferences easily.

I would guess that, like a lot of people, 98% of my snail mail goes straight into the recycle bin. I’ve tried GreenDimes and 41pounds.org but it seems that marketers continue to find a ways to kill trees and burn oil in order to send me information about stuff I don’t want.

As far as I can tell, I get two important pieces of snail mail: save the date notices and stuff from the IRS.  In the last 90 days, I’ve received one non-spam piece of snail mail. Snail mail is the de facto the vehicle by which people I don’t know and don’t trust attempt to communicate with me. Snail mail is a muddy communication mechanism.

Sadly, email isn’t much different anymore. Yet amazingly nearly every business application on the planet goes to great lengths to integrate with email (or tries). In fact, the single greatest technical ulcer-causer of any software web-based application is Outlook integration.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that email integration isn’t necessary. I’m just wondering if email’s dual-dominance of both the trusted and muddy communication channels is anachronistic. Why are messages from people and applications I know and trust being dumped into an unorganized file with untrusted messages? Why are critical alerts comingling with people trying to sell me email lists or consultants from overseas?

If you’re like me, your inbox is more like a “what do I do first?” box. I have documentation from my product team, invoices from vendors, people trying to sell me things, messages from dad, and most importantly, messages from my our applicant tracking software customers (which always get answered immediately I might add).

Many of these messages are coming from systems that are trying to boost my productivity: manage finances, complete projects, follow up with people and track progress. In essence, my productivity applications are taking their trusted communications (messages I definitely want to read) and dumping them into a message mud bog, then trying to clean them up after I deal with them.

Email needs a redo. How did I come to this conclusion?

Well, from a disclosure standpoint I have to admit that integrating with Outlook is really hard and pretty darn scary, and even though at Newton we’re probably going capitulate in some areas, we really don’t want to. Developers of software can control the reliability of their own environment, but once you start relying on someone else’s system you start touching all sorts of things you can’t control.  That’s why every time someone says “integrates with outlook” they never use the words “easily” or “never breaks” or “no plug-in required” in the same sentence. Here’s a simple guide to probably the most integrated outlook application on the planet:  http://tinyurl.com/cf6dae. This is the apparently shorter, “cheatsheet version”.

But, more important to me than the technical hurdles is this nagging belief that email might be the problem, not the solution.

Actually, I’m not even sure it’s the problem. I’m just starting to think that there’s a better path to productivity than dumping important messages into an uncontrolled, unorganized inbox and then forwarding them around like crazy, all the while trying to clean, reabsorb and reorganize them back into the system that created them.

Why doesn’t Twitter need email integration? Is it only because it’s a consumer application? Or is it because they are communicating with you by way of channels you already trust? I think it’s the latter.

It’s time to rethink how our business applications communicate with the people they serve. The mail paradigm is not just old, it is centuries old. I can think of some software companies already leveraging “clean” communication channels. Newton Software just became another.

In a few short weeks, we’re going to release a utility in Newton simply called “Tracking”.  We’ll release more details on “Tracking” as we get closer to the release date. In the meantime, think “Twitter feed” for your recruiting program. This isn’t just any “Twitter feed”. This is a personalized source of the information that you want to see and need to see.  It will be the only feature of its kind in the applicant tracking software world.

This is a glimpse of the future.

]]> http://www.newtonsoftware.com/blog/2010/08/16/email-and-twitter-a-collision-of-garbage-trucks-a-beautiful-disaster-or-a-glimpse-of-the-future/feed/ 0 http://www.newtonsoftware.com/blog/2009/09/28/newton-software-releases-next-gen-business-intelligence-for-recruiting/ http://www.newtonsoftware.com/blog/2009/09/28/newton-software-releases-next-gen-business-intelligence-for-recruiting/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:11:47 +0000 justincutillo http://www.newtonsoftware.com/blog/?p=475

Newton is fully featured applicant tracking software designed to be intuitive and powerful.  A new release improves Newton’s real-time performance monitoring capabilities to give users access to answers in real-time.

Human resource and recruiting professionals are always looking for answers to fundamental questions that arise in corporate recruiting, questions like:

Are we getting applicants to interview for our open positions?

Are we acting on applicants?

What are our best sources of applicants?

How long does it take us to hire?

Are there places that we can make improvements?

Everyone wants to run a high-performance hiring program. Newton’s performance management dashboard is designed to give you information in real-time so you will get the most out of your resources. With easy-to-read interactive charts and graphs, you will zoom into areas that interest you to surface information and drive conversations. Use Newton’s online dashboard to provide status updates or to run interactive staffing meetings. Your business partners will love how easy it is to log in and get an update.  And, best yet, giving access to your stakeholders is 100% free!

With Newton, real-time performance monitoring is now a reality allowing people to detect events or even patterns of events as interactions from all users are collected in the system. Newton gives you the power to develop insights and make evidence based decisions about your recruiting program. Now you can be proactive by pinpointing bottlenecks and identifying issues before they become larger issues. With Newton, you’ll always be prepared to answer the tough questions about your recruiting program.

See Newton’s performance management capabilities in action.

We just made it faster and easier to analyze your recruiting program using Newton. Now you’ll see a tab on your home page called “Analytics” replacing the “Overview” tab. Click the Analytics tab to open a an interactive dashboard that will help you slice and dice you recruiting program. You can analyze your recruiting data based on a selected period of time or by job, or both.

This release, v3.6, is the first of several planned releases to tackle analytics. With a focus on measuring stage-to-stage metrics, we wanted to help our customers answer fundamental questions.

• Where do I have bottlenecks?
• Where can I get involved to make an immediate impact?
• Is everyone in the process doing their part?
• Am I spending money on the right resources?

Most importantly, we want to give our customers the power to know when something is going wrong before anyone else notices -to be proactive. After all, as John, our product manager, says, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

We hope you like it.