Setting up Schedule Interview Activities

this guide covers how to add to job interview plans to set up a structured interview process within ashby these activities are typically used whenever you need to schedule interviews with specific interviewers, as opposed to take home activities, application reviews, or questionnaires which do not have interviewers assigned research has found that running a structured interview process in which each candidate is assessed in the same way better predicts job performance and reduces the impact of bias on hiring decisions ashby facilitates building a structured interview process by adding schedule interview activities to the interview plan associated with a given job these activities contain complete interviewer instructions, feedback forms, and standardized candidate communication, ensuring consistency across the interview cycle permissions configuring schedule interview activities see the table below for information on the roles that have access to set up and edit schedule interview activities access role has access? limited access ❌ agency users ❌ elevated access external recruiter (not linked to an agency) ❌ elevated access analyst ❌ elevated access hiring team member ❌ elevated access hiring manager ❌ elevated access admin ✅ elevated access admin private ✅ organization admin ✅ elevated access admin and elevated access admin private users can only edit the schedule interview activities on the roles they have access to creating a schedule interview activity if you want to establish settings to be used by default across schedule interview activities, check out our guide on setting scheduling defaults docid\ obyntivrg5pxertem4tml navigate to the job, then go to the interview plan identify the interview stage you want to add activities to, click add activity to , and then select schedule interview next, configure the activity's various settings below if you add a new schedule interview activity to a job's interview plan, the activity is also added to candidates already in that stage with other activity types (such as send email ), the activity is not added to job considerations already in that stage copying a schedule interview activity from another job you can also copy an existing activity from an interview plan stage on one job to another when you are on a job's interview plan and click add activity to on an interview plan stage, you see the option to add a new activity and a copy activities option click copy activities , then select the job, interview plan, and interview stage you want to copy activities from choose the activities you want to copy the selected activities are copied into the original stage you chose once an activity is copied over, if the activity uses a shared interview type or feedback form (more on those at what are ‘shared’ interviews, application forms, and feedback forms? docid\ ujnxokxgs1 rq1udzxxta ), then those are referenced in the copy any custom interview types or feedback forms are copied over and can be amended without impacting the original activity that was copied configuring a schedule interview activity there are six tabs within a schedule interview activity that can be configured, and each one is covered in its specific section below screenshot of the six tabs within a schedule interview activity schedule, communication, meeting hours, direct booking & candidate availability, reminders, and automation schedule confirm the interview type (including feedback form), your interviewing panel, and any interview rooms communication configure the calendar invites sent out to both candidate and interviewer meeting hours you can set specific meeting hours for this interview activity more on setting meeting hours at meeting hours docid\ uzctzxvpfxqeftmihw jo direct booking & candidate availability set scheduling limits and a meeting here reminders configure any reminders that should be sent to interviewers and candidates pre interview automation automate the sending of a direct booking link or candidate availability link schedule on the schedule tab, you add one or more interviews along with their interview instructions and feedback forms you can also assign specific interviewers or pools of interviewers to each slot on the panel selecting the interview type the first step on the schedule tab is selecting the interview type you have the option to either link to an existing shared interview or create a new interview for the job in the add event section screenshot showing the add event section on the schedule tab, with options to add a shared interview or create a new interview we recommend clicking + add shared interview when determining your interview event to select from the list of interview types you set up in admin > interviews & scheduling > interviews https //app ashbyhq com/admin/interview/interviews the feedback form you have linked to your shared interview type is used for the activity if you click + create new interview , this creates a new interview type that can only be used for this specific activity you can either assign a shared feedback form or create a new one specifically for the activity as part of the setup screenshot of the create new interview option and associated feedback form selection you can add multiple events to a schedule interview activity; however, you cannot use direct booking links to schedule and should instead send out candidate availability links multiple events may be used when you want to schedule a series of activities all at once, such as a virtual panel event with multiple rounds of interviews with various interviewers for more on scheduling activities with multiple interview events, check out how do i use multi day scheduling? docid 4j ogip ouvgscipiixyy indicators in the top left corner show whether direct booking links or candidate availability links can be generated for the activity automatically if these show in green, you can send out direct booking links and/or candidate availability links to schedule your interview more on both direct booking and candidate availability links in direct booking & candidate availability links docid 8syy2li7vkire 76zrwwm screenshot showing the green indicators in the top left corner of the schedule interview activity indicating that direct booking and candidate availability links can be generated if you're adding multiple interviews within one schedule template and are setting zoom, google meet, or microsoft teams as the location, a unique meeting link is generated for each calendar invite sent out to the candidate assigning interviewers once you've configured your interview type or types, you can then assign interviewers so ashby can determine the calendars that availability is being pulled from for direct booking links or manual scheduling when you click interviewers within the configure section, you can determine how many slots are on the panel, and either assign specific users to those slots or select a pool of interviewers if multiple interviewers could take one slot on that panel for more on assigning interviewers, check out assigning interviewers docid\ u87fcsbruh9pkclyl2qko screenshot of the interviewers panel in the configure section, showing interviewer slots and pool selection options if you have a rotating interviewer pool and you don't know up front who will be conducting a given interview, you can create a separate schedule interview activity within the same interview stage for each interviewer you can then remove the schedule interview activities that don't need to be used for that specific candidate once they're moved to that stage along with assigning your own pools to interviewer slots, you also have the option to select hiring team roles and pull users with those roles on job considerations to be on the panel screenshot showing the hiring team roles option in the interviewer slot configuration hiring team roles are assigned within each job's settings, and these roles are not pulled from the permissions set on a user's profile on the employees page interviewers must be assigned to all slots before your changes can be saved if no interviewer slots are created for a schedule interview activity, you can only schedule the interview via the candidate availability or manual schedule options meeting rooms if you have meeting rooms synced over via your google workspace integration, you can configure a default room to be used for your schedule interview activity click set default room to specify your interview room screenshot of the set default room option in the schedule interview activity configuration if multiple rooms could be used, you can also set up a meeting room pool more on this at meeting rooms & meeting room pools docid\ ejhk524h knpqv9zy lgy timing and sequencing the ability to set timing settings on schedule interview activity events is only available if you have the advanced scheduling automation add on docid\ ycrhy6o 0hutvzyuuzmk1 or are an enterprise customer this is a part of the auto schedule feature set if you are an enterprise customer or plus customer with the advanced scheduling automation add on, you may also see a timing button under the configure section screenshot of the timing button in the configure section of a schedule interview activity selecting this button allows you to indicate whether an event under your schedule interview activity must be scheduled at a fixed time additionally, if you have multiple events as a part of this interview activity (such as a panel with multiple interview sessions), you can determine the sequence in which they should occur, if any screenshot of the timing settings panel showing fixed time and sequence options for interview events visually reordering interview events on schedule interview activities with multiple interview events, the order in which interview events display on the page can be reordered by selecting the reorder button in the top right corner and dragging and dropping the events screenshot showing the reorder button and drag and drop interface for reordering interview events reordering events in this manner does not impact the sequence you have defined under the timing settings for auto schedule it only impacts the visual display of events on the page and the order of events while manual scheduling communication on the communication tab, you can modify the details of both the candidate and interviewer calendar invites the calendar dropdown menu lets you select which calendar the calendar events are scheduled to all calendar events for interviewers and interviewees are added to this calendar the calendar cannot be changed on rescheduling if you are not permitted to add events to this calendar, events are added to your personal calendar instead we recommend keeping this as default interview calendar, or selecting the name of the shared calendar you have set up to add interview events to if only one shared calendar is set up in your account, 'default interview calendar' refers to that calendar — it is automatically set as the default if you have multiple shared calendars, you can select the default in your google workspace integration settings https //app ashbyhq com/admin/integrations/marketplace/google/shared calendars the location dropdown menu allows you to add physical or remote location details set custom text, or select one of the integrated options the integrated options automatically generate a unique video conference link and include it in the invite current video conference integrations include google meet, microsoft teams, and zoom you can also choose to set a phone call as the location, which pulls in the candidate's primary phone number you can only assign one location to a schedule interview activity or direct booking link — it is not currently possible to assign multiple locations or set conditional locations if your interview requires two locations (for example, one session over zoom and another in person), create two separate schedule interview activities, one for each location the is private? toggle lets you set invites as private when toggled on, the calendar invite details (e g title, attendees) are hidden from others and interviewers are only marked as busy the direct booking email template and direct booking sms template dropdowns allows you to choose an email or sms template for these communications this direct booking & candidate availability links docid 8syy2li7vkire 76zrwwm is used when sending a direct booking request from the candidate profile the candidate availability email template dropdown allows you to choose an email template this email template is used when sending a candidate availability request from the candidate profile the candidate confirmation email template dropdown allows you to select an email template this email template is used when a confirmation is sent out once an interview has been scheduled once you select your email template, you then see the option to automatically send this confirmation email if the candidate books via a direct booking link, and the option to select a sender when a user schedules an interview manually for the first time, if a confirmation email is set within the interview activity, the confirmation email defaults to being sent this can be switched off in the communication tab when manually scheduling the interview if the user chooses to turn off the email confirmation, confirmations will default to being off for the future interviews that user schedules (unless they opt to switch them on again) candidate invite grouping this setting under manage candidate invites lets you choose how candidate calendar invites should be grouped for this multi event schedule by default, this is linked to your organization's scheduling defaults, and any change made there automatically applies here too you can override this per schedule template if a different grouping is preferred for a specific interview stage, or when manually scheduling interviews docid\ rdyowihar0zidudlxw2fn select `reset to organization defaults` to relink the setting to your org defaults at any time invite grouping only applies to multi event scheduling the option you choose impacts the way conferencing links are created each distinct candidate invite gets its own conferencing link candidates and interviewers may need to join different conference rooms for each event (if one invite per interview is selected), or you could have a single conferencing link for an interview block or whole day if choosing one of those options for more on this setting, see setting scheduling defaults docid\ obyntivrg5pxertem4tml the invite to candidate template and invite to interviewers templates let you enter the title and description for each calendar invite, for both candidates and for the interviewers on your panel use tokens to fill in standard details, or add entirely custom text that the candidate sees meeting hours (optional) on the meeting hours tab, you can set a primary interview time zone as well as any custom meeting hours for this interview these meeting hours are used when determining what interview times are available to candidates when they reach this interview stage by default, meeting hours are set to 9 to 5 in the interviewer's timezone, but you can set a primary interview timezone to override individual timezones setting specific meeting hours for an interview activity isn't commonly used relying on the interviewer's calendar availability or their own meeting hours is typically enough you can read more on this at meeting hours docid\ uzctzxvpfxqeftmihw jo to set meeting hours for a schedule interview activity, head to the interview plan section of your job, then click modify on the schedule interview activity in question in the meeting hours tab, you can toggle on enable custom meeting hours? to set specific hours for that interview activity only this overrides the availability set for the company meeting hours and the meeting hours set in the user's personal settings ashby still considers conflicts on the user's google calendar when displaying availability screenshot of the enable custom meeting hours toggle in the meeting hours tab looking for how to update the timezone on a particular interview? see how are interview time zones determined and how do i change them? docid\ ofi ci85gmejvaag8s2rt direct booking and candidate availability (optional) if you're using direct booking or candidate availability links, you have options to set parameters around when meetings can be scheduled and how much candidate availability should be submitted direct booking requests allow candidates to schedule a time to interview from appointment slots determined by interviewers' calendar availability and any meeting hours you define it can only be used for schedules with a single event candidate availability requests allow candidates to submit one or more time slots during which they are available you can then view these times while using manual schedule to schedule a preferred time for both you and the candidate these settings will apply to any direct booking or candidate availability requests that you create based on this schedule interview activity available times setting the available times settings for a schedule interview activity minimum scheduling notice (hours) determines the earliest time a candidate can select (starting from the current date) rolling days available determines the range of dates available to a candidate on a meeting request direct booking availability increments (minutes) determines the frequency of the available timeslots for this event when a candidate schedules via a direct booking link minimum days of availability determines the minimum number of days the candidate must select when submitting times via a candidate availability link allow candidates to suggest times? candidates can share their availability if they cannot find a suitable time when scheduling with a direct booking link candidate facing options candidate facing options determine options that allow the candidate to add additional information or reach out via email when using a direct booking link or candidate availability link this image shows the candidate facing options section, where you can enable the show email button to candidate? and allow candidates to add an availability note? options show email button to candidates? when enabled, candidates will see an option to email the meeting organizer associated with the direct booking or candidate availability link this can be found when clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the booking page allow candidates to add an availability note? when enabled, candidates can add a note when submitting their availability the note will appear within the activity hover over note to view the note information and a timestamp alternatively, open up the activity details using the arrow on the right hand side of the activity to view the availability and the note history the note will also appear with the candidate column on the interview calendar when manually scheduling the interview hover over the note button to view it meeting buffers meeting buffers add protected time around booked interviews to prevent back to back scheduling pre meeting buffer (minutes) blocks time before a booked interview that cannot be scheduled post meeting buffer (minutes) blocks time after a booked interview that cannot be scheduled after a direct booking interview is booked, meeting buffer windows are shown as unavailable on interviewers' calendars in quick schedule reschedule limits reschedule limits control how many times and how close to the interview a candidate can self reschedule via their booking confirmation link these settings create a default value for each job's interview plan, but can be overridden or adjusted at the interview plan level if desired maximum number of reschedules sets a cap on the total number of times a candidate can reschedule a given interview setting this to 0 prevents any candidate initiated rescheduling entirely leaving the field blank means there is no limit reschedule cutoff window (hours) blocks self serve rescheduling within a specified number of hours before the interview start time for example, setting this to 24 means a candidate cannot reschedule if the interview is less than 24 hours away leaving the field blank means there is no cutoff if both limits are configured, rescheduling is blocked as soon as either condition is met when a candidate is blocked, they are directed to contact the coordinator or organizer directly to reschedule only candidate initiated reschedules count toward the maximum number of reschedules; manual reschedules performed by a recruiter do not consume a slot meeting request organizer here you can also determine the meeting organizer, the user who should receive notifications about a candidate's scheduling or availability submissions more on this at what is a meeting organizer? docid\ c1tlsdkvuj7s15oa8poql screenshot showing the meeting request organizer setting in the direct booking and candidate availability tab setting a candidate availability window when scheduling with a candidate availability link, you have the option to specify a window of dates for candidates to submit their availability within either a rolling window that adjusts dynamically, or a fixed custom date range for full steps, see direct booking & candidate availability links docid 8syy2li7vkire 76zrwwm interview reminders this section covers reminders about the upcoming interview if you are looking to set up scorecard or feedback reminder notifications, these are sent automatically if the interview is set as required you can read more on setting up interviews at feedback forms and interviews docid\ hlojgxrvp xkuw1ammkur if you have an upcoming interview with multiple events in one day, you can opt to either limit the reminders to one per day, so all events are included in one reminder email, or send a reminder for each calendar event multiple calendar invites are sent if there's a gap between interview events set up interview reminders two default reminder email templates are included for you to use immediately you can customize these templates or create new email templates in admin > organization setup > email templates https //app ashbyhq com/admin/organizational settings/email templates more on setting up these templates can be found at email template creation and management docid\ wq6uoydzwfatdmzhopsfj interview reminders can be configured in the reminders tab, either for all interviews in admin > interviews & scheduling > scheduling defaults https //app ashbyhq com/admin/interview/scheduling defaults/communication , or within specific schedule interview activities on the interview plans of your jobs setting up a reminder in the schedule defaults section of admin you can also amend or add additional interview reminders when scheduling a candidate's interview via manual schedule click add candidate reminder or add interviewer reminder to get started you can then specify when the notification should be sent, who the notification is from, and the template used for the reminder screenshot of the add candidate reminder and add interviewer reminder options in the manual schedule view if you haven't already, ensure an email template is set up for direct booking links or candidate availability links in the communication tab of your schedule interview activity this is the email sent to the candidate automatically when they're moved to this stage of your pipeline you have the option to undo the automation each time it is triggered screenshot showing the email template configuration for direct booking links and candidate availability links in the communication tab send determine how the reminder should be sent for candidates, you only have the option to send an email if you have the slack integration in place, you can opt to send an email or slack reminder to interviewers from determine the sender email address for the candidate's reminder this can either come from the default no reply email address or the scheduler's email address when configure the number of days, minutes, or hours prior to the interview that the reminder should be sent using template select the reminder template to use + add candidate reminder create or add an additional reminder if your interview has multiple events (and potentially gaps between those events), you can opt to send one reminder for all calendar events that day or a reminder for each event reset if you have scheduling defaults in place, click this option to revert back to those defaults when the reminder email is sent, the substitution tokens within your interview template are pre filled with the appropriate details an example of a candidate's interview reminder multiple interview events if you have an upcoming interview with multiple events in one day, you can opt to either limit the reminders to one per day, so all events are included in one reminder email, or send a reminder for each calendar event multiple calendar invites are sent if there's a gap between interview events screenshot showing the reminder configuration options for interviews with multiple events in one day configuring candidate scheduling reminders if you are generating candidate availability or direct booking links from your schedule interview activities, you can also configure candidate scheduling reminders on the reminders tab of your schedule interview activity these reminders are automatically sent if the candidate has yet to take the following action candidate availability link if the candidate hasn't submitted their availability by the time specified in your reminder configuration, then an email or text is generated from the template selected and sent to them as a reminder direct booking link if the candidate hasn't scheduled an interview using the direct booking link provided by the time specified in your reminder configuration, then an email or text is generated from the template selected and sent to them as a reminder if the candidate submits availability or schedules using their direct booking link, the reminders are cancelled automatically for sms reminders, you need to have candidate texting enabled on your account for more on this, check out candidate texting onboarding docid\ lrscwwbh0i1rwpuqxdqrn and candidate texting docid\ eqo rlp7jpwh3ykaonv84 to add a candidate scheduling reminder, click + availability request reminder or + direct booking reminder to create the reminder from here, you can set your reminder settings screenshot of the candidate scheduling reminder configuration interface when setting up your scheduling reminders, you can configure the following send how the reminder is sent to the candidate — either via sms or email from determine the sender of the email this can be the meeting organizer or a no reply email when configure when the reminder should be sent this can be specified in days, hours, or minutes since the request was sent using template select the email or text template to use to generate the content of the reminder default reminder templates for candidate availability and direct booking link schedule reminders are available within admin > organization setup > email templates these can be edited as needed you can set up multiple reminders after setting up your reminder, click + availability request reminder or + direct booking reminder to add another one reminders are only created and sent if the candidate availability link or direct booking link has been sent directly via ashby if the link has been copied and shared with the candidate outside of an email from ashby, reminders are not sent after you send the link to the candidate, you see the scheduled reminders on the interview activity on the candidate's profile you can manually delete these as needed hover over the tab with the bell icon to view when the reminders are due to be sent to make changes, click the tab screenshot showing scheduled reminders displayed on the interview activity on a candidate's profile on the manage scheduled reminders pop up, click the trash can icons beside any reminders you want to remove you can click delete all to remove all of them automation when setting up or updating your schedule interview activity, click the automation tab then check the automate on stage entry checkbox screenshot showing the automation tab with the automate on stage entry checkbox from there, specify the automation type — whether to send a direct booking link or a candidate availability link automatically screenshot showing the automation type selection options direct booking link or candidate availability link if you haven't already, ensure an email template is set up for direct booking links or candidate availability links in the communication tab of your schedule interview activity screenshot showing where to set up an email template for direct booking or candidate availability links in the communication tab this is the email sent to the candidate automatically when they're moved to this stage of your pipeline you have the option to undo the automation each time it is triggered faq why should i set up schedule interview activities? adding schedule interview activities to your job or job template's interview plans helps automate your scheduling process you can set up the interview type, interviewer, and interview location in advance from there, when a candidate is moved to that stage in your pipeline, you are prompted to schedule an interview and all of the interview settings are generated automatically if direct booking links or candidate availability links can be generated, then they are produced automatically what happens to scheduled interviews when i make changes to the feedback form or briefing assigned to them? if you make changes to the shared feedback form on the feedback forms page or to the briefing on the interviews page, any interviews with that feedback form assigned reflect those changes i've updated the interview type on a schedule interview activity in my job's interview plan what happens to scheduled interviews? if you change the interview type on your schedule interview activity, the changes are applied to candidates who are currently in the interview stage, as well as candidates entering that stage moving forward if the interview has already been scheduled for the candidate, the interview type is not updated and the interview would need to be rescheduled to update the interview type as needed why am i seeing two calendar events for an interview on my personal calendar? when booking an interview and sending calendar invites, ashby sends calendar events to three calendars ashby sends separate calendar events for interviewers and candidates to include party specific interview information one for the calendar the overall interview is scheduled on one for the interviewer's calendar one for the candidate's calendar if there are multiple interviewers on the panel, an event is sent to each interviewer's individual calendar if the overall interview is scheduled on an interviewer's personal calendar, they receive the calendar event for the calendar the overall interview is scheduled on along with the calendar event for them as an interviewer to avoid multiple events, ensure the shared calendar is selected when setting up a schedule interview activity and when booking one off interviews once scheduled, the calendar cannot be changed the interview needs to be cancelled and rebooked why does an interview slot in my schedule template show that the slot is invalid when i add an interviewer into that slot? this can happen if the interviewer is a service account has their user account disabled in ashby is globally paused for all interviews doesn't have a google workspace or microsoft calendar