Applicant tracking system rollout

An applicant tracking system rollout is smaller than an HRIS project, and it fails in a different way. The risk is less about data and pay and more about adoption. If recruiters and hiring managers keep working in email and spreadsheets, the new system holds half the picture. A plan that maps how hiring works and brings managers along is what makes the difference.

Which template to use

HRjects does not have a template made only for applicant tracking. Start from the Startup HRIS rollout template and trim it. The four phases fit an ATS project as they are: discover how hiring works today, design the future state and pick a vendor, configure and integrate, then test, train and go live.

Things to change after you create the project:

• Remove the payroll exit criteria, such as "Payroll rules and time-off accruals configured" and "Two parallel payroll runs within tolerance".
• Remove the readiness item "Parallel payroll runs within tolerance", so the Go or No-go does not wait on payroll runs you will not do.
• Remove starter tasks about payroll and benefits, and add your own.
• Add process maps for requisition approval, interview scheduling and offer approval.

The workstream list comes from the template and stays as it is. In practice an ATS project uses Core HR, Integrations, Data migration, Testing, and Change & training, and leaves the others empty.

Map hiring before you configure

The template's "Hire to onboard" map is the handoff from recruiting to HR, which is where an ATS meets the rest of your systems. Add maps for the steps before it. For each, list the current steps, flag the pain points, and write the future state beside them. Typical gaps to log:

• Who approves a requisition, and in what order.
• Which interview stages apply to which roles.
• How an accepted offer creates the employee record in the HRIS.
• Which job boards and career-site pages need connecting.
• What happens to candidates and open requisitions in the old system.

One click turns each gap into a task.

Use gates to keep hiring managers involved

Add exit criteria that name the people who must agree, such as "Future-state hiring process signed off by Talent Acquisition and two hiring managers". Ticking a criterion records who ticked it and when.

Test with real scenarios

Write UAT scripts for the events that matter: open a requisition, move a candidate through stages, make and accept an offer, hand over to onboarding. Log defects in Issues with a severity and an owner. Describe problems without candidate names or personal details. HRjects is for project information only.

Decide when to switch

Edit the readiness checklist to fit. Items that suit an ATS: UAT scripts passed by recruiters and a manager group, open requisitions moved, career site and job board connections tested, recruiters and hiring managers trained, launch communications sent. The project shows Go at 90% with no open critical issues.

What carries over as it is

The business case, roadmap, tasks board, process maps, issue log, readiness checklist and activity log all work the same way as in an HRIS project. See the HRIS implementation page for the full picture, or compare the templates.