Creating a Standard XML Feed

The Feed Management section of Command Center allows consultants to view, manage, and run job feeds for the customer sites you manage. Feed Management creates and publishes the XML document lists of jobs that are syndicated to various job aggregators and job boards.

Feeds are generated on demand and reflect job content at the time of generation. Job boards pull the feed using the link that you provide, and import it into their database to post the jobs.

The delivery of XML feeds can be scheduled, but this is rarely done. Scheduled File Transfer Protocols (FTPs) are a push of the job data into the vendor database. That requires a host and credentials, and the FTP Scheduler is configured to determine how often the feed will be pushed. This is not an ideal solution due to workflow and maintenance.

As with SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Posting, unless it's a free job board, the customer must have a contract with the source they are providing the XML feed to, in order to post jobs there.

The implementation consultant generates XML feeds for their customer after moving the Career Site Builder site to Production, when active jobs are posted.

• Standard XML Feed: All Jobs Feed that involves no customization to set up and distribute to the receiving source. This is an effective alternative for direct scrapes to ensure proper source tracking in Advanced Analytics. One Standard XML feed is included in a standard Recruiting implementation.

  Examples:

  • Indeed
  • GlassDoor

• Custom XML Feed: Any Job Feed that requires client-specific customization.

  Examples:

  • Only Nursing Jobs are sent to a Niche Healthcare site.
  • Jobs with "Account Executive" in the job title are sent to a Niche Sales site.

Custom feeds typically are not included in the statement of work, but are discussed at the Job Delivery Intake Meeting. The customer pays separately for each custom feed. Note that if a new XML source template must be generated, a services engagement is required with SAP.

Remember that Professional Services can be engaged to support XML feed generation.

The XML feed templates include the following considerations:

• XML feeds are always created for each specific vendor.

• The vendor templates are customized by Professional Services to reflect how each vendor needs to receive the job data and import it into their system. The templates are aligned to the leading practice job field mappings, and also to the requirements needed for the vendor. See the Job Data unit and the Leading Practice Job Data for XML Feeds section for specific information about job data mapping to support XML feeds.

• Each vendor template has unique source tracking in place and should be used only for that vendor. For example, an XML Feed for Indeed would not be used to provide jobs to LinkedIn.

• Note that centralized collection feeds (all vendor feeds) are not recommended due to the inability to track the specific sources. The only exception would be if the receiving party will be using the specific CSB UTM (Urchin Traffic Module) source tags. The responsibility would be on the receiving party to maintain and append proper tracking.
• Proper source tags can be obtained within the Source Tracker or by requesting via a support ticket.
• Laws in some states and countries require that job postings include salary information. Some job boards, such as Indeed, require the salary range to be provided as a separate field on the job requisition. Be sure to map the salary range field to Product Service, and use the Indeed - Prodserv = salary template.

To access the XML feed tool, from the dropdown at the top of Command Center, select Feed Management. The Feed List page displays all feeds belonging to all of the sites that the user has permission to view.

Use the search filters at the top of the page to narrow the list of feeds displayed.

From the Feed List page, you can create a new feed, run a feed test, edit, or delete a feed.

Note that the Organic Network XML feeds are not listed on the Feed List page, as they are managed separately.

Feed Name

To create a standard XML feed, you can access the Feed List page and enter the name for the XML feed using the following format: ClientName – SourceName (ex. BestRun - LinkedIn).

Tokens

The Tokens section is empty until you select a feed source in the Source field.

Tokens are the base data unit of a feed. A source defines the format of the feed, whereas the tokens define the content of the feed.

There are four types of tokens that can be associated with a source. For this course, we will format only the feed tokens. See the Recruiting guide to learn about the other token types.

For our example, complete the Campaign field following this format: &utm_campaign=ClientName_SourceName.

• For our example, enter &utm_campaign=BestRun_LinkedIn.
• The customer may request a unique campaign code.
• See the section, Source Tracking for Agencies That Redistribute the Customer's Jobs, at the end of this lesson.

If this is a Standard Feed, you have finished. Choose Save. With no added rules, this feed pulls all of the customer’s jobs. Saving creates the feed.

After running the feed, a window opens containing the active jobs. This is an active web file hosted on the server.

Provide the Feed URL to the customer to provide to their vendor. Each time the URL is accessed, the feed is run again and includes the current active jobs.

If the feed does not show like this (one jumbled paragraph) or pulls an error, the feed has broken due to a bad character or emoji. If this occurs, open the feed in Google Chrome. The last URL available is the broken job.

A tracking link is automatically associated with each feed, based on the template for the Source the feed was created for. In addition, campaign codes are typically added to the tracking link.

• Feed Management in Command Center is used to create, run, and manage XML job feeds that publish current job data for job boards/aggregators to pull via a provided URL (feeds are generated on demand and reflect jobs at run time).
• Standard XML feeds require no customization and typically send all jobs; one standard feed is included in a standard Recruiting implementation and can be an alternative to scrapes for better source tracking.
• Custom XML feeds require client-specific rules (for niche sites or subsets of jobs) and are typically paid separately; creating new vendor templates may require engaging SAP Professional Services.