In an earlier post I showed you how to create notifications for job listings handled by WP Job Manager. If you are using the “Job Applications” add-on, it is also possible to let you notify about new job applications or to send confirmations to applicants with our plugin Post Status Notifier (PSN).
This post will show you how easy it is to set up a new PSN notification rule for job applications.
WP Job Manager’s “Job Applications” add-on uses a custom post type, so all you have to do, is to select “Job Applications” as post type for your PSN rule (see screenshot):
Select post type for PSN rule
Choose whatever you like for subject, text and recipient. If you want to insert the applicant’s name, use the placeholder [post_title]. To insert the link to the application’s admin page, use this:
[blog_url]/wp-admin/post.php?post=[post_ID]&action=edit
To insert the job title use [post_custom_field-_job_applied_for].
Set “status before” to “anything” and “status after” to “New (wp-job-manager)”.
Send confirmation to applicant
If you want to send a confirmation email to the applicant, use the field “Custom recipient” and insert the custom field placeholder [post_custom_field-_candidate_email] which keeps the applicants email address. Unselect all options for “Recipient so that only the applicant will receive the message.
Include permalink to job page
To include the permalink to the main job page in the confirmation email, you have to activate PNS’s option “Conditions / Enable for body” and use this template code:
{{ wp.get_permalink([post_parent]) }}
The placeholder [post_parent] contains the post ID of the job the applicant is applying to. With WordPress’s function get_permalink we can retrieve the permalink of that page and include it in the message text.
Prevent further notifications
If you update a job application in the backend, e.g. to publish it or add a note, be sure to not generate another notification message. The best option would be to use PSN’s “Limitations” feature. This set to type “By Rule + Post + Status After” will make sure, that your notification rules will only match once per post status change.
Another option would be PSN’s “Block notifications” feature. Just mark “Block notifications” before you update an application after the notifications have been sent (see screenshot):
Block notifications on applications update.
Conclusion
I hope this short example helps you with setting up PSN notification rules for WP Job Manager Applications. If you need more information about all available placeholders, it is a good idea to setup a “debug rule” only for applications and check PSN’s log entries.