Universal Background Screening is a nationally accredited screening firm that specializes in employment background checks, drug testing, OccuHealth, verifications, employment physicals, and compliance management services. Companies of all sizes and industries rely on Universal before finalizing their hiring decisions, including retail service, healthcare providers, educational institutions, manufacturers, Franchisors/Franchisees, financial service organizations and staffing agencies.
Universal Background Screening consults with their clients to create tailored screening programs that enhance security, reduce liability, and improve productivity and cost savings in the candidate selection and hiring process.
Greenhouse Recruiting's integration with Universal Background allows employers to export candidates from Greenhouse Recruiting directly to Universal Background when candidates are marked as hired.
In this article, we will cover:
- Configure user setup permissions in Greenhouse Recruiting
- Configure Universal Background web hook in Greenhouse Recruiting
- Create Harvest API key for Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration
- Use Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration
Configure user setup permissions in Greenhouse Recruiting
In order to enable the Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration, you will need the following developer permissions:
- Can manage ALL organization’s API Credentials
- Can manage and configure webhooks
Contact a Greenhouse Recruiting user in your organization with Site Admin level permissions with the additional user-specific permission Can edit another user's advanced permissions to apply the developer permissions to your account. Have the user with Site Admin level permissions edit your user account's permissions by navigating to the Configure icon 
> Users > Your Name.
The user with Site Admin level permissions should navigate to the User-Specific Permissions panel on your user page and expand the Developer Permissions dropdown menu.
Select Can manage ALL organization’s API Credentials and Can manage and configure web hooks so a check is in each checkbox. When finished, click Save.
Repeat as necessary for any other user that should have access to set up the integration.
Configure Universal Background web hook in Greenhouse Recruiting
Before enabling the Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration, you will need two pieces of information:
- Universal Background's endpoint URL
- Universal Background’s secret key
To retrieve this information, please contact your Account Executive at Universal Background Screening, Inc. and notify them you would like to integrate with Greenhouse Recruiting. For new clients, please call (877) 263-8033 and get started with Universal Background. Universal Background will provide an endpoint URL and a secret key to set up a web hook in Greenhouse Recruiting.
Once you have the endpoint URL and secret key, click the Configure icon in the upper right-hand corner and navigate to Dev Center on the left-hand panel. From the Dev Center page, click Web Hooks.
Click Web Hooks from the subsequent page.
On the Create A New Web Hook page, provide the following details:
- Name: Universal Background Check
- When: We are using Candidate has been hired for our sample below. This selection can be customized.
- Endpoint URL: The Endpoint URL received from the Universal Background team
- Secret Key: The Secret Key received from the Universal Background team
- Error recipient email: Typically the administrator on your organization's Greenhouse Recruiting account
- Disabled?: No
When finished, click Create Web hook.
That's it! Your Greenhouse account and Universal Background account can now talk to each other. These settings dictate execution of the Universal Background web hook once the end user transitions the candidate into an appropriate application stage for a given job.
Create Harvest API key for Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration
To create a Harvest API key for the integration, click the Configure icon in the upper right-hand corner, and navigate to Dev Center on the left-hand panel. From the Dev Center page, click API Credential Management.
From the API Credential Management page, click Create New API Key to generate the API key for Universal Background.
In the Create New Credential dialog box, make the following selections:
- API Type: Harvest
- Partner: Universal Background
- Description: Universal Background Harvest API Key
When finished, click Manage Permissions to generate the Harvest API key and automatically assign it the appropriate permissions required by Universal Background.
In the subsequent dialog box, click Copy to save your API key to your clipboard. Store the API key in a secure location to provide to Universal Background in the next step. Click I have stored the API Key once you have copied and saved the key.
Note: You cannot access the full API key again after clicking I have stored the API Key. If you lose your API key and need to access it later, you must create a new API key, provide it to the integration partner, and then revoke access to the original key.
On the subsequent page, confirm the following permissions are assigned to your new API key:
- Activity Feed
- Candidates
- Education
If any of the permissions above are not checked, place a check in the box next to the appropriate permission. Click Save when finished.
Your Harvest API key for the Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration is created and configured. Provide the Harvest API key to your Universal Background integration manager so they can enable the integration for you.
Use Greenhouse Recruiting / Universal Background integration
To initiate the integration, the candidate must be ready to accept an offer.
From your dashboard, click All Candidates and select the candidate.
When the candidate is ready for the background check, click Move Stage > Offer stage. Create an offer if one is not created already.
The moment you click Offer Accepted, the order is immediately sent to Universal Background. To verify this, navigate to a candidate's Activity Feed, where you will see the following note:
Universal Background has updated Status to “Success” which means Universal has received the information.
A link will be included in the Activity Feed note. Click the link to log into the Universal Client portal. All the candidate’s information will be available in the portal. Select the package you need and order the Screening.
When a partial or a completed report is available, you can find the update on the candidate’s Activity Feed. Click the link to view the report directly.