When an employee leaves the company, replacing that position quickly is often a priority. With automatic backfill creation, you can ensure that every termination is immediately reflected in your hiring plan, helping your team stay aligned with workforce needs and avoid missing replacement requests.

In this article, you'll learn how to enable automatic backfill creation and how the system generates vacancies or requisitions when an employee is terminated.

Overview

Automatic backfill creation allows the system to create a replacement request whenever an employee is terminated. The backfill is automatically linked to the corresponding position in the hiring plan, ensuring your recruitment planning remains accurate and up to date.

Depending on your configuration, the system can create either:

• A vacancy
• A requisition (if requisitions are enabled for your company)

Requirements

• Your Factorial subscription must include the ATS Hiring Plan module.
• To use the Requisition mode, your company must also have the Requisitions feature enabled.
• Only admins (or users with permission to terminate employees) can trigger the backfill flow.

How to use

1. Go to Settings
2. Open Recruitment
3. Click Processes
4. Scroll down to Backfill creation
5. Select the type of request you want the system to create:
   • Do not create backfill: Nothing happens automatically when an employee is terminated
   • Create requisition (approval required): A hiring requisition is created and sent through your approval flow before a vacancy is opened
   • Create vacancy directly: A vacancy is opened immediately, prefilled with the leaver's data, without any approval step

What happens after an employee is terminated

When an admin terminates an employee and checks the "Open backfill" option in the termination modal, Factorial starts the backfill process in the background. Here is what happens step by step:

Step 1 — Factorial collects the leaver's data

Within a few minutes of the termination being saved, Factorial automatically gathers the following information from the employee's profile and contract:

• Job title — from the role assigned in your Job Catalog, or the job title on their contract if no catalog role is set.
• Team — the team the employee belonged to.
• Location / workplace — the office or remote location on the employee's profile.
• Line manager — the employee's direct manager.
• Salary range — from the Job Catalog level assigned to the employee
  • Currency falls back to the legal entity's currency if not defined in the catalog

Step 2 — Factorial checks the data is complete

A backfill can only be created automatically if all of the following fields are present on the employee's profile at the time of termination:

• Job title
• Line manager
• Location / workplace
• Salary (at least a minimum amount)
• Salary currency
• Team

Step 3 — The vacancy or requisition is created

Depending on your configured mode:

Vacancy mode

Factorial opens a new vacancy in your Hiring Plan, prefilled with the leaver's role, salary range, team, location, line manager, and a 30-day deadline. The vacancy is linked to the terminated employee so you can track which position is being backfilled. It is ready for you to review, enrich, and publish.

Requisition mode

Factorial creates a hiring requisition with the same prefilled data and sends it through your company's approval workflow. Once approved, the requisition becomes an active vacancy. The person who submitted the termination receives a notification with a link to track the requisition's approval status.

Notifications

All notifications are sent to the person who performed the termination — not broadcast to the whole team. They appear in the Factorial inbox and are also delivered by email.

Vacancy created

When: The vacancy was successfully opened.

• Inbox title: Backfill vacancy [vacancy name] is ready to be completed
• Email subject: A backfill vacancy was created for [employee name]
• Message: "We created the vacancy [vacancy name] to backfill [employee name]. Open it to review the details and complete any missing information."
• Link: Takes you directly to the new vacancy in ATS.

Requisition created

When: The requisition was successfully created and is awaiting approval.

• Inbox title: Backfill requisition [requisition name] awaits approval
• Email subject: A backfill requisition was created for [employee name]
• Message: "We created the requisition [requisition name] to backfill [employee name]. Open it to review the details and follow up on its approval."
• Link: Takes you directly to the requisition page in ATS.

Backfill could not be created

When: Factorial could not open the backfill automatically — either because the employee's data was incomplete or because something unexpected went wrong.

• Inbox title: We couldn't create the backfill for [employee name]
• Email subject: Action required: backfill for [employee name] could not be created automatically
• Message: "We couldn't open a backfill request automatically for [employee name]. Open the form to complete it manually."
• Link: Takes you to a pre-filled "New vacancy" or "New requisition" form with the terminated employee already attached, so you can fill in the missing fields and submit manually.

What if the backfill cannot be created automatically?

There are two situations where Factorial sends you the "could not be created" notification:

1. Incomplete employee data

The terminated employee was missing one or more required fields at the time of termination. Common causes:

What to do: Click the link in the notification to open a pre-filled form. The employee will already be attached — fill in the missing information and submit manually.

2. Something unexpected went wrong

In rare cases, the creation step itself may fail for a reason outside your control. The behaviour is the same: you receive the "could not be created" notification with a link to open the form manually and complete the backfill yourself.

Cases where no notification is sent

There are a few situations where Factorial skips the backfill process entirely and sends no notification:

FAQ

1. Can I trigger a backfill after the fact, without re-terminating the employee?
   Yes. If the automatic creation failed or you didn't check the box at the time of termination, go to ATS → Hiring Plan → Vacancies (or Requisitions) and create a new entry manually. Select the terminated employee in the "Employee being replaced" or "Employee to backfill" field to link the vacancy or requisition to them.
    
2. Who receives the notification?
   Always the person who performed the termination. The notification is never sent to a broad group.
    
3. How quickly does the backfill get created?
   Usually within a few minutes of the termination being saved. It may take slightly longer under high load.
    
4. What salary is used to prefill the vacancy?
   Factorial uses the salary range defined in the Job Catalog for the employee's level (minimum and maximum amounts). If no range is defined, it falls back to the gross salary. Currency is taken from the catalog; if not set there, from the legal entity the employee belonged to.
    
5. Can the backfill deadline be changed?
   The default deadline is set to 30 days from the date of termination. You can edit it manually on the vacancy or requisition once it has been created.