Setting up RCMS

1. Install RCMS and open it.
2. On the first screen, choose Just me.
3. Type your name. It is stamped on the candidates you add.
4. Optionally type your company’s email domain, for example acme.com. Type a colleague’s name into any email box afterwards and RCMS completes the address for you.
5. Pick a theme and an accent colour, add the cities you hire in, and if you already keep a tracker in Excel, import it. RCMS matches your columns for you and shows you a preview before it adds anything.
6. That is it. You are in.

Where your data lives

Your candidates, positions, CVs and notes are in an ordinary Excel file on your own PC, in Documents\RCMS. Nothing is uploaded. There is no account and no subscription. Open that file in Excel whenever you like.

No PIN, unless you want one

On your own there is nobody to lock out, so RCMS does not ask. If you share a desk or work in an open office, turn one on in Settings › Account › Security. You can also have RCMS lock itself after a few minutes away from the keyboard. If you forget the PIN you can clear it yourself — you have nobody to ask, so RCMS will not hold your own candidates hostage.

Hired someone?

You can turn this into a team workspace later, from Settings. You keep your candidates and your PIN.

Longer, and this is the part people get wrong. Read the shape of it before you start:

1. One person makes a shared folder the whole team can edit — on OneDrive or SharePoint — and syncs it to their PC. This folder holds the team’s sign-in PINs and nothing else that matters.
2. That person opens RCMS, chooses Start a new workspace, points at the shared folder, and types their name. They are now the workspace owner, and they add everyone else.
3. Everyone else installs RCMS, chooses Join your team, and points at that same folder.
4. Each person signs in with their own 4-digit PIN.
5. Each person’s candidate pipeline is created on their own PC. It is private to them.
6. If your managers keep a leadership master sheet, it goes in a separate folder that only managers can open. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters most.

How RCMS stores things, and why

• Your candidate pipeline — local and private. Candidates, positions, CVs, job descriptions and notes live on your own PC. Teammates do not see them, and you do not see theirs.
• The shared team folder — for everyone. Only the sign-in details go here, so that you are the same person on every PC. It lives on OneDrive or SharePoint and everyone needs read and write access.
• The leadership folder — managers only. If managers keep a master sheet, it goes in its own folder, restricted so that only managers can open it. It is deliberately not the shared team folder.

Because your pipeline is on your machine and the app itself holds nothing, reinstalling RCMS or updating never loses your data.

If everyone’s pipeline is private, how do managers see the whole team’s hiring? Through the leadership master sheet — the tracker each recruiter contributes their openings to. That sheet, not the raw pipelines, is the team-wide view.

Before you start

• A Windows PC each.
• RCMS installed from the Microsoft Store, on each PC.
• A shared folder the whole team can open and edit.
• A work Microsoft 365 account each — the one used for Outlook. OneDrive and SharePoint use it.
• Microsoft Outlook, installed and signed in, only if you want one-click email and interview invites. RCMS works without it.

1 — The folder must be synced, not just shared

This is the step most often missed. RCMS reads files from the computer’s own disk, not from a web page. So the shared folder has to be synced down onto each PC, where it shows up in File Explorer as a real path like C:\Users\you\OneDrive - Acme\TA-RCMS.

Seeing the folder in a browser is not enough.

On OneDrive: create a folder (call it TA-RCMS), right-click → Share, add each teammate’s work email, and change the permission from “Can view” to “Can edit” before sending. Without edit access RCMS cannot save their work. Each teammate opens the link and chooses Add shortcut to My files.

On Teams / SharePoint (better for a team, because the folder outlives whoever made it): open the team’s Files tab, create TA-RCMS, and have each person click Sync. Everyone in the team already has edit access.

Then, on every PC: right-click the folder and choose Always keep on this device, so a green tick appears instead of a cloud. RCMS opens Excel files directly and should not have to wait for a download — and it keeps working when the internet drops.

2 — The first person

Whoever sets it up becomes the workspace owner. They choose their own PIN, and they set the starting PIN for everyone else. That is deliberate: it means nobody can claim a colleague’s name simply by being first to open the app on a new PC.

1. Choose Start a new workspace.
2. Browse to the shared team folder. Your own pipeline is created automatically on this PC — you do not pick a folder for it.
3. Type your name and your designation. RCMS ships with nobody on it, so you go on the roster first, as a manager.
4. Add your locations, import your existing sheet if you have one, and finish.
5. Choose your 4-digit PIN. Setting it makes you the owner.
6. Add your teammates in Settings › Account › People & access, and set each one a starting PIN. Tell them privately — in person or a direct message, never a group chat.

3 — Everyone else

The same wizard, with one difference: you do not choose your own PIN. The owner has already set one for you. Ask them for it first.

1. Check the shared folder is synced on your PC.
2. Install RCMS and open it.
3. Choose Join your team, and browse to the same shared folder.
4. Finish. Your own empty pipeline is created on this PC.
5. Pick your name, type the PIN the owner gave you, and change it immediately in Settings › Account › Change PIN.

4 — Who can see what

• Manager — everything, including the leadership master sheet. Gets delete alerts. Can add and remove people, and can approve someone leaving the team.
• Member — the full candidate pipeline and the master sheet. No delete alerts, no roster changes.
• Sourcing (trainees, interns) — the candidate pipeline only. The leadership sheet is hidden, and they cannot delete records.

Five wrong PIN tries locks an account for a short time, and the wait grows if it keeps happening. It clears on its own.

Nobody can read an existing PIN, including the owner. If someone forgets theirs, a manager removes them in People & access and adds them back, then sets a fresh starting PIN.

5 — The leadership folder (do not skip this)

If your managers use the master sheet, give it its own folder.

RCMS hides the leadership sheet from the sourcing tier inside the app, and it refuses to open it for them even through the Excel viewer. But the sheet is a file. If it sits in the shared team folder, anyone who can read that folder can open it in Excel, and no application can prevent that. Only the folder’s own permissions can.

1. Make a second folder — on SharePoint or OneDrive — separate from the team folder.
2. In Settings › Storage → Leadership folder, browse to it. RCMS moves the workbook into it.
3. In SharePoint or OneDrive, restrict that folder so only managers can open it. This is the step that makes the restriction real. RCMS cannot do it for you, and it will tell you plainly if you have not.

6 — Someone leaves, or wants to work alone again

• A team member who wants to go back to working on their own asks a manager, who approves it in People & access. They then leave from Settings, taking their PIN and their own candidates, and come off the roster.
• The owner cannot just leave — they would be walking off with the workspace. They hand it to another manager first (People & access → Make them the owner), and then leave like anyone else.
• Someone who leaves the company is removed in People & access. Their PIN is retired with them. Their name stays on the candidates and openings they worked.