Hide non-accepted sessions from a portal

A speaker who submitted two proposals, one accepted and one declined, has both on their contact profile. By default both also show in their portal. To show only accepted submissions, filter the portal by status.

Show only accepted submissions

1. Open the portal and go to its Configuration step.
2. Under Control Submission Visibility, turn on Visibility filter.
3. Add the condition Status is Accepted. To include custom statuses too, such as Accepted - Marketing Review, use contains and pick each status.
4. Save the portal.

Portal users now see only the submissions that match, with one exception for subsessions: a subsession shows when its parent matches, and a parent shows when any of its subsessions matches. So a pending or declined subsession under an accepted parent stays visible, with its own status. To keep a decline from showing early, record it in Decline Queue, which the portal shows as Pending (see below). A hidden submission is gone from the home page, My Participation, and the tasks and resources tied to it, and opening its link returns “not found”. Your team still sees every submission in the admin app, and other portals are not affected. The filter can use any submission field, not only status; see Show only some submissions.

Without a filter, the portal works as described below.

What the portal does with each status

Status	In the portal
Accepted	Listed in My Participation under Accepted Sessions (or Accepted Abstracts) with an Accepted label, plus its tasks.
Pending, Accept Queue, Decline Queue and custom statuses in those categories	Listed under Pending Sessions (or Pending Abstracts). The custom status name shows only when that status has Show custom status name to external users on in program settings.
Declined	Listed under Declined Sessions (or Declined Abstracts). Tasks tied to a declined session are not shown.
Withdrawn	Listed under Withdrawn Sessions (or Withdrawn Abstracts), collapsed by default.

Participants can collapse any group.

Make decisions before speakers see them

A status change shows in the portal as soon as you save it, so a speaker can see Declined before your decision email arrives. To avoid that, record decisions in Accept Queue and Decline Queue first: both show as Pending in the portal. When you are ready to tell people, move the sessions to Accepted or Declined and send your notifications at the same time.

Each subsession has its own status, and the people on it see that status rather than the parent session’s. The parent session is listed above it for context, with no status of its own. Stage subsessions in the queues the same way.

Keep tasks to accepted speakers

With Always Show Tasks off in the portal’s Configuration step, tasks appear only to speakers with an accepted session. Anyone with only pending or declined submissions sees no task list. See Portals 101.

Does this affect the agenda or your website?

No. The agenda shows only the statuses selected under Program Settings → Agenda → Program Statuses (accepted by default), and the Site and embed Speakers and Agenda pages start from the rule Status is Accepted. Declined and pending sessions never reach attendees.

Removing a session from someone’s view entirely

A Visibility filter hides a submission from the portal only. The only ways to take a non-accepted session off a contact’s profile as well are to remove the person from the session, or to delete the session. Deleting does not erase the session permanently; support@sessionboard.com can restore one if you change your mind.

We recommend neither. Keeping the history — what someone proposed, and what happened to it — is what makes next year’s speaker sourcing and the New/Returning badges work. A declined proposal left in place costs the speaker one collapsed line in their portal.