Accept or decline submissions

After a speaker submits a session, it appears in Program → Sessions in the form’s default status — usually Pending. Deciding what gets in is a matter of moving each session to the right status, either directly or after an evaluation plan has scored it.

Training video · 6:36Submission review and evaluation: statuses, plans and the evaluator's reviewThe five status categories and the Status popover, what an evaluation plan is and the settings that shape one, then the evaluator's side end to end on your Site, the sign-in link, My Reviews, the round queue, scoring a submission against the rubric with a comment and Save Review, what done looks like, and how that review lands on the admin's plan, the Evaluators tab, the Review tab and the Evaluation Summary.

1. 0:02Deciding what gets in
2. 0:28The five status categories
3. 1:00Evaluation plans
4. 1:26Plan settings
5. 2:00The evaluator signs in
6. 2:22My Reviews
7. 2:44The round view
8. 3:18Reviewing a submission
9. 3:51Scoring and saving
10. 4:21What done looks like
11. 4:44Back on the admin side
12. 5:20Evaluation Summary
13. 5:50After the decision
14. 6:12Next steps

The five status categories

Every session sits in one of five standard statuses. The tabs across the top of the Sessions list are these statuses, with a count on each.

Status	Meaning	What the speaker sees in the portal
Accepted	Approved and in the program. Appears on the agenda and, when synced, in your integrations.	Accepted
Accept Queue	Recommended or held for acceptance, not yet final. A holding area while decisions or scheduling are worked out.	Pending
Pending	The default for new submissions. Awaiting review or a decision.	Pending
Decline Queue	Being considered for rejection, not yet declined.	Pending
Declined	Rejected and out of the program.	Declined

The queues exist so a committee can sort as it goes without telling anyone yet. Speakers see only the three outcomes; the queues read as Pending until you move the session on.

Two more tabs hold the sessions that aren’t in the workflow: Withdrawn (the submitter pulled it) and Drafts (started on the form, never submitted — see draft submissions).

A red dot just left of a row’s edit pencil means something on that submission is waiting for you: a message, a note, or new activity such as a speaker accepting or a file arriving. Hover it to see what, or click it to open the submission on that tab. See the unread dot on a row.

Tip

If your committee thinks in stages like “Shortlisted” or “Needs Revision”, add them as custom statuses under Program settings → Statuses. Each custom status belongs to one of the five categories and behaves like it.

Review submissions

All at once — the Sessions list is a table of every submission. Adjust the columns to include the questions from your submission form, then sort and filter. The Sessions list carries the session’s fields; for speaker fields (company, job title, bio) build the same view under CRM → Speakers.

One at a time — click the pencil on a row to open the session editor. The Details tab has every answer, Participants the people, Files and Media what they uploaded, and Reviews the scores from any evaluation plan.

Tip

To bring more people into the decision, use evaluation plans: reviewers score submissions against your criteria, and the results land on each session’s Reviews tab and in the Evaluation Summary.

Change a session’s status

In the Sessions list, click the session’s current status and pick the new one from the dropdown. The row moves to the matching tab immediately. To move many at once, select them and use bulk edit on the Status field.

A custom role’s Statuses tab can limit which statuses its members may set — track chairs can send sessions to the Accept Queue while the final Accepted and Declined calls stay with you. See limit which statuses a role can set.

Note

Changing a status does not email anyone by itself. When decisions are final, send accept and decline emails to the speakers using the built-in Accept and Decline email templates — or build an automation that emails the people on a session when its status changes.

Once a session is Accepted it appears on the agenda for scheduling, and — if the portal’s tasks are gated on acceptance — its speakers’ post-acceptance tasks open in their portal.

Accepting a session is not the end of the handoff. Each speaker still has to confirm their participation from their portal before the session is settled, so check the confirmation column in Submissions after a decision round. To ask them formally, select the accepted sessions and click Send invitations in the bulk action bar — participant acceptance covers accept-by deadlines, reminders, and holding invitations until a session is accepted.

Invitations, deadlines and reminders

Accepting a session decides it; it does not ask the people on it whether they will be there. With participant acceptance on, select accepted sessions and click Send invitations to ask each participant to accept or decline their role. In Settings → Record Settings → Participant Acceptance → Invitations and deadlines you can set an Accept by date, turn on reminders (the default is 7 and 2 days before Accept by), and hold invitations until a session is accepted. The full walkthrough is in participant acceptance.

Frequently asked questions

A submitter pulled out during review. How do I mark the session withdrawn?

Give it a custom status, because the Withdrawn tab only fills from the participant side. Participants withdraw from their portal when they decline an Accepted session with participant acceptance on, and a session whose speakers all decline is withdrawn automatically. Your team can undo a withdrawal, but there is no admin action that withdraws a session.

1. Under Program settings → Statuses, add a status such as “Withdrawn by submitter” in the Declined category.
2. Turn on Show custom status name to external users if the submitter should see that name in their portal rather than Declined.
3. Set the session to it. It leaves the program like any declined session and is listed on the Declined tab.