CHAIR HOW-TO: Invite Reviewers

OVERVIEW

IMPORTANT

We do not suggest inviting Reviewers after importing/adding them to your conference.
There is no need to invite a Reviewer who is already a Reviewer in your conference.

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Inviting vs. Importing (adding)

• Inviting a potential Reviewer to a conference is not the same as importing (or adding) them into the conference.
• A chair imports/adds Reviewers that are known to want to be Reviewers in the conference.
• Sending an invitation to them in addition to importing/adding them, may result in unwanted correspondence/issues.
• Importing Reviewers does not send an email out to the Reviewer.

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Inviting vs. Assigning

• Inviting Reviewers and assigning Reviewers are two different things.
• Inviting a user (non-conference or without that role) to be a Reviewer is just an invitation to come into the conference with that role.
• Assigning a Reviewer is giving that reviewer a paper(s) to review before the proper deadline
• You should not invite existing Reviewers to a paper; you should just assign them.
• If you click 'More>Invite Reviewer' for an individual paper and get this error: 'Forbidden (403): The user can't be invited as reviewer for paper 1 as the user is already a regular reviewer. You can assign paper directly to the reviewer,' it means you are inviting a user that is already a Reviewer. What is needed is the paper needs to be assigned to the Reviewer.

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This document will cover inviting Reviewers. Reviewers have the option to accept or decline the invitation.

Note

By the reviewer clicking 'accept' or 'decline,' it is for the role of Reviewer in the conference. It is not to accept or decline a particular paper assignment.

There are a number of ways to get Reviewers into a conference:

• Adding the Reviewer role to an existing CMT user
• Adding them by Importing them in bulk
• Invite them one at a time (They would be added to the conference only if they accepted)
• Invite them in bulk (They would be added to the conference only if they accepted)

Click here for information on a Multi-Track conference.

IMPORTANT

If an unregistered email was invited, the potential Reviewer will get the invitation. Upon accepting, the Reviewer will be directed to create their CMT account.
If they do not create their CMT account, they will not be added to the conference.

Note

If a registered email was invited, the user will receive an invitation in his or her email. They will be added to the conference only if they accept by clicking on the 'accept' link in the email.

SETTINGS TAB

• In the Settings tab, click ‘Features>Review.’ Make sure the ‘Add users as reviewer when they accept reviewer invite’ checkbox is enabled.

• To change the duration of the invitation, enter the number of days (the default is 7 days) then click ‘Save changes’ at the bottom of the page.

Tip

If you hover the cursor over the setting, you will see the tool tip:
'After reviewer invite expires, invites can be resent to people who have not responded. Changing invite expiration date does not affect invites that have already been sent.'

INVITE REVIEWER (INDIVIDUALLY)

NOTE

For Multi-Track conferences, the steps are the same except you pick the track of the conference to which you want to invite the Reviewer.
Reviewers cannot be invited to multiple tracks at the same time. The invites will need to be sent out separately.

Click here for information on a Multi-Track conference.

• From the Chair Console click the ‘Users Tab’ and select ‘Reviewers.’

• On the 'Manage Reviewers' page, click 'Actions>Invite.'

• On the ‘Invite Reviewer’ page, enter the email of the Reviewer. Click ‘Search.’

NOTE

If the user is not in CMT, you will see 'User with email xxx was not found. Enter information below to continue. Account will not be created for the user.'
If the user is a registered CMT user, the ensuing page will show instead.

• Enter the user’s information then click ‘Create Invite.’

• Click ‘Next’ on the ensuing page.

EDIT INVITATION EMAIL

Important

Do not change, remove, modify, or alter the accept/decline links in the body of the email in any way.
These links are unique to the individual emails sent and will not work if modified. If they are removed, the reviewer cannot accept or decline the reviewer invitation.
Additionally, if any placeholders are removed, the email sent will not show that information.

Note

By the reviewer clicking 'accept' or 'decline,' it is for the role of Reviewer in the conference. It is not to accept or decline a particular paper assignment.

• The next page is where you will edit the email that will be sent to the prospective reviewer. If no edits are necessary, click “Preview.’

• This is the preview of the email that will be sent to the prospective reviewer. Click ‘Send.’

The invitation has been sent.

IMPORTANT

If an unregistered email was invited, the potential Reviewer will get the invitation. Upon accepting, the Reviewer will be directed to create their CMT account.
If they do not create their CMT account, they will not be added to the conference.

• Click on ‘Manage Reviewer Invites’ to view decisions.

INVITE REVIEWER (BULK)

NOTE

For Multi-Track conferences, the steps are the same except you pick the track of the conference to which you want to invite the Reviewer.
Reviewers cannot be invited to multiple tracks at the same time. The invites will need to be sent out separately.

Click here for information on a Multi-Track conference.

• From the Chair Console click the ‘Users Tab’ and select ‘Reviewers.’

From the 'Manage Reviewers' page click 'Actions>Invite (Bulk).'

• The 'Bulk Invite Reviewer' page opens. To bulk invite reviewers please upload a "Tab Delimited" file. Each line of the file must contain the following tab delimited fields (order must be preserved):

• Open a text editor and enter the reviewers’ information as noted in the ‘Bulk Invite Reviewer’ page.

• Save the file as ‘Tab Delimited.’

• From the ‘Bulk Invite Reviewer’ page click ‘Upload user list.’

• Click ‘Open.’

• Verify the data. Click ‘Next.’

• The compose email page opens. Review the email. If you expand the ‘4 recipients’ in the ‘To’ line you will see they are the ones just added.

• Click ‘Close.’

• Click ‘Preview.’

Important

You can change the placeholders of this bulk invitation email to not include the sender email or have a different signature. However, this template cannot be saved as in the other email pages. The emails will always come from Microsoft CMT and cannot be changed.

• This would be the first of four emails to be sent. You can view the others by clicking ‘next.’

• When satisfied, click ‘Send.’

• Click the link, ‘Manage Reviewer Invites.’

The ‘Manage Reviewer Invites’ page opens. The ‘Status’ column shows if the Reviewer responded.

SEND INVITE REMINDER EMAIL

IMPORTANT

Resending the invite is not the same as sending a reminder email.
Resending an invite will void the links in the previous email.

• From the 'Manage Reviewers' page, go to the ‘Manage Reviewer Invites’ page by clicking 'Actions>Manage Invites’

• Once on the ‘Manage Reviewer Invites’ page, filter for ‘Not Responded.’

• Click Actions>Email.
  DO NOT CLICK ON 'Bulk Resend Invites.'

• Create a new template to remind the Reviewers to respond.

• After creating the template, click ‘Preview & Send emails.’ (Below is just an example. Your verbiage will differ.)

• Once satisfied, click ‘Send Emails.’

MANAGE REVIEWER INVITES PAGE

The 'Manage Reviewer Invites' page shows statuses of all the invitations sent to potential reviewers.

Note

It does not matter if your conference is single-track or multi-track. The 'Manage Reviewer Invites' page shows all tracks.

SEE ACCEPTED INVITES

• Go to the 'Manage Reviewer Invites' page and filter the Status column for 'Accepted'.

Note

Make sure the 'Accepted' reviewers are also listed as 'YES' in the 'Is Reviewer' column. If not, you will need to add them to the conference manually.

Viewing all 'Accepted' invites can also be done by exporting the Reviewer Invites and pasting the contents into Excel (no status filtering is necessary).

• Click Actions>Export

• Open the file, copy then paste in Excel

This can be compared to the Reviewers in the 'Manage Reviewers' page.

• In the 'Manage Reviewers' page, click 'Actions>Export.'

Note

In a Multi-Track conference, you will need to pick the track first.

• In the secondary menu, click 'Reviewers.'

Then copy then paste the contents of the XML into Excel to compare the list, if needed.

SEARCH FOR INVITE BY DATE SENT

• Go to the 'Manage Reviewer Invites' page and click in the field below 'Sent (Pacific Time).'

• Type in the field what you are looking for. In this example of 23 reviewer invites sent, we want to see invites sent prior to March 7, 2022. The string must look exactly like this: <2022-03-07 00:00:00

Note

The definition of the search string is as follows (it is in a 24-Hour formatting):

• Press enter when done. The results now have 16 sent invites.

• Click the 'Sent (Pacific Time) link to get the column to show descending entries, from most current to earliest.

INVITATION SENT TO NON-CMT USER WHO HAS NOT RESPONDED

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "Reviewer" was invited but does not have a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Not Responded' status not being a blue link.
If you cannot click on the Status to get a drop down, then that user has no CMT account.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: If the user does not have a CMT account, this will always be 'No' as the user must be registered to be a reviewer.

INVITATION SENT TO CMT USER WHO HAS NOT RESPONDED

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "Mary" was invited and has a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Not Responded' status being a blue link.
If you cannot click on the Status to get a drop down, then that user has no CMT account.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: This shows as 'No' because the Reviewer has not responded to the invitation email.

INVITATION SENT TO CMT USER WHO HAS ACCEPTED AND IS NOT A REVIEWER

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "Michael" was invited and has a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Accepted' status.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: This shows as 'No' because the Chair has not enabled ‘Add users as reviewer when they accept reviewer invite’ in 'Settings>Features>Review.' This Reviewer will need to be added either by clicking the 'Accepted' link, changing it to 'Declined', then changing it back to 'Accepted' so the 'Is Reviewer' column shows 'Yes' or by modifying the user's role.

INVITATION SENT TO CMT USER WHO HAS ACCEPTED AND IS A REVIEWER

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "T" was invited and has a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Accepted' status.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: This shows a 'Yes' for one of two reasons. Either the Reviewer was added automatically because the ‘Add users as reviewer when they accept reviewer invite’ setting was enabled, or the Reviewer was already a Reviewer in the Conference due to being added manuallyor by import.

INVITATION SENT TO CMT USER WHO HAS NOT RESPONDED AND IS A REVIEWER

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "Mark" was invited and has a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Not Responded' status as being a blue link. and by having a 'Yes' in the 'Is Reviewer' column.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: This shows a 'Yes' because the Reviewer was already a Reviewer in the Conference due to being added manually or by import.

INVITATION SENT TO CMT USER WHO HAS DECLINED AND IS A REVIEWER

'STATUS' Column: Here the person named "C" was invited and has a CMT account.
This is shown by the 'Declined' status as being a blue link. and by having a 'Yes' in the 'Is Reviewer' column.

'IS REVIEWER' Column: This shows a 'Yes' because the Reviewer was already a Reviewer in the conference due to being added manually or by import. An invitation was sent and then user declined. This user must have the role removed from the conference manually, either by clicking the 'Declined' link, changing it to 'Accepted', then changing it back to 'Declined' so the 'Is Reviewer' column shows 'No' or modifying the user's role.

RESEND AN INVITATION - BULK

Important

We advise you filter for only those recipients to whom you want to resend invitations. Any users showing on your invite page will be resent invitations and render the previous invitation void.
If 'Accepted' users are resent invitations, their status will go back to 'Not Responded.'
It is also a good idea to remove those reviewers who have accepted and are now in your conference as reviewers, from the 'Manage Invites' page so you do not mistakenly resend invitations.

To bulk resend invitations, filter for any or all invitations, then click 'Actions>Bulk Resend Invites'

RESEND AN INVITATION - INDIVIDUAL

• To individually resend an invitation, click "More" at the end of the row of the user you want the invitation resent. Select 'Resend'

DELETE AN INVITATION - BULK

• To bulk delete invitations, filter for any or all invitations, then click 'Actions>Bulk Delete Invites'

DELETE AN INVITATION - INDIVIDUAL

• To individually delete an invitation, click "More" at the end of the row of the user you want the invitation deleted. Select 'Delete'

DELETED REVIEWER

Sometimes a Reviewer will accept an invitation then subsequently delete their CMT account. What you will see in the 'Manage Reviewer Invites' page will be a guid (string of numbers) in place of the Name, Email and Organization. It will look similar to this:

TIPS

1. When a Reviewer says they can't get a verification after accepting an invite, or they cannot see the conference or role after accepting the invite, the chair can look to see if the email they are using is the same one the invite was sent to.
   In all likelihood it is not the same email.
   The email used to create the account must be spelled exactly the way the invitation was sent.
   For example, an invite was sent to '@xxmail.school.edu.cn' but they registered with '@xxschool.edu.cn'. They will not get a verification, nor will they have access to CMT.

2. Another issue is that it is not uncommon for universities to block emails. We suggest contacting the university IT department and have them whitelist '@msr-cmt.org.'

3. The "Manage Reviewers Invites' page can tell to what email the invitation was sent. Then look at the email address the user sent their email to the chair saying the accept link didn't work. If they are not exactly the same then that is the problem.

4. Whenever an invitation is resent to a user, the previous invitations to the user would be invalidated. The links will no longer work and the user will get a message saying it is expired. If the invitation has not truly expired, this tells you a newer invite was resent and the user is clicking on a previous email's link.

5. All emails sent can be viewed in the chair's email history.

Multi-Track Conferences

For multi-track conferences, whenever you are inviting a reviewer, either in bulk or individually, you have to choose a track.
You cannot invite reviewers for all tracks at once.

Invitations to reviewers will be sent out only for the track you specify.
If you added a new track to your conference after the invites were sent for the first track, it would not matter because they were sent to that first track only.