Microsoft Conference Management Toolkit

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HOW-TO: Request a Conference

Note

Follow this guide for an overview of CMT and to request a new conference site.

Please use this guide to fill out the conference request form before submitting.
There will be less chance of a 'Desk Reject' resolution if this guide is followed.

CONFERENCE RESOLUTION NOTIFICATION

Note

You will not get notified if your request was Desk-Rejected. Login to your Author Console/Request ID to view resolution.

1. It can take up to 3 days to get a resolution for your conference submission.

2. You will only get notified (via email) if the request were accepted and the conference site is created.

3. If more than 3 days have passed without an email, your request is likely Desk-Rejected. You must log into CMT to see the resolution.

COMMON REASONS FOR DESK REJECTION OF REQUEST

  • If the email requirements are not followed , your request will be rejected immediately.

  • Your external conference website does not meet ALL of the requirements.
    The website must have:

    • CFP
    • CLEAR FUTURE DATES AND DEADLINES
    • COMMITTEE
    • AUTHOR GUIDELINES
    • SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
    • WHERE TO SUBMIT
    • HOW TO SUBMIT
    • THE CMT ACKNOWLEDGMENT (question in the request form)

Here are some TIPS that will help mitigate a desk rejection.

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW

1. You will not be able to make any changes to the request form.

2. If the short name is not within the guidelines shown here, CMT will assign one based on the criteria.

3. We do not delete conferences to create the same one. There is always a way to rectify any issues that arise. Contact support directly.

4. If you get an error creating a request with the same title as another, all that needs to be done is change just one character in the title by adding or omitting a space, word, number, or parenthesis, etc., then submit the new request again.
It is not a permanent change.
Once your site is created, you can modify the conference title at any time.

5. If a CMT account the ONLY Chair of a Conference, and that CMT account is subsequently deleted, the Conference will be orphaned and any submissions will not get tended.
BEFORE DELETING THE CMT ACCOUNT, YOU MUST MAKE SURE THAT CONFERENCE HAS ALL TIMELINES DISABLED, THEN CONTACT CMT SUPPORT ADVISING OF YOUR ACCOUNT DELETION

OVERVIEW

In order to have a conference site in CMT, you will need to request one. This document explains how to fill out the New Site Request form.

Important

PLEASE READ

1. Any user must have a valid CMT account in order to be added to the conference.
ALL CHAIR EMAILS MUST ALREADY BELONG TO A REGISTERED CMT ACCOUNT.

2. Include AT LEAST ONE CHAIR CURRENTLY WORKING AT A UNIVERSITY.
The email needs to be a NON-ANONYMOUS, NON-STUDENT, NON-ALUMNI, CURRENT AND VALID UNIVERSITY EMAIL.

An ieee.org email is NOT a university email.


3. Requests using webmail providers (such as @gmail.com, @163.com, @yahoo.com, etc.) without the valid university email required, will be REJECTED immediately.

VALID CONFERENCE YEAR

CMT conference sites cannot be created for conferences more than one numeric year out. For example, in January 2024 we cannot create a conference site for January 2026, but we can create a site for a conference which ends in December 2025.

AFTER SUBMITTING REQUEST FORM

Once you submit the request for your conference, it can take up to 3 days for the conference site to be created.

Important

Chairs need to download data after their conference is completed. The conference site will be deleted within a couple of years after the end of the conference. The data will no longer be available after the conference has been removed.

ONCE CONFERENCE IS APPROVED

Once the request is approved and the conference site created, you will receive an email with all the information pertaining to your conference.
It is then co-chairs can be added.

The end of this document shows you how to see the resolution of your request.

ACCEPTABLE EMAILS

Note

These are the conference site requirements for acceptable email addresses to be a chair/requester

ONLY EMAILS FROM RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES ARE ACCEPTED

Valid email domains are .edu and .ac

As noted in the request form instructions, we require a Non-Student, Non-Alumni, Current and valid, non-anonymous, university email to create a conference site.

What this means:

1. Non-Student, Non-Alumni: someone on the FACULTY of a university or college, not one who is retired, or a current student

2. Current and valid: the person must be currently a faculty member and the email must be working

3. Non-anonymous email: An anonymous email is considered any email without the person's name, even if it is a university.
For example, these would be unacceptable:

  • GreatConference@myuniversity.edu.x
  • eventchair@mycollege.edu.x
  • 987654@valid-domain.ac.x
  • conferencename@conference.x

Simply adding your name to your profile in CMT will not skirt this requirement. For example,

  • "John Smith < ConferenceChair@myuniversity.edu.x>" is unacceptable.

Conversely, having a semblance of your name in the email with the first and last name as the conference name is also unacceptable.
For example,

  • "Great Conference < JPraveen@myuniversity.edu.x>" is unacceptable.

Examples of acceptable emails would be

  • john.smith@myuniversity.edu.x
  • jane.jones@mycollege.edu.x

Web-based emails would be deemed unacceptable such as, but not limited to these below:

  • Gmail.com
  • Yahoo.com
  • Mail.com
  • 163.com
  • Outlook.com
  • Hotmail.com
  • qq.com
  • mailbox.org
Note

An ieee.org email is unacceptable as it is NOT a university email

The conference request form must be submitted by a CMT account email like this:

  • john.smith@myuniversity.edu.x
    This is not acceptable:
  • GreatConference@myuniversity.edu.x

WHERE TO FIND THE FORM

  • Log into the Conference Request Site: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/CMTSRM
  • From the Author Console, click “+ Create new site request”

Request a Conference

CRITERIA FOR SUBMISSION

The New CMT Site Request page opens. It is important to read the criteria for submission:


PLEASE READ THESE REQUIREMENTS BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR CONFERENCE SITE REQUEST

Please use this guide, 'How to Request a Conference', to fill out the form before submitting. There will be less chance of a 'Desk Reject' resolution if this guide is followed.



This form is for requesting a conference site. It is not for paper submissions to an existing conference.

Before clicking "Submit" to save your request, please make sure that you use the correct information in the correct format for the conference.


VALID REQUESTING EMAIL (CHAIR)
  • Co-chairs can be added to the conference AFTER the site is created
  • The email requesting the conference site (and submitting this form) needs to be a NON-ANONYMOUS, NON-STUDENT, NON-ALUMNI, CURRENT AND VALID UNIVERSITY EMAIL.
  • Valid email domains are .edu and .ac
  • ONLY EMAILS FROM RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES ARE ACCEPTED
  • Creating a domain that is ac as a domain, instead of ac.in, for example, is grounds for rejection, especially if it is forwarded to a different university.
  • Make sure your university domain is the same domain provided (for university web pages).
  • Requests using webmail providers (such as @gmail.com, @163.com, @yahoo.com, etc.) without the valid university email required, will be REJECTED immediately!.
  • Email domains of .org or .com or .co are NOT considered university emails.
  • An ieee.org email is NOT a university email.
  • Click here to read the explanation of an acceptable email address

CONFERENCE TITLE
  • Must be in English

SHORT NAME
  • The short name must be unique as it will be a part of your conference URL. Before entering your short name, search for your conference short name to see if it is taken or not.
  • SHORT NAME FORMAT: The conference short name should use this format: {acronym}{4-digit year}. For example, IABC2026.
  • FOR THE ACRONYM: Only use the English alphabet for the acronym. Do not use '-', '_', or any non-English alphabetic characters.
  • FOR THE 4-DIGIT YEAR: The conference year must be only 4-digits immediately following the acronym.
  • The conference will be fully searchable in CMT by either the full conference name or the short name.

DATES
  • Use mm/dd/yyyy format for dates (Start Date, End Date, Paper Submission Due Date) for this site request form.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
  • The following acknowledgment must be included on your conference website as well as the conference proceedings, if applicable.

  • "The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support."

  • Please keep the CMT acknowledgment text as plain text in a paragraph. There must not be any modification to the text like bold, strong, italics, etc., and verify that it is visible on View Source page.

  • The CMT acknowledgment text must remain visible on your conference website.

URL OF CONFERENCE WEBSITE (The URL must contain the aforementioned acknowledgment)
  • Must be live site with all requirements met. Cannot be "Coming Soon".
  • Click here for the requirements for the external website.
  • Click here for some tips on external URL requirements.

CONFERENCE LOGO
  • Must be 200px wide and 64px tall.


Facebook or event sites are unacceptable.


Please note: CMT is NOT for peer review journals, books, magazines or chapters.


Request a Conference


CHAIRS

Important

Please read the above CRITERIA FOR SUBMISSION and ACCEPTABLE EMAILS before submitting this form

  • The page automatically designates you as a Chair.

Request a Conference

  • Co-chairs can be added to the conference AFTER the site is created

CONFERENCE DETAILS

Full Name

  • Enter the full name of the conference.
    Title must be in English.

Request a Conference

Short Name

The short name must be unique as it will be a part of your conference URL.
Before entering your short name, search for your conference short name to see if it is taken or not.

Short Name Format

The conference short name should use this format: {acronym}{4-digit year}.
For example, IABC2026.

  • Only use the English alphabet for the acronym. Do not use '-', '_', or any non-English alphabetic characters.

  • The conference year must be only 4-digits immediately following the acronym.

The conference will be fully searchable in CMT by either the full conference name or the short name.

Request a Conference

Location and Dates

  • Enter the City of the conference, the Country, start and end dates of the conference, and paper submission due date. The dates must be in mm/dd/yyyy format. For example, December 1st, 2026 would be 12/01/2026.

Request a Conference

Research Area

  • Enter your research area and how you heard about CMT.

Request a Conference

Estimated Submissions

  • Enter an estimated number of submissions.

Request a Conference

ACM Conference Confirmation

  • Select 'Yes' or 'No' for the question “Is your conference an ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) conference?”.

Request a Conference

WEBSITE REQUIREMENTS

Note

These are the CMT requirements for a proper external conference website

Important

RULES

  • YOUR WEBSITE MUST CLEARLY SHOW THE BELOW REQUIREMENTS.
  • PROSPECTIVE AUTHORS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO TAKE THE TIME TO LOOK FOR THE INFORMATION THEY NEED. THEY WILL ALSO LIKLEY BE CONFUSED BY EXPIRED DEADLINES.
  • IF YOUR EXTERNAL WEBSITE DOES NOT ABIDE BY THESE RULES, YOUR REQUEST WILL BE DESK REJECTED

External Website Requirements

PLEASE READ BEFORE SUBMITTING FORM
1. Your conference MUST HAVE a valid, external website with CLEAR submission guidelines, author guidelines, where to submit, how to submit, CFP, and proper FUTURE/IMPORTANT dates/deadlines.
It cannot be a parked page, a CMT link, or 'Coming soon.'
Blank pages and TBD are unacceptable.
It is not for journals, magazines, chapters or books.

A placeholder for the submission link is acceptable.

2. You must be VERY CLEAR with important dates and submission guidelines.

3. There shall be no other conference management references, such as EasyChair, names, images or links for submissions or the request will be DESK REJECTED.

4. The conference site must be a separate site or page from your university site homepage.

5. Expired sites, links, and/or dates; links to other outdated sites; links to different conferences, having more than one conference site/name/link whether past or present, any visible past dates that cause confusion and are not valid, will also cause your request to be DESK REJECTED. This includes the favicon in the browser tab.

6. Any conference website that is NOT public facing (requires a login) or has an error like SERVER NOT FOUND; 404 ERROR; PROBLEM LOADING PAGE; SECURE CONNECTION FAILED, etc., will be automatically DESK REJECTED.

7. Facebook, social media, event sites and the like ARE UNACCEPTABLE.

Tips for Website Requirements

Click here for additional tips for website requirements

CMT ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Important

When you check the agreement box, you are acknowledging the below statement
WILL BE VISIBLE ON YOUR CONFERENCE WEBSITE as well as the conference proceedings.

THE TEXT MUST BE COPIED TO YOUR WEBSITE VERBATIM AND NOT CHANGED, MODIFIED, OR EDITED.

Acknowledgment Text

"The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support."

BE AWARE that your web page will automatically be checked for the text.
If the CMT acknowledgment is not there, your request will not be allowed to be submitted.

Please keep the CMT acknowledgment text as plain text in a paragraph. There must not be any modification to the text like bold, strong, italics, etc., and you must verify that it is also visible on View Source page.

The CMT acknowledgment text must remain visible on your conference website and NOT COMMENTED OUT.

Request a Conference

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ERRORS

When the request form is submitted, CMT sends a call out to the website page that was entered in the form where the acknowledgment resides.

It will either be successful, or have one of two errors.

ERROR #1: CMT acknowledgment page could not be reached

To verify this, bring up a command prompt and ping the host site. If it brings back a total loss, this is why it could not be reached:

Request a Conference

If the site does ping, or for another option, type in:

curl [website acknowledgment page] -i

Your result will likely be HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden

It may also tell you something else like, "Please enable JS and disable any add blockers."

Request a Conference

This is not on the CMT side.
You can do a web search on the CURL 403 Forbidden error to see possible resolutions.

Note

If successful, the result will be HTTP/1.1 200 ok
Request a Conference

ERROR #2 CMT acknowledgment page does not contain required acknowledgment text

This will happen if CMT gets through to the website but there is an issue with the acknowledgment.
Here you can utilize the 'View Source.' page.

VERIFY VIEW SOURCE PAGE

  • Bring up your conference site in a browser.

Request a Conference

  • Right click on the page where the CMT acknowledgment is, and select 'View Page Source.'

Request a Conference

  • Control+F (or Command+F) to search for some verbiage in the acknowledgment.

The example below is valid.

Request a Conference

Another valid example:

Request a Conference

Warning

This is an example of an invalid page. Notice the CMT acknowledgment is in the page, however it has been modified, which is not allowed.

The website itself may have the acknlowledgment visible, but if it is modified like this example, or not in the View Source page at all, you will get an error and not be able to complete the request.

Request a Conference

Conference Logo

  • If you have a conference logo, you can drag and drop the file into the dotted region or click the “Upload from Computer” button.
    It must be 200px wide by 64px tall.
Note

The logo can be added or modified later by using the Help Center atop your console, submitting a ticket and attaching the file in the correct size of 200px wide by 64px tall

Request a Conference

SUBMIT

  • When you have completed the form, click Submit.

Request a Conference

USING CONFERENCE LINK FOR CFP

Once the conference is created, the chair will get an email with all of the pertinent information about the conference, including the conference link. This link is what can be used in the conference website for the Call for Papers.

Important

We suggest to include instructions in your CFP that the authors will need to register their email with CMT. Here is a link how to create a CMT account: link

Request a Conference

CONFERENCE RESOLUTION

Note

This how to find the resolution of your conference request

If you do not get an email stating your conference has been created, then it is likely 'Desk Rejected'

  • Go to the Author Console in the CMTSRM dropdown and find the request.

Request a Conference

  • Click the link for 'Chair Note.' You will see an explanation of the resolution.
    If it is an email issue, you will need to USE the proper email. to submit a new request.

PLEASE SUBMIT A NEW REQUEST AFTER RESOLVING YOUR ISSUE

Request a Conference

SUBMISSION ERROR

Note

Follow the instructions if you get a duplicate-title error

If you get this error, 'Bad Request (400): You have already submitted a paper with the same title,' all that needs to be done is change just one character in the title by adding or omitting a space, word, number, or parenthesis, etc., then submit the new request again.
It is not a permanent change.
Once your site is created, you can modify the conference title at any time.

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