A reviewer assignment connects one reviewer to one submission. It tells Rhythm that you expect that person to review the submission, even if they have not completed the review yet. Assignments come from members of a space's review teams, either when Rhythm creates them automatically or when you assign them by hand.
Review access follows the assignment. When a reviewer has no assignments in a space, they see a message saying they are not associated with any abstract reviews when they open the review area. If a reviewer reports that message, check first whether they have an assignment. Add one to restore their access.
What Carries Onto an Assignment
When Rhythm creates an assignment, it copies the reviewer’s contact details onto the assignment. This lets assignment lists show and sort by reviewer name without looking up the contact each time. Because the name stays on the assignment, you can quickly browse a bucket’s or round’s assignments by reviewer.
How an Assignment's Status Changes
An assignment’s status shows what has happened with the review connected to it:
- Not yet reviewed is the status an assignment starts with.
- Reviewed means the reviewer submitted a review. If that review is later deleted, the assignment returns to not yet reviewed, as long as there was an actual review to delete. If someone marked the assignment reviewed another way, with no review behind it, deleting nothing does not change the status.
- Declined works differently from the other statuses. Once an assignment is declined, it stays declined. Rhythm does not move a declined assignment back to reviewed or not yet reviewed based on later review activity. Only assignments that are not declined follow the review this way.
If a reviewer declines and you still need the submission reviewed, you usually assign a different reviewer instead of waiting for the original assignment to change status.
What Happens When the Submission Is Deleted
When you delete a submission outright, Rhythm removes its reviewer assignments too. This only happens when you actually delete the submission. Withdrawing a submission changes its status but does not delete it, so a withdrawn submission keeps its reviewer assignments.
Changing a submission's status another way, such as declining it, also does not remove it from a reviewer's Needs My Review list. That list is based on whether the reviewer has submitted a review, not on the submission's own status. The submission stays pending for that reviewer until they turn in a review. Change a submission's status only after every review you need has been submitted.
Why Some Records Can't Be Deleted
An assignment points to several other records: the reviewer’s contact, the space, the round, the bucket, and, when applicable, the decline reason. While an assignment still points to one of these records, Rhythm blocks you from deleting that record.
This is one reason you might be blocked from deleting a contact, round, bucket, or decline reason that looks unused. A reviewer assignment may still point to it, including an old assignment from a cycle that has ended. If this happens, look for assignments that reference the record, then try deleting it again.