A submission process (see Submission Processes) controls which web form a member completes. This page covers the other process options: collecting contact or organization details before the form, allowing edits after submission, choosing a separate editing form, and setting up the confirmation email the submitter receives.
Prerequisites
- You need access to the space's setup pages.
- The submission process must already exist. If it does not, create it first. See Submission Processes.
- A Submission web form should already exist for the process to use. If you still need to create one, see Configure Web Forms.
Where to Find It
Go to Spaces › (space) › Setup › Submissions › Processes, then open a process to edit it, or select Create Submission Process to add one. You’ll find these options in the Process Options card below the process’s basic information.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collect contact or organization details first | On / off | On for a new process | Shows a Rolodex contact or organization form before the submission form, so submitters can confirm their details |
| Allow editing after submission | On / off | Off | Shows the remaining editing options |
| Editing form | One of the account’s submission web forms, or none | None (uses the submission form) | Controls which form submitters see when they return to edit |
| How long editing is allowed | Until a specific date, for a period after submitting, or until the space is closed | Until the space is closed | Records the editing window you want for this process |
| Send a confirmation email | On / off | On for a new process | Sends an email to the submitting contact when the submission is made |
Collecting Contact or Organization Details
When this option is on, a member completes a contact form, an organization form, or both before they reach the submission form. Members see these steps only after Rhythm offers them a submission type that uses this process, so these forms are never the first thing they see. These forms use fields from your account’s Contacts & Organizations setup, not from Submissions, so update that setup if you need to change what the forms ask. A new process starts with this option switched on.
Custom fields are scoped to the application that owns them. If you need a custom field on the submission form itself, create it in Submissions & Reviews setup. A field created under Contacts & Organizations will not appear on a submission form. The same rule applies more broadly: a submission form can only include Submission custom fields. Custom fields that belong to another application, such as Membership, cannot be added to a submission form or to these pre-submission contact and organization forms.
Collecting contact or organization details first does not replace the Name field on the submission form. Rhythm still expects a Name value on the submission, even when you collect contact information earlier, and that value helps staff and reviewers identify the record later. An older form built before this was consistently enforced may have shown a submission’s Name in queries without displaying a Name field because the value came from the submitter’s login. A newer or recently edited form should still collect Name directly instead of relying on that behavior.
Details collected on the contact or organization forms are not automatically available to reviewers. If reviewers need to see something from the applicant’s profile, such as their employer, collect or copy that information into a field available on the submission or review. A reviewer’s page layout only draws from the submission and review record.
If your process links a submitter to a speaker profile, the speaker profile does not automatically stay in sync with the main contact record. Updating a detail such as job title on the contact record does not update the linked speaker profile, so update the speaker profile separately when it needs to change.
Rhythm matches speaker and co-author entries to an existing profile by email address. When someone enters the same email address on another submission, Rhythm links that entry to the same profile, even if the name is typed slightly differently, such as with or without a middle initial. If submitters enter inconsistent data, or use different email addresses for the same person, you may end up with duplicate profiles that an administrator needs to review and merge.
Letting Submitters Edit Afterward
Turn on Allow editing after submission to let a submitter return and change what they sent. You can allow editing until a specific date, for a set number of days or another period after submission, or until the space itself closes.
Warning
This process records the editing window you intend, but the space has its own editing setting that controls what the member actually experiences. If submitters can edit for longer or shorter than what you configured here, check the space’s editing setting instead of assuming this page is wrong.
If submitters need to add materials after a record is no longer open for full editing, check whether the application the record is mirrored from has its own way to add documents or materials. For example, a mirrored submission’s editing window may close once it reaches a certain status, and the originating record controls those editing rules instead of this process.
A Separate Editing Form
If submitters should see different fields when they edit than they saw when they first submitted, choose a Submission web form in Editing Form. Leave it blank to reuse the original submission form. After you choose a specific editing form, you cannot clear the field to go back to using the same form. Instead, select the submission form itself from the list. Turning off Allow editing after submission removes the editing form choice along with the other editing options.
Tip
A web form set as a process’s editing form cannot be deleted while any process still names it, even though the Portal shows that form only during editing.
Limits on Submissions
Beyond the options on this page, Submissions setup already includes configurable maximums for the number of co-authors, the abstract body’s word count, the number of session tracks, and the number of submissions allowed per main author. There is no built-in setting to limit the abstract title’s word count or the number of submissions allowed per organization.
Customizing Submission Form Fields
You can change the display label of a built-in field such as Title or Body on the submission form. Relabeling a built-in field does not remove it; the field remains a required built-in field under its new label.
Custom fields on the submission form support field-level help text or a form prompt, but the built-in abstract Body field does not. If you need to give submitters instructions near the Body field, or near a section such as “Who is presenting?”, add a text block with that instructional content instead.
If a submission type needs a table of repeating entries, such as a list of session materials, create the custom object with the fields you want first. Then create a custom field with Table/List selected and point it at that custom object. Add a Table component to the submission form, select that custom field, and configure the component as needed.
Tip
Not every visible piece of text in the submission flow lives in an obvious page, field, or form. If you cannot find a heading or prompt in the usual setup areas, and changing terminology settings does not affect it, contact Support to confirm where that text is controlled before assuming it cannot be changed.
The Confirmation Email
A new process sends a confirmation email by default. Rhythm sends the email to the submitting contact’s address only when a member submits through the normal Portal path. A submission that staff create manually in the Console on a member’s behalf does not trigger it. If the contact has no email address on file, Rhythm skips the send. The email supports merge fields from the submission, so you can personalize the greeting, submission details, and next steps.
Tip
Keep the acceptance email staff trigger when they mark an abstract accepted separate in your mind from the email a presenter later receives asking them to accept the invitation to present. These messages cover different moments in the process and use different templates, even though both are about acceptance.
A merge field is only available in a template if it already exists on the submission or abstract record’s schema. If you want to reference something new, such as the main presenter’s name, that field must be added to the schema before it can appear as a merge field. Check with Support if a field you expect is not offered.
Warning
A newly added merge field only populates for submissions or abstracts created after you add it to the template. It is not retroactive: existing records do not automatically gain the new value, so previewing the email with an older record can leave that field blank even though the merge field is set up correctly. Test a new merge field using a record created after you added it. If you need an existing record to show the value too, ask Support about backfilling it.
If you turn off one of the acceptance-related email notifications, you can leave its template blank without causing a save error. An empty template is only a problem for a notification that is still turned on.
Previewing the Email
From the process editor, select the preview button to open Preview Submission Email. Enter the identifier of an existing submission in Select a Record ID, and enter an address in Send Preview To. This address defaults to your own signed-in email address. Select Send Preview to receive the email filled in with that submission’s real data, exactly as the submitter would see it. Rhythm remembers the last submission identifier and address you used in this browser and offers them again next time.
Dependencies and Precedence
- The editing form question only appears when editing is allowed. Turning editing off removes the editing form and the editing-period choice from what is saved.
- The confirmation email only fires on a genuine Portal submission. Manual creation by staff, and any status change made afterward, do not send it on their own.
- A web form used as a process's submission or editing form cannot be deleted while the process uses it.
Change Impact and How to Revert
Changing these options affects only submissions made or edited after the change. Submissions already made keep the email they were sent and the form they were filled out on. Turning off contact or organization collection, editing, or the confirmation email takes effect immediately for the next submitter. There is no automatic way to resend a confirmation email after it has gone out, so preview carefully before your first real submissions arrive. If you need to resend the content manually, you can recreate it yourself: copy the relevant submission email components from the contact’s Email tab, then use Contact Options › Send Message to send it again.
Permissions
Setting these options requires the same day-to-day or administrator access as the rest of submission process setup.
Validation and Errors
| Message or behavior | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Send Preview does nothing, or fails | The submission identifier or destination address field is empty, and both fields are required | Fill in both fields before sending |
| Toast reading "Unable to send email" | The preview send failed on the server | Confirm the submission identifier is correct and try again; contact Support if it persists |
| The editing period fields are missing | Allow editing after submission is off | Turn the switch on to show the period choices |
| "You have not entered a valid value for presenter_info" with no visible field to fix | A presenter-related built-in setting is configured without the supporting component and data flow it needs | Check the process’s presenter-related built-in configuration instead of looking for a visible form field |