Statuses and lifecycle

Submission statuses

Status	What it means	What moves it here
Draft	The author started the abstract but hasn't submitted it. Reviewers never see drafts.	The author presses Next on the first step of a new abstract.
Submitted	The author submitted it and no review has arrived yet.	The author presses Submit Abstract.
Under Review	At least one reviewer has submitted a review.	Happens automatically when the first review is submitted.
Accepted	The organizer accepted it.	Organizer decision.
Rejected	The organizer rejected it.	Organizer decision.
Waiting List	The organizer put it on the waiting list.	Organizer decision.

Some details to be aware of:

• There's no way to withdraw a submitted abstract, and an abstract never goes back to Draft.
• Authors can delete an abstract only while it's a Draft.
• Drafts that are never submitted stay drafts forever. They can't be reviewed or decided, but organizers still see them in All submissions.
• The organizer can change a decision at any time, even after results are published.

Each person sees a different status

Organizers see the real status. Authors see a masked status until results are published.

Real status	Organizer sees	Author sees before publishing	Author sees after publishing
Draft	Draft	Draft	Draft
Submitted	Submitted	Submitted	Submitted
Under Review	Under Review	Under Review	Under Review
Accepted	Accepted	Under Review	Accepted
Rejected	Rejected	Under Review	Rejected
Waiting List	Waiting List	Under Review	Waiting List

Reviewers see their own review status instead: Pending (not reviewed by them yet) or Reviewed.

When an abstract can be edited

An author can edit and submit an abstract only when all of these are true:

1. Its status is Draft or Submitted.
2. The organizer has turned on Enable abstract submission form.
3. Results have not been published.
4. The current time is between the submission start date and end date, in the event's time zone. At the exact end time it's already closed.

So a submitted abstract locks as soon as the first reviewer submits a review, because it moves to Under Review. Locked abstracts show a lock icon and appear faded in My Submissions.

The topic and presentation type can never be changed once the draft exists.

When an abstract can be decided

The organizer can accept, reject or waitlist an abstract only when:

• it isn't a Draft, and
• every reviewer assigned to its topic has submitted a review.

If an organizer adds a new reviewer to a topic later, every abstract in that topic, including already-decided ones, gets a new pending review. Those abstracts can't be decided again until the new reviewer has reviewed them.

How the score is calculated

• Each reviewer gives one whole-number score from 1 to 10.
• The abstract's score is the simple average of all completed reviews, rounded to two decimals. Pending reviews don't count.
• No weighting or other scoring scales are available.