Settings

Purpose

The Settings tab is where you configure everything about your program. It's organized into sub-tabs (Program Info, Tracks, Important Dates, Submission Config, Area Chair Settings, Review Config, Camera-Ready, Email Templates, and Quick CFP), and each sub-tab has its own Save button, so you save one section at a time.

When you use it

• When setting up a new program before the call for papers opens.
• To choose your review mode (Direct, Two-Stage Rolling Review, or Instant AI Review) and your committee structure (SAC, AC, Ethics Chair).
• To define tracks, submission types, and abstract or withdrawal rules.
• To set your important dates and customize decision-notification emails.
• To configure what authors must submit at camera-ready time.

Walkthrough

1. 1

   Open the Program Chair Console, select your program, and click the Settings tab. Use the sub-tab bar to move between sections.

2. 2

   Program Info: edit the program Name, Acronym, Description, Contact Email, and Email Sender Name, and toggle whether this is the Main Program for the conference. Under the description, turn on Display in the Submission Portal to show it on your program's card and list row in the public and signed-in Submission Portal, and on its entry in the Reviewer Portal where people volunteer to review (off by default). Click Save Program Info. Automatic emails to authors (submission received, decisions) are sent as your acronym plus "Committee", for example AIMG 2026 Committee, so keep the Acronym current; webmail shows them from noreply@events.airballoon.ai.

3. 3

   Tracks: add tracks authors choose from at submission time (type a name and click Add Track, or use the example quick-add buttons), then click Save Tracks. With no tracks, submissions attach to the program directly.

4. 4

   Important Dates: set your program's schedule. Use Calculate… (under "Select an important dates template to calculate the dates") to fill the dates from the conference's dates or a template (for example Workshop); a preview lists what changes, and dates you changed yourself are kept. Then edit freely: change a date, rename it or delete it, and use Add date for a standard date, a custom date or another round. A standard date can't fall after the conference's last day (later days are greyed out in the calendar). For a date after the conference, such as a post-conference meeting, use Add date → Custom date: any day can be picked, and it is listed under After the conference. Deadlines and closing dates default to 11:59 PM (the end of the day) and opening dates to 12:00 AM (the start of the day); you can change the time in the calendar. Notification and the program period are plain days. Time zone of these dates sets the zone every date is in: AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12) by default, or UTC, your conference's time zone or another zone. Each date shows its zone, a date without a time ends at the end of that day in that zone, and submissions and reviews open and close by these dates in this zone for everyone. Submission categories use the program's zone. Timeline shows every date on one line in date order, month by month, with the conference's own dates (period, registration, presentation materials) in red; Phases groups the dates by phase. Conference dates are read only here. Export and Import move the dates in and out as a CSV file. When the program takes abstracts or proposals, Abstract and Proposal tabs hold their short list (submission, notification and, for abstracts, the final version), each Same as Papers until you change it. Close camera-ready uploads at the deadline (off by default) refuses an author's camera-ready upload after the paper's deadline. Click Save dates. Two-Stage Rolling Review keeps its cycle editor.

5. 5

   Submission Config: the shared Submission Configuration editor: which submission types the program offers (Paper, Abstract, Proposal), their categories, items, choices, affirmations, deadline sets and materials after acceptance; the page-limit check and Ask authors for a license are under Paper's settings. See Submission Configuration. Below it, optionally Enable Abstract Submission (a separate, earlier abstract deadline, with title, text only or with PDF) and set the Withdrawal Policy (inherit the conference policy or override it). Click Save Configuration; problems in the configuration are listed and block saving.

6. 6

   Area Chair Settings (Full tier): tune the senior area chair and area chair recommendation algorithm and preferences used when suggesting chairs.

7. 7

   Review Config (Full tier): every section starts folded, with its current value on the right of the title. Click a title to open it, or use Expand all and Collapse all at the top. Pick the Review Mode (Direct Submission is the default), set Minimum Reviews Per Paper and Max Papers Per Reviewer (empty follows the Multi-Program or the conference, shown in grey with where it comes from; type a number from 1 to 50 to set one for this program, or Use the conference's to go back), and turn on the committee structure you need: Senior Area Chair (SAC), Area Chair (AC) and Ethics Chair. Under Blind Review pick Single blind (reviewers see the authors) or Double blind (they do not); a sub-program can also choose Same as its Multi-Program. Under Review Forms, every form you can use is listed: the templates (Standard, Rolling Review, Workshop (Simple), Legacy), forms from your Multi-Program, and your own (in Rolling Review, the Artifact Assessment ratings for Datasets and Software are optional, and Ethics Review is required: the reviewer selects either "no ethical concerns" or Needs Ethics Review). Preview any form, Set as default for your papers, or click New review form (blank or started from any listed form) or Copy and edit to build your own: written questions, score questions with your own scale and labels, questions with set answers (one or several), statements to confirm, and the overall recommendation and confidence every form asks. Your forms save at once. Set the Review Commitment Requirement (papers only: at least one author of each paper commits to review, or the authors nominate a reviewer who is not an author of the paper; a single author paper always nominates one; abstracts and proposals are never asked), and configure the embedded Desk Rejection policy. Click Save Review Config to save all of it, including desk rejection. The automatic anonymization check and the anonymization statement follow the blind setting: with Double blind every paper gets both (the check warns and flags the paper for Desk Screening; it blocks only when your policy itself runs the check and blocks on it); with Single blind they apply only when the desk rejection policy turns them on.

8. 8

   Under Review Reminders in Review Config, select Send automatic reminders to email reviewers who have not submitted a review before the review deadline. It fills in 7 and 2: the first reminder goes 7 days before the deadline, the second 2 days before. Change the numbers (1 to 60, the second fewer than the first), or clear the second to send only one. The line under the numbers shows the day the first reminder goes out. Click Save Review Config.

9. 9

   Below it, Reviewer email templates holds this program's two emails to reviewers: Review Reminder (the automatic reminders, and Reminder in Email selected) and Late Review (Late review in Email selected). Each shows whether it is this program's own or the built in text. Click Edit to change the subject and message, then Save template (saved at once, not by Save Review Config); Reset to the default goes back to the built in text. Preview shows the email for a sample reviewer with two sample papers, as sent: from the program's committee, Reply-To the program's contact email, in the conference's email layout; Preview reminder 2 shows the second reminder. {{name}}, {{papers}}, {{reviewDeadline}}, {{programAndConference}} and {{committeeName}} are filled in for each reviewer.

10. 10

    Under Decisions in Review Config, set the decisions chairs make in Reviews & Decisions:

    • Decision names: rename Accept, Conditional accept, Reject and the others to your field's words (for example "Major revision"); turn Conditional accept off if you do not use it. Authors see the same names in the decision email and their console.
    • Allow accept as a lower category (off by default): chairs may accept a paper into a lower category of this program, for example a full paper as a poster. For each category, select the categories it may be accepted as; the usual order (full, short, poster, demo) is filled in. A category can never be accepted as one above it.
    • Allow transfer to workshops (off by default; main tracks only, not workshops): authors may name a first and a second choice workshop when they submit, and a reject moves the paper to their choice. Pick which workshops authors may choose and whether a second choice is offered. All workshops that take transferred papers is the usual choice and includes workshops added later; clear it to pick workshops one by one, with a search box when the conference has many.

    Click Save Review Config. A sub-program without its own decision settings follows its Multi-Program's. In a sub-program, every Review Config value starts from the Multi-Program's Review Config; a value you change here stays yours, and the others follow when the Multi-Program changes them.

11. 11

    Camera-Ready (Full tier): choose the Required Materials (poster, slides, video, source files, copyright form, registration receipt), set File Size Limits, and, if video is required, set duration and resolution. Publisher and copyright are inherited from the conference. Click Save Camera-Ready Settings.

12. 12

    Email Templates: customize the decision-notification emails (accept as full / short / poster, rejection, and desk rejection). Click Edit on a template, change the Subject and Body (HTML, Preview, Plain Text), use the listed variables like {{authorName}}, and click Save Template. The Desk Rejection Notice also takes {{deskRejectReasons}} (the decision's comments, else the screening flags) and {{appealPolicy}} (from the Desk Rejection policy).

    Releasing a decision sends the matching template: an accept goes by the category the paper is accepted in (so Accept as Short Paper sends the short paper template), and a reject that ends the paper sends the rejection notice. None of these emails includes the reviews; to add them, put {{reviews}} in a template, which lists the submitted reviews without reviewer names or confidential comments. Conditional accept, desk reject, a reject that moves the paper to a workshop, and categories with no template (for example a demo) use the standard decision email.

13. 13

    Quick CFP: check and edit the short call for papers listed in public CFPs and on the AirBalloon homepage while your submissions are open. See Quick CFP.

Category dates

Under the program's dates, Category dates lists every submission category with the dates it uses. Each category starts from the program's dates.

• The first column of each table (Program for Paper, Abstract dates or Proposal dates for the other types) can be changed too. Click a date: for Paper it changes the program date, the same as editing it in the timeline above; for Abstract or Proposal it gives that type its own date (bold, with a dot), and Use the Paper date brings the Paper date back. Categories without their own date follow the change.
• Unlocked (the default): click a cell to give one category its own date, use the program date again, or remove the date for that category. A bold date with a dot is the category's own; a grey one is the program date. Apply to every category on a row, or Apply program dates to all, brings the categories back to the program dates.
• Locked: every category uses the program dates. Click Unlocked to lock; if some categories have their own dates you are asked first, with any submission deadline that would move. Their changes are kept and apply again if you unlock, unless you choose Lock and discard the changes.

Tips