Preparation for submission closing

In the lead up to the submission deadline, there are a few steps you will need to take to ensure there are no loose ends. We'll be taking a look at 3 simple checks:

Step 1) Delete Blank/Duplicate Submissions

Use the duplicate submissions report to check if there are any identical (or almost identical) submissions in your list. Sometimes, authors may enter their submission multiple times by mistake. The duplicate submissions report will show you submissions with very similar information, such as title, topics and authors. You can withdraw duplicates using this report. Read more about this here. You can also search by title or author and if you see the same submission listed more than once then you may wish to delete it by following these steps.

Step 2) Contact Authors with Pending Submissions 

Some of the submissions in the list may be pending, meaning the author has not completed all steps of the submission process. As pending submissions will not be included in review allocation, you may want to ask those authors to complete the steps. 

You can email the authors of pending submissions through the Communication hub. Select New message and then Authors to contact authors from the list as highlighted below. Then select Next to move to the next step.

Click on the Submission Status dropdown to filter by authors with a pending submission and your email will be sent to those authors only.

Step 3) Prepare the System for Review

Normally, the reviewing takes place after the submission deadline has passed and so you will want to have your review settings and reviewers ready before the submission deadline closes. 

We have a guide about configuring your review settings here and how to add the reviewers here.