Manually Assign Reviewers
Guide for track chairs to manually assign reviewers to submissions, set deadlines, and track progress
Review Assignment Process
Track chairs are responsible for assigning submissions to reviewers to ensure thorough and fair evaluation of all papers.
1. Accessing Review Assignments
- Go to Conferences in the sidebar, then click on your conference
- Under Track Management, select your track and click "Manage Track"
- Under Review Management, click "Review Assignments"
2. Phase Selection and Deadline Management
The bar above the assignment panels shows which phase you're managing and its review deadline:
- The page opens to the track's current phase — the furthest phase holding papers; use the Phase dropdown to switch between review rounds, since assignments are managed per phase. The dropdown appears only when the track has multiple phases — single-phase tracks just show the deadline
- The current phase's review deadline appears on the right; click the edit icon next to it to adjust deadlines on the Track Phases page
3. Assignment Overview
The assignment interface displays:
- Submissions list - All papers submitted to your track for the selected phase
- Reviewer pool - Available reviewers for your track
- Assignment status - Shows for each submission:
- Number of reviewers currently assigned
- Review completion status (Pending, Completed)
- Reviewer names and their progress
- Review requirements - Number of reviews needed per paper
4. Conflict of Interest Enforcement
COI rules are enforced automatically — if you try to assign a reviewer who has a conflict with a paper's authors, the assignment will be blocked. Three rules are checked: self-conflict, co-author conflict, and declared conflict.
See Conflict of Interest Enforcement for full details on how COI works across all assignment paths.
5. Assigning Reviewers to Submissions
- Select a submission from the left panel to view its current assignments
- Assigned reviewers appear at the top of the right panel, highlighted in blue with their assignment status (pending, accepted, or declined). Unassigned reviewers are listed below.
- Choose additional reviewers from the list based on expertise and workload
- Confirm assignments — COI conflicts are checked automatically
Reactivating a Declined Reviewer
When a reviewer declines by mistake, you can return their invitation to Pending so they can accept or decline again — no need to re-invite from scratch.
- Select the paper the reviewer declined
- Find the reviewer in the Assign Reviewers panel — their row shows an "Assignment declined" badge with a "Reset to Pending" button
- Click "Reset to Pending" and confirm
The invitation returns to that reviewer immediately, and they'll see it again on their Reviews page. To hand the slot to someone else instead, simply select a different reviewer.
You can also reset a declined assignment from the Review Progress page — from either the By Paper matrix or the By Reviewer list.
6. Copying Reviewers into a Later Phase
For multi-phase tracks (for example a Revision or Camera-Ready round with its own reviews), you usually want the same reviewers who handled each paper in the previous phase. Instead of re-selecting them paper by paper:
- Make sure the Phase dropdown is on the later phase — once you've moved papers there it's already the current phase the page opens to
- Select a paper — reviewers from the previous phase are marked with a "Reviewed in [phase]" badge and sorted near the top
- Click "Copy Reviewers" in the toolbar
- Review the summary and click "Copy Reviewers" to confirm
The copy applies to every paper in the phase at once: each paper gets pending assignments for its own previous-phase reviewers. Reviewers who declined in the previous phase are not copied, existing assignments are unchanged, and papers that already have a decision in this phase are skipped. You can still add or remove reviewers on any paper afterwards.
Reviewers only see their phase's version
Each assignment is pinned to its phase. A reviewer assigned only in Phase 1 sees the paper as it was in Phase 1 — they never see revisions the authors upload in later phases. When you copy a reviewer into Phase 2, their new assignment shows the Phase 2 version, while their original Phase 1 review keeps showing the version they originally reviewed.
7. Managing Assignment Workload
Balance Reviewer Load:
- Monitor how many papers each reviewer has been assigned
- Distribute assignments evenly across your reviewer pool
- Respect maximum papers per reviewer limits set in track configuration
Track Assignment Progress:
- Review assignment completion status for all submissions
- Identify submissions that still need reviewer assignments
- Ensure all papers meet the minimum review requirements
8. Notification Process
New assignments start as Pending — reviewers see them on their Reviews page, but no email is sent automatically. When you're done assigning:
- Click "Notify Reviewers" in the toolbar
- Review the pre-filled assignment notification and send it
This lets you finish (or adjust) all assignments first, then notify everyone once.
9. Review Progress
Click "Review Progress" to open a visual overview of review completion across all submissions — as a paper-by-reviewer matrix or a reviewer status list — with options to search, filter, export data, and send reminders.
See Review Progress for full details.