Publish Decisions & Reviews to Authors

PaperFox keeps a paper's outcome private while you work, then publishes it to authors on your signal. Two things control this:

1. Two per-track settings decide what waits for publishing — when authors see decisions, and when they see reviews.
2. One "Publish" button per phase is the moment you publish that phase's results to authors.

You configure the settings once per track, then flip the publish switch for each phase when you're ready. Recording a decision is always private work until then — you can deliberate, change, or clear it without anything reaching the author.

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Choose What Authors See

Go to your track management page (Conferences → your conference → your track) and find the Review Management section. Two dropdowns sit under Review Type — both save automatically when you pick an option.

Decision Visibility to Authors — when authors see the accept/reject/revision decision:

Review Visibility to Authors — when authors see the reviewer scores, comments, and files:

The two settings are independent. A common combination beyond the defaults: set Review Visibility to Immediately When Submitted while leaving Decision Visibility at When Published — reviews stream to authors as they come in, but the decision stays private until you announce it.

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Publish from the Decisions Page

Open the Reviews & Decisions page for your track. A banner sits at the top, above the statistics cards.

When the phase hasn't been published, the banner is amber:

1. Click the Publish button on the right
2. Confirm in the dialog

The button names exactly what a click will reveal, based on your two settings — "Publish Results" when both decisions and reviews are waiting, or "Publish Decisions" / "Publish Reviews" when only one is. Once published, the banner turns green and shows who published and when:

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Publish While Sending Decision Emails

When you send a decision letter (Acceptance, Major Revision, Rejection, etc.) from the Notify menu, a confirm dialog appears with a "Publish this phase's results with this email" toggle, defaulted ON.

• Leave the toggle on so the phase is published atomically with the send — authors get the email and can see their results together.
• Uncheck it to send the email only and publish manually later from the Decisions page.

The toggle only appears for decision-letter templates. A generic blast or a non-decision template never publishes results.

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Unpublish a Phase

If you published by mistake, click "Unpublish" in the green banner. The phase goes back to unpublished, and authors who haven't opened their pages yet stop seeing results.

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Multi-Phase Tracks

Publishing is per phase. Publishing Phase 1: Submission doesn't touch Phase 2: Camera Ready or any later phase. Switch phases using the Phase selector at the top-right of the Reviews & Decisions page — each phase has its own banner and its own publish state.

This lets you run a private second-round review without exposing it to authors until you're ready.

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What Authors See

Until a phase is published (and, in the default review setting, until their paper also has a decision), authors see their submission as Under Review with no decision or review content — regardless of what you've recorded privately. After publishing, they see their decision, full review scores and comments, and any reviewer-attached files marked visible to authors, according to the two settings above.

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See Also

• Make Decisions on Submissions — record and update decisions
• Send Notifications — full guide to the notification composer