What counts as effective speaker application and abstract management?
At its core, you are managing the full journey from “Call for Papers” to “speaker live on stage” in a way that is fair, efficient, and easy for everyone involved. A good setup gives submitters a clean portal, reviewers clear criteria and deadlines, and your team real-time visibility into status and gaps. It also connects accepted abstracts directly into your agenda, mobile app, and streaming tools instead of living in a separate system. Strong reporting and integrations help you link abstracts to event registration data, marketing, and CE credits. Finally, the process needs to scale from a few dozen talks to thousands of submissions without turning into spreadsheet chaos.
Step 1: Start with a clear call for speakers and abstracts
Before you touch software, get crisp on what you are asking people to submit. Abstract management is the process of collecting, reviewing, organizing, and scheduling proposals for conferences, trade shows, and education events.
Define upfront:
- Goals: Are you prioritizing innovation, diversity of voices, specific tracks, or CE requirements?
- Formats: Keynotes, concurrent sessions, workshops, posters, lightning talks, panels, etc.
- Tracks and categories: Topic areas, levels (beginner / advanced), regions, or audiences.
- Timeline: Submission window, reviewer deadlines, decision dates, program announcement, and content deadlines.
- Decision criteria: Relevance, originality, clarity, alignment with theme, and potential audience draw.
Put this in a short “Call for Papers” page and email template your marketing team can reuse. If you want a deeper dive on framing that call, you can pair this with a dedicated call for papers guide.
Step 2: Use a submission portal instead of inbox chaos
Email + spreadsheets is where abstract processes go to die. Modern abstract management systems provide: a submission portal, centralized review workspace, evaluation rubrics, and automated communication.
When you design your forms, aim for:
- One place to submit: A branded page linked from your main event site.
- Smart forms: Conditional fields based on track or format, so presenters only see what is relevant.
- Structured data: Separate fields for title, summary, learning objectives, topic tags, speaker bios, and disclosures rather than everything in one text box.
- Role clarity: Authors, co-authors, and presenting speakers clearly labeled, which helps later when you build the agenda and badges.
A centralized system also makes it much easier to support blind or double-blind reviews where needed, protect sensitive information, and maintain a clean audit trail for CE or scientific programs.
Step 3: Design a fair, scalable review workflow
Once submissions start pouring in, the pain usually shifts from collection to review. Experts consistently recommend treating review as its own project with clear expectations and automation wherever possible.
Key ingredients of a solid workflow:
- Assignment rules: Match abstracts to reviewers by topic, track, and declared conflicts of interest.
- Scoring rubrics: Simple numeric scales (for relevance, quality, novelty, fit) plus required comments. Rubrics reduce subjectivity and make program-committee decisions much faster.
- Multiple rounds if needed: For scientific or association conferences, you might have an abstract round followed by a full-paper or slide review for accepted sessions.
- Automated reminders and dashboards: Reviewers can see their queue and deadlines, while your team sees completion percentages and bottlenecks in real time.
Association-focused guidance from ASAE stresses that your abstract process has a direct impact on conference quality, and that aligning scoring and topics with your strategic priorities is essential.
Step 4: Turn accepted abstracts into your agenda and content hub
The biggest efficiency gain comes when accepted abstracts flow straight into your program, mobile app, and virtual platform instead of being copied and pasted. The Skift Meetings 2025 Event Tech Almanac notes that planners increasingly look for event management platforms that combine registration, agenda, and content tools with abstract management so they are not juggling separate systems.
Look for or design workflows that:
- Convert accepted abstracts into sessions with one click.
- Attach speaker profiles and headshots automatically as soon as they are finalized.
- Sync changes across web, mobile app, and virtual environment without manual duplication.
- Feed CE or CME credit rules, certificates, and audit logs where needed.
- Push session and speaker data into your marketing tools and CRM so you can promote must-see content and follow up by topic interest.
If you are evaluating tools specifically for this, pairing a dedicated abstract management system with your core platform can work, but more and more teams prefer everything to live on one consistent data model.
Where Accelevents can benefit enterprises and associations
Accelevents is a modern event management platform used by 1,847 customers across enterprises, associations, and other organizations that run conferences, trade shows, internal meetings, and continuing education programs. It includes native call for papers and abstract workflows so you can collect submissions, review them, and publish the agenda without leaving your core platform.
Built on one consistent data model across registration, onsite, mobile, and virtual, creating a seamless experience for event organizers, attendees, exhibitors, and speakers. That unified data structure is particularly helpful when you want to see how topics and speakers influence registrations, engagement, and lead quality across multiple events.
The platform focuses on ease of use so your team can build submission forms, reviewer rubrics, and speaker portals without heavy IT involvement, while still being highly customizable for different tracks or event types. A dedicated customer success contact and a live support team that responds in less than 21 seconds, 24/7, help large programs get comfortable before abstract deadlines hit.
Highlights enterprises and associations care about
- Native call for papers and abstract workflows that support multiple submission paths, reviewer assignment, status tracking, and decision emails in one place, so committees can focus on quality instead of admin.
- Speaker portal with tasks and content collection where presenters can upload bios, headshots, disclosures, and slides, reducing back-and-forth email and last-minute surprises.
- Integrated agenda builder and mobile app, so accepted abstracts automatically populate sessions, time slots, and filters that attendees can browse on web and phone.
- Unified analytics and reporting across submissions, session attendance, engagement, and exhibitor ROI, so you can see which topics and speakers actually move the needle.
- Security and compliance features including SSO, role-based access, and enterprise-grade data practices that keep submitter information and reviews protected.
If you want to go deeper on tooling strategy, the Skift Event Tech Almanac and Accelevents abstract management software guide are good background reading before your next buying cycle.
How key platforms handle speaker applications and abstracts
Below is a quick, high-level view of how several well known platforms approach this area. Always verify specifics in a tailored demo rather than relying solely on marketing pages.
Accelevents
What enterprises and associations get: abstract and speaker workflows built into the same system that handles registration, onsite, mobile, and virtual, with native reviewer tools and a speaker portal.
Good to know: designed as a single platform rather than a collection of acquisitions, which helps keep configuration and reporting consistent across your portfolio.
Cvent
What enterprises and associations get: a long-standing platform with tools spanning registration, content collection, and mobile apps, including modules for abstracts and speaker management.
Good to know: the product has grown largely through acquisitions, the interface can feel complex, and many teams rely on certification training or agency partners to run more intricate programs.
Bizzabo
What enterprises and associations get: an event platform oriented around marketing teams, wearable tech, and engagement data, with options for session proposals and speaker workflows.
Good to know: reviews often highlight powerful features but also configuration complexity and limits on how far you can tailor flows without services or custom work.
Stova
What enterprises and associations get: an event suite that combines capabilities from legacy platforms like Aventri and MeetingPlay, including tools for agendas, mobile apps, and content.
Good to know: because the product grew from multiple acquisitions, different modules can feel uneven and you will want to probe how abstract and speaker tools interact with your other systems in practice.
Swoogo
What enterprises and associations get: a registration-first platform with configurable forms and event sites, which can support simple calls for speakers through custom workflows or integrations.
Good to know: deeper abstract management often relies on partner tools or custom setups, so it is worth bringing real scenarios to the demo to confirm reviewer assignment and decision flows.
RainFocus
What enterprises and associations get: a data-centric system used heavily for very large, complex conference portfolios where content and attendee journeys are tightly modeled.
Good to know: RainFocus typically serves the world’s largest companies, implementation is complex and costly, and teams often go through formal training to unlock the full feature set.
vFairs
What enterprises and associations get: an event platform with a dedicated abstract and speaker management module that lets you collect submissions, assign reviewers, and convert accepted abstracts into sessions.
Good to know: vFairs markets an all-in-one approach for abstracts and event delivery, so you will want to test how its workflows and reporting compare to your existing tools and data needs.
A short checklist for demos and proofs of concept
When you run demos or proofs of concept, bring real use cases and ask vendors to show them live. The RSNA Event Platform Demo Guidelines are a helpful model, emphasizing concrete workflows over generic sales slides.
For speaker applications and abstracts, try this checklist:
- Show the submission portal, including how tracks, formats, and labels are configured for your events.
- Demonstrate how admins create and edit scoring rubrics, assign reviewers, and monitor progress in real time.
- Walk through how accepted abstracts become sessions in the program, including parent / child sessions, speakers, and CE credit attributes.
- Confirm how speaker profiles, bios, and headshots sync between the website and mobile app.
- Verify integrations: which data can move via API between abstract tools, registration, CRM, and marketing platforms, and how often it syncs.
- Review available reports: submissions by track, reviewer load, scores, conflicts, and post-event performance like attendance and ratings.
- Ask for limitations and workarounds rather than just roadmaps so you know what truly exists today.
Putting it together
Managing speaker applications and abstracts well is really about replacing one-off spreadsheets and email threads with a clear, repeatable workflow. Start by defining your goals, formats, and criteria, then choose technology that gives submitters a simple experience and your reviewers a clean queue. From there, prioritize platforms that connect submissions seamlessly to agendas, mobile apps, analytics, and CE tracking so content stays in sync across the event lifecycle.
As you compare providers, keep an eye on integration depth, reporting, and the real effort required to set up and support each event. Finally, use demos and small pilots to validate how abstract management will actually work with your team’s capacity and your existing tech stack before you commit to multi-year contracts.
FAQs
Which event platform is best for managing abstracts, Accelevents or Cvent, for large associations?
For many associations, Accelevents offers an integrated approach where call for papers, abstracts, registration, agenda, and mobile all live in one environment, which can simplify setup and reporting. Cvent also provides abstract tools, but its broader system can be complex and may require more training or services to configure. The best choice depends on your internal resources, integration needs, and whether you prefer a lighter configuration experience or a heavier enterprise stack.
How do I set up a scalable reviewer workflow for conference abstracts?
Use an abstract management system that lets you define topics, assign reviewers based on expertise, and apply a consistent scoring rubric to every submission. Automated reminders, dashboards, and conflict-of-interest handling will keep the process moving without endless manual follow up. This makes it easier for your program committee to make decisions using side-by-side scores, comments, and capacity constraints.
Can Accelevents handle speaker portals and last-minute content changes for hybrid conferences?
Yes, Accelevents includes a speaker portal where presenters can update bios, upload headshots, and add session files, with changes syncing into the live agenda and mobile app. Because the same platform powers onsite, mobile, and virtual experiences, accepted abstracts and speaker updates stay aligned across formats without duplicate data entry. This helps hybrid teams adapt quickly when speakers swap times, formats, or slide decks.
What is the best way to link abstract management to CE or CME credit tracking?
Look for tools that let you store credit types and values directly on sessions that came from accepted abstracts, then tie those sessions to attendance and evaluations. When CE modules and abstract workflows share the same data model, it is much easier to generate certificates, transcripts, and audit logs on demand while still protecting sensitive reviewer information.
How can I evaluate abstract management tools during a demo without getting lost in marketing slides?
Share a short list of real scenarios in advance, such as “late-breaking poster track” or “double-blind review for clinical sessions,” and ask the vendor to walk those workflows live. Use a checklist that covers submission, review, decision notification, scheduling, mobile sync, and reporting so you see how the entire lifecycle works for your specific event, not just generic features. Bringing a small cross-functional team to the demo also helps you spot gaps in integrations, permissions, and support.
