The Essential Guide to Abstract Management for Events

Building great event experiences for your association members or colleagues within a higher education field of study requires extensive planning. From establishing a timeline months (maybe years) in advance to recruiting a team to preparation and post-event analysis, the process of creating a successful event is by no means effortless.

According to OpenWater, abstract management encompasses the entire process of organizing presentations for a large-scale event like a conference. Among event planning tasks, abstract management ranks as one of the more complex activities—and one of the most impactful on the event experience for attendees and speakers. However, we’ll cover the process steps and best practices in this essential guide so you’re prepared for anything. Let’s dive in!

The Abstract Management Process

During general conference planning (nailing down dates, securing a venue, determining the theme, etc.), be mindful of how the macro-factors of the conference will affect abstract management. For instance, when determining conference dates, ensure it doesn’t compete with another industry conference or symposium. You want to avoid restricting the pool of abstract applications due to scheduling conflicts. 

Once your team has established the overall details of your event and your goals, it’s time to begin abstract management. Let’s walk through an overview of the entire process.

1. Create your call for abstracts 

Keeping your event goals in mind, establish what presentation topics and formats you’re looking for at your event. Then, outline your requirements and submission guidelines. Compile this with the overall conference information, as well as an overview of the review process. Giving candidates a timeline on when they’ll hear back reduces uncertainty and creates a better candidate experience.

2. Promote your submission opportunity 

To create a stellar presentation line-up, you want to reach the right applicants. Here are a few ideas for sharing your call for abstracts:

1. Advertise across multiple channels—social media, email, mobile messaging, etc.—to reach as many potential applicants as possible
2. Reach out to partners (e.g. local chapters of your association, universities with strong programs in your conference’s field of study, or event sponsors) and ask them to share the submission opportunity.
3. Maintain cohesive branding across your submission forms, conference pages, and other assets. If you’re asking other organizations to share your call for submissions, ask that they also follow your brand guidelines when sharing.

3. Review submissions 

It’s important to have clearly defined criteria for reviewing submissions before you even publish the submission opportunity. That way, when you get to this point in the process, all you have to do is follow the process you’ve already set out. Additionally, make sure multiple judges review each abstract to minimize bias.

4. Notify successful speakers and create the schedule: 

Once you’ve selected speakers from the call for abstracts, slot them into the available presentation spots within the overall conference schedule. Take care not to double-book presentations over all-attendee events, like award ceremonies or networking receptions, or to create scheduling conflicts between presentations that appeal to similar audiences. 

5. Analyze and report on the abstract management process: 

As part of the abstract management planning process, determine what KPIs you’ll use to measure success, and keep track of them throughout the management process. A few to consider are:

1. Number of abstracts submitted
2. Approval and rejection rates of applications
3. Presentation attendance rates
4. Satisfaction ratings from attendees and speakers
5. Marketing campaign data—as Deep Sync explains, this may include conversion rates from different channels, email open rates, return on investment (ROI), and other similar metrics.

It’s helpful to map out the entire abstract management process prior to issuing your call for abstracts, so you can budget time and resources accordingly. However, you should anticipate that you may need to adjust throughout the process. 

Abstract Management Best Practices

Now that you’re familiar with the process of abstract management, we’ll cover some best practices for supporting a positive event experience for attendees, speakers, and your team behind the scenes. 

Use Abstract Management Software

Abstract management is a very administrative process, with many repetitive tasks that can be automated and streamlined with the right abstract management software. Leveraging unified technology to collect, review, schedule, and communicate abstract and presentation sessions is non-negotiable. Otherwise, information is bound to fall through the cracks.

You’ll want to look for the following features in your abstract management software:

• End-to-end abstract management tasks 
• Conference website builder
• Form creation
• Multi-round review capabilities
• Built-in email platform
• Scheduling tools
• Reporting and analytics
• Integrations with your other software systems

Investing in software to support your team’s abstract management activities makes the process more efficient, ultimately contributing to a higher ROI on your event and creating a better experience. 

Improve Abstract Submission Quality

Engaging presentations start with high-quality, relevant abstracts. When you have great abstracts to review and select presentations from, you’re setting your entire event up for success.

As we discussed earlier in the article, be clear about what you’re looking for in presentations at your event, and communicate that in your requirements and event marketing. Establishing clear guidelines make it easier for ill-fitting applicants to opt out and presenters who would be right for your event to see themselves as successful candidates. 

Leverage data from previous events to evaluate what worked and what didn’t. Track the highest-scoring abstracts against the highest-satisfaction sessions and determine if there is a correlation. As you evaluate KPIs from previous years of the conference or smaller-scale events your organization has hosted in the past, use the patterns that emerge to make data-driven decisions. 

Support Selected Speakers

By leveraging the communication features of your abstract management software to share updates with applicants and deliver all the necessary information to successful speakers, you’ll lay the foundation for a great speaker experience. Follow up on this by taking these steps:

• Have speaker resources available, particularly if you’re working with early-career academics or professionals
• Provide live technical support for their session and rehearsal opportunities
• Share your appreciation for the great job they did!

Keeping the lines of communication open with speakers and providing them with the tools and resources they’ll need for their presentation also benefits your abstract submission pool. By creating great experiences for your presenters, they’ll want to come back and build a positive reputation for your event!

After each event, review the data you’ve collected and evaluate how your processes served the overall event execution. Jot down any adjustments you’ll make for future events and celebrate the wins. 

In the meantime before your next event, leverage the great presentations from your conference as educational and marketing content for your members or community, with the speaker’s permission. Consider syndicating video and audio content across your website and social media, promoting your event’s thought leadership and great attendee experience.