For multi-track events, organizers often work with several committees, each responsible for their own track. The Track Chair feature in Fourwaves makes it easy to delegate responsibilities, ensure users only access the data they're assigned to work on, and keep your event well-organized.
Why Use Tracks
Tracks help you:
Manage large, multi-track events efficiently.
Give autonomy to sub-committees while keeping a consistent event structure.
Assign reviewers, sessions, and chairs per track.
Improve transparency and control during submission, review, and program management.
How It Works
1. Add a New Track
Go to your event dashboard.
Navigate to Configuration > Tracks.
Click Add Track.
Enter a name (for example, “Coastal Ecosystems & Coral Reefs”) and choose a colour.
The selected colour will identify sessions of that track in your schedule view.
2. See Items Linked to Each Track
Each track lists the elements associated with it:
Track Chairs – Users who manage submissions, reviews, and sessions for that track.
Sessions – Program sessions linked to the track.
Reviewers – Reviewers whose expertise is assigned to that track.
Submissions – All submissions categorized under that track.
3. Add Track Chairs
You can assign Track Chairs through the Committee section of your event.
Track Chairs have specific permissions limited to their assigned tracks:
For Submissions:
View only submissions of their track(s)
Send emails to submitters
Edit and export submissions
For Peer Review:
Assign reviewers (only those associated with the user's tracks)
Make decisions and contact reviewers
Edit and export reviews
For the Program:
View all sessions but edit only those of their track
Edit session details, presentations, and times
For more details, see Add an Organizer to Your Event
4. Add the Tracks Field to Your Submission Form
Adding the Tracks field in your submission form lets submitters select the most relevant track(s) for their work.
Go to Configuration > Submissions.
Add a new Tracks field to your form.
Choose whether submitters can select one or multiple tracks.
For more details, see Customize the Submission Form.
5. Define Reviewer Tracks of Expertise
If you’re using the Peer Review module:
Assign one or more tracks to each reviewer based on their expertise.
Track Chairs can only assign submissions to reviewers of their track(s).
6. Assign Tracks to Sessions
When building your program:
Associate each session with a track.
Sessions will automatically display the track’s colour.
Participants can easily filter sessions by track in the public schedule.
FAQ
Why can’t I delete a track?
You can’t delete a track if it’s linked to any of the following:
A track chair
A session
A reviewer
A submission
Remove these associations first, then try deleting the track again.
If I remove the Tracks field from my submission form, will it delete the submission's data?
Yes, if you delete the Tracks field from the submission form, the associated data for your existing submissions will be deleted.