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Manage tracks

Large events are often organized by tracks. A track usually represents a theme, topic, or even a presentation type.

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.

Note: Tracks management is available with the Pro plan.

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

  1. Go to your event dashboard.

  2. Navigate to Settings > Tracks.

  3. Click Add track (or Add if you already have tracks).

  4. Enter a Name (for example, “Coastal Ecosystems & Coral Reefs”) and click Save.

    • A colour is assigned automatically. To change it, click the colour swatch in the track's row. The colour identifies sessions of that track in your program.

Tracks page in Settings listing tracks and their colour, with the Tracks menu and the Add button highlighted

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.

Tracks list with the Linked in 17 places link of the first track highlighted
Track details with the Track Chairs, Reviewers, Sessions and Submissions tabs, Submissions open

3. Add Track Chairs

You can assign Track Chairs in Settings > Committee.

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.

  1. Go to Submission > Form.

  2. Add a new Tracks field to your form.

  3. Choose whether submitters can select one or multiple tracks (Allow submitters to select 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).

Add reviewer window with the Tracks field highlighted, 2 tracks selected

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 program.

Session card with its track tag and an arrow pointing to the pencil icon to edit the session
Session edit panel with the Track field highlighted


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

  • The Tracks field of your submission form, if this is your last track

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.

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