April 16, 2025
Speakers and event content are the heart of any successful event. But relying on an ad-hoc approach to secure speakers each year can quickly become unmanageable—especially as your event grows. That’s why many organizers use Call for Speakers to streamline the entire process, from collecting submissions to selecting the best speakers.
Last year, Whova launched its Call for Speakers System to simplify the often messy and time-consuming process of managing speaker submissions. Many organizers were juggling fragmented tools or handling everything manually, so we built a solution to keep everything organized, track submissions easily, manage reviewers, and notify applicants about decisions.
To our surprise, in less than a year, hundreds of events have quickly adopted this feature—saving time, reducing hassle, and curating better event content.
Popular features always come with many customer requests for enhancements. One common request we heard was a way to remind speakers with incomplete submissions to finish their proposal, so great speaker candidates don’t slip through the cracks. Let’s face it—people get busy, forget to hit “submit,” or just need a little nudge.
Whova’s new Incomplete Submission Reminder helps event organizers track and follow up with those unfinished submissions. But we didn’t stop there! Organizers can now handpick which submissions to remind—whether it’s based on session type, track, or how close the submission is to completion. This means you can build a well-balanced event agenda while giving those “almost-there” submitters the final push they need.
By increasing submission rates, organizers gather a richer pool of candidates, leading to stronger, more engaging event content. Because the best ideas shouldn’t be left sitting in someone’s drafts!
Tracking Incomplete Submissions
Incomplete submissions refer to speaker proposals that were started but never finalized. With Whova’s Call for Speakers dashboard, organizers can easily track these unfinished submissions and take action.
To track incomplete submissions, organizers need to ensure their submission portal is properly set up and shared with potential speakers. If you’re unsure how to do this, check out our Call for Speakers guide.
Once the portal is active, organizers can navigate to the Content tab and select Call for Speakers/Abstracts to view submission data. After ensuring the submission portal has been set up and shared, organizers can click View Submissions in the dashboard.
The system categorizes submissions into two tabs: Completed Submissions and Incomplete Submissions. In the Incomplete Submissions tab, organizers can see the number of unfinished submissions, when candidates last accessed their portal, and when the speakers were last contacted.
While organizers cannot view the exact content of incomplete submissions to protect speaker privacy, organizers can track engagement levels and assess the effectiveness of reminder emails by monitoring how many submissions were finalized after a reminder was sent.
Track and manage your incomplete submissions from one dashboard.
Following Up on Incomplete Submissions
Instead of losing out on promising speaker proposals, organizers can send reminder emails to encourage completion. Organizers have the flexibility to send reminders in bulk or manually select certain submissions for follow-up.
Organizers can take a strategic approach to outreach by utilizing filters to identify the most relevant incomplete submissions. Organizers can narrow down submissions by filtering by session type or track—helping them focus on the proposals that will best fill gaps in their event lineup. This ensures a well-balanced agenda while giving targeted submitters the final push they need to complete their applications.
Organizers can also see the percentage of completion for each submission, making it easier to target those who are closest to finishing their application. For example, reminding speakers who are 80% done is far more effective than nudging those who have barely started.
To make the process even smoother, Whova provides customizable email templates that save organizers time while allowing for a personalized touch. Emails can be sent immediately or scheduled for a later time, giving organizers greater control over their outreach efforts.
Filter incomplete submissions by track, session type, or form completion information.
Automating Email Reminders
If organizers want to ensure that incomplete submissions receive a follow-up without having to manually track and send reminders, Whova offers automated email reminders. When setting up the submission portal, organizers can schedule an automatic email reminder to go out as the deadline approaches, helping to capture last-minute submissions. Options include sending a reminder two weeks, one week, or three days before the submission deadline
This automated system gives potential speakers a final push to complete their submissions before the deadline, ensuring fewer great proposals are left unfinished while allowing organizers to focus on last-minute event preparations.
Choose an option to automatically remind your speakers to submit.
Extending the Submission Deadline and Notifying Speakers
There are several reasons an event organizer might choose to extend the submission deadline for their call for speakers—for instance, they may not have received enough submissions, they want to give submitters more time to polish their proposals, the event has been delayed, or other factors have come into play.
If organizers decide to extend the submission deadline, Whova makes it easy to notify speakers with incomplete submissions. Within the Submission Portal Settings, organizers can adjust the submission close date and time.
If the deadline is extended beyond the original date, Whova will prompt organizers with the option to send an email notification to all speakers with unfinished proposals. Organizers can use a pre-made email template and customize it before sending, ensuring the message aligns with their event’s tone and provides any additional details about the extension.
Announce a submission deadline extension to all speakers with incomplete submissions.
Get the Best Speakers for Your Event
By introducing the Incomplete Submission Reminder, Whova is providing event organizers with a powerful tool to increase submission completion rates, improve event content quality, and maintain greater control over the speaker selection process. Whether through manual follow-ups or automated reminders, organizers can ensure that promising speaker proposals don’t go unfinished.
If you haven’t explored Whova’s Call for Speakers yet, now is the perfect time! Whether you’re organizing a small conference or managing a large-scale event, Call for Speakers offers the flexibility and tools needed to handle speaker submissions efficiently, especially with the advanced features available in our popular Enterprise package.
Ready to take your speaker selection process to the next level? Try Whova Call For Speakers Today!