Notifying Track Directors of Submissions

[RickMath]

I have our conference set up so authors can submit papers to tracks managed by Track Directors. Is there a way to automatically notify a track director that a paper has been submitted to a track? I don't seem to see a prepared email to do this.

So my question is related to both creating a new email and where and what code to put in to accomplish this. I am guessing that it would be somewhere in the code that sends an acknowledgement email to the submitting author.

Thanks. I will look forward to your response.

Rick

[jmacgreg]

Hi Rick,

Submission notifications can be set up from Scheduled Conference Setup Step 2.1 (Submission Notification). However, you can only specify that emails go to the Primary Contact and/or one other specified email address; either contact can at that point forward the email to the correct contact. Starting in OCS 2.3, Directors and Track Directors (& everyone else, actually) will be able to manage their notifications, including enabling email- or rss-based notifications of new submissions; IIRC, this will be filtered by track. You can see the full report for this new functionality here: http://pkp.sfu.ca/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3922.

Cheers,
James

[RickMath]

James

Thanks for your reply. I have the checkbox set in Step 2.1 to notify me as the primary contact. So far with one test from me as the author I do not get notified of the submission. Should I also include my email in the other person to notify area?

As always we all find features that we would like and suggest. So far I am pleased with OCS. Just want to make suggestions for other that they may need.

Once again I commend all of you on the great job!!!!!

Rick

[jmacgreg]

Hi Rick,

We're always happy to hear suggestions! That's one of many ways the software grows.

Regarding your current issue: are you receiving any emails at all from the system? If you aren't, there might be something wrong with your email system. But if you are, I would double-check that you have entered the email address correctly in the Primary Contact setup option; and possibly try adding another email address (or even the same one) as the other email contact.

Cheers,
James

[RickMath]

James

Thanks for the reply.

First, using a test paper and the primary contact email, I did not get a confirmation copy. I added myself as an additional contact and when a real paper was submitted yesterday, I received a copy of the confirmation email. Both email addresses are the same.

Now on to some questions.

It looks like in the file PresenterSubmitForm.inc.php there is a function called confirmSubmission. Is it here that the the email is generated to the submiting person?

There also is a function that seems to assign the paper to a Track Director below the above. So system seems to know the Track for the submission. Would this be the script where the Track Director email could be generated?

Also in this script, there appears to be a loop through the Track Directors. I am not sure what is going on there. Does the system pick up the correct track for the submission here? Three appears to be no action as a result of the loop.

It seems that some additions in this script might allow us to acheive the objective of notifying the Track Director.

Maybe I am off on the wrong area. I seems that this is where some changes can be implemented.

Please give me your thoughts. As always thanks and kudos to the support team.

Rick

[jmacgreg]

Hi Rick,

Which version of OCS are you using, again? If it's an older version, you might be encountering Bug 2967 (http://pkp.sfu.ca/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=2967). Otherwise, you might find a hint as to what's going on in your mail log -- let us know if there's anything in there.

I'll pass on your other queries to a developer.

Cheers,
James

[RickMath]

Thanks James.

I am running 2.1.2

The email log in the history of the paper shows an email sent to me. Only one which is strange as I checked both boxes and used the same address. I did however receive one.

None were sent to the track director.

Let me know if I need to test anything else. It seems that in the file that is mentioned in my last post that the system should know the track that the paper was submitted to. Therefore it seems that identifying the track director could flow from this to generate an email.

As always I appreciate your help.

Rick

[asmecher]

Hi Rick,

The submission confirmation email should be addressed to the author, and BCC'd (optionally, as defined in setup step 2) to the primary contact and/or the additional contact. The message should also be BCC'd to any track directors configured for automatic assignment to that track (see the track settings). Is this happening? I'd suggest trying a test submission, watching your mailbox, and checking the email log. You may find that your mail server strips out duplicate addresses, so if you have the same address e.g. for the primary contact as for a track director, you'll only receive one message.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[RickMath]

Alec

Thanks. Here is what I tried.

Created a test account and assigned a track to that account. This had another email address that I have so no duplication much like a different address for a track director.
Removed myself from that track as a director.
Submitted a test paper to the track from my author account.

In setup step 2, I unchecked the other contact box, left the address box blank and left the primary contact box checked.

I received an email as the primary contact from myself since I am both (author and primary contact). So that worked.

I checked the email log as the track director and that email was listed.

The track director (remember this is a totally separate email and system) account did not receive an email nor was it listed in the log for the paper.

Let me know if I need to try something else, but it appears that the system is not sending a copy to the track director.

Thanks for you help. If we can get this working it will make life easier for me and the track directors. We have 80 to 100 submissions per year so this is important for me to not have to check every day several times to let track directors know that they have papers waiting. There still seems to be something missing in the PresenterSubmitForm.inc.php file. I am not a php programmer but wish I was.

OJS and OCS are wonderful systems and serving us well so far. Thanks to the PKP for all this.

Rick

[asmecher]

Hi Rick,

Got it -- see http://pkp.sfu.ca/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4694 for a Bugzilla entry including a patch to fix.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[RickMath]

Alec

Thanks for the quick reply and the patch. Sorry to be a newbie to php, but how do I apply the patch. I assume that the --- lines are to be deleted and the +++ lines added. Can I do it manually by just commenting out the old lines and adding the new ones.

Looks like this code might address the problem.

As always great work!!!!

Rick

[asmecher]

Hi Rick,

Googling can turn up a lot of info on the patch format -- but basically, lines beginning with "+" are additions and lines beginning with "-" are removals. Lines beginning with "+++", "---", or "@@" are other instructions to the patch tool.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[RickMath]

Alec

I had to make the changes by hand as we could not figure out how to do it automatically.

There seems to be a problem in the submit form 2 file. Here is what we get when trying to submit.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/marketrm/public_html/ocs/classes/presenter/form/submit/PresenterSubmitStep2Form.inc.php on line 220

Everything was pasted is as in the bugzilla fix but there seems to be something missing.

Here is the set of lines that seem to be causing the problem.

@@ -205,13 +205,13 @@
$paper->setDateSubmitted(Core::getCurrentDate());
$paper->stampStatusModified();
$paper->setCurrentStage(REVIEW_STAGE_ABSTRACT);
- $trackDirectors = $this->assignDirectors($paper);
+ $this->assignDirectors($paper);

[RickMath]

The problem is solved. Yours truly caused it by leaving out a // to comment out a line. Reminds me of my early fortran programming days when I'd put in a O rather than 0 and took forever to find it.


I am happy to report that the patch works fine. It is accomplishing what I needed. A nice enhancement for future versions might be to have an email to the submitter from the track director. For now though this will do just fine.

I keep saying it over and over but I believe it more and more. You people at the PKP support groups are GREAT!!!!!!!

Thanks

Rick