EuroPython Conference Software Requirements

This page is derived from ["PyConPlanning/SoftwareRequirements"] but focuses on things that have proven more relevant to EuroPython. The requirements here do not directly address general conference Web site issues, such as http://www.europython.org/ which focuses on the publishing of general information about the conference.

Existing Software

There are a few solutions people are using for conference management, including the following:

• [http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] - used for EuroPython 2006 and 2007

• [http://www.zookeepr.org/ Zookeepr] - developed for linux.conf.au

• The PyCon submissions system - developed for PyCon and being developed further for PyCon UK

Essentials

These are things which have been central to the organisation of EuroPython and which have already been managed using conference software:

• Account management
• Registration
• Paper/talk submissions
• Scheduling

Extras

These are things which could have been managed using conference software or which could have been made easier using such software:

• Feedback
• Sponsor management

Luxuries

These are things which people seem to find interesting but which haven't been the focus of the EuroPython organisers:

• Mapping of attendee locations

Account Management

It is not generally a good idea to allow unauthenticated users to register for a conference - this tends to attract speculative registrations from people who seem not to be serious about attending. However, a few use-cases need to be supported for people logging in to...

• Register themselves
• Register other people
• Submit/edit/withdraw materials created by themselves or collaborators
• Review paper/talk submissions
• Manage aspects of the conference

One limitation of the Indico instance hosted at CERN was the insistence that registrants must have their own account. Creative workarounds include using distinct e-mail aliases belonging to one person.

Registration

This combines some of the PyCon requirements for "users" with more general requirements:

• Support the following information:
  • Name
  • E-mail address
  • Registrant status: participant, speaker, volunteer, session chair
  • Registrant class: student, normal
  • Payment class: paid, unpaid

  • Geographic information (this is more relevant for EuroPython given the number of countries involved)

  • Organisation
  • Other contact details
  • Privacy preferences (would (not) like name published in delegate listing, would (not) like e-mail notifications)
  • T-shirt size (if appropriate)
  • Food preferences (if any)
• Export/reports of registrant information
• Badges must be able to show name, class/status, organisation, origin and must obviously be exportable (as PDF, for example)
• Payment:
  • Support e-payment and later payment (bank transfer being the norm in Europe)
  • Support non-paying registrants (guests, invitees)
  • Must support different prices for students, non-students (and other classes of registrant)
• Keeps or can generate the total revenue for the conference
• Support tutorial registration and extra events
• Support capacity limits for tutorials and extra events
• Optional donations and/or extra items
• Support editing and cancellation of registrations by both users (for their own registrations) and by administrators

Paper/Talk Submissions

See "Account Management" for some relevant criteria.

• Reviewers can look at other people's proposals
• Organisers can mark proposals as 'accepted' or 'declined', and can set a scheduled time/location
• Proposals have: title, summary/abstract, description, category, length (30/45 min), difficulty level (beginner/intermediate/advanced), a list of 3 assigned reviewers, an accepted boolean, a list of reviewer comments, and a list of uploaded documents

• A mechanism must exist for reviewers to choose or be assigned submissions; PyCon requirements involve assigning 3 reviewers at random (excluding the author)

• Reviewer voting or the mechanisms to form a consensus
• Exports/reports showing the status of submissions and their scores
• Reviewers and users can comment, but some reviewer comments can be withheld from the user until a decision is made
• Notifications via e-mail about comments and decisions
• Export conference materials for proceedings

Scheduling

• Produce online schedules with talk information, track/theme membership for each room
• Produce printable schedules for the entire conference, and for individual rooms for a given day
• Track session chairs for each session
• It can be nice to be able to edit the schedule interactively
• Room management: desirable to be able to switch or rename rooms globally

Sponsors

• Sponsors can fill in a form with contact information that gets stored in a list and also e-mailed to the sponsorship coordinator
• Support the following information:
  • Contact information
  • Sponsorship level (platinum/gold/silver)
  • Invoice number
  • Paid (Y/N)
  • Web graphic, banner provided (Y/N)
  • Banner received (Y/N)
  • Comments on where the banner should be displayed

Feedback

• Forms for the entire conference, and for specific talks and tutorials (but not sprints since they're separate things)
• Report: feedback summary for the conference, summaries for individual talks
• E-mail authors with the results from their talk's feedback

Experiences with Indico

[http://cdsware.cern.ch/indico/ Indico] has been used to manage EuroPython 2007. Here's how it fares in the above criteria:

1. An "invitation code" feature would let people register without manual validation of non-paying registrants afterwards. Generally, some kind of validation mechanism would be required, anyway.
2. Add chargeable items to the form for extra events and items.