December 2025 Product Update: Automated Certificates, Improved Review Management, and More

Introduction

We have shipped a series of updates focused on making conference organization simpler and more reliable.

These improvements target peer review workflows, clearer communication to presenters and participants, and a smoother schedule and website experience. Below is a detailed look at what’s new and what it enables.

Generate certificates from registrations and submissions

Generate certificates directly in Fourwaves. Certificates can be generated from the Registrations table (one attendance certificate per registrant) and from the Submissions table (one presentation certificate per presenter, with fallback to the submitter).

You can design reusable templates using a built in editor (US Letter portrait or landscape) with text alignment, up to two logos, up to two signatures (with signature font and label), and rich text with variable insertion.

Benefit: This saves time and reduces errors by letting you generate, validate, and distribute consistent certificates without external tools.

What you can do

• Generate attendance certificates from the Registrations table
• Generate presentation certificates from the Submissions table, one per presenter (fallback to submitter). That means you can have multiple certificates generated from the same submission if there are more than one presenter on the submission.
• Reuse saved templates (one for registrations and one for submissions)

Template editor and preview

• Design templates in US Letter format, portrait or landscape
• Add aligned text, up to two logos, and up to two signatures with labels
• Insert variables (including form fields and submission title) in rich text

Preview, validation and distribution

• Use preview mode to browse or search certificates and filter to only those with issues
• Get warnings for missing variable values or content overflowing certificate boundaries
• Distribute by email (custom subject and message) or download PDFs (one per certificate) as a ZIP sent by email

Certificates are available from the Advanced plan.

Thinking about your next event?

Let’s chat to see how these updates could work for your conference.

Pick a time

Important change to access live streaming links from the schedule

Previously, when the schedule was publicly visible, anyone could click the "Join" button to access the live stream links (Zoom, Teams, YouTube Live, etc.).

From now on, the button will still be visible, but will require users to log in to their Fourwaves account and be registered for the event.

This allows you to publish your schedule while maintaining control over who can access the live stream links.

Pair reviewers to submissions by tracks of expertise

Automated reviewer assignment now includes a Tracks matching mode setting. 

Benefit: This gives organizers and track chairs predictable control over track based matching, reducing manual reassignment and cleanup.

You can choose between three behaviors:

• Force track match: assign reviewers only within their assigned track(s), preventing cross track assignments
• Try to match: prioritize track matches, then relax constraints as needed to satisfy reviewer counts or workload limits
• Ignore track matching: allow assignments regardless of track while still using automated assignment

Clear descriptions appear in the UI to explain each mode. If Tracks are not included in the current plan, a contextual message is shown.

Clearer warnings during reviewer assignment

Reviewer assignment now provides more verbose warnings to indicate whether the assignment goal was met and, when it wasn’t, the reasons why. This applies to manual assignment as well as automated or random distribution.

Benefit: Organizers get clearer, actionable feedback about what happened during assignment, reducing repeated attempts and uncertainty.

What it does

• Warnings indicate whether the assignment goal was met
• When the goal is not met, warnings provide reasons why

Set a maximum workload for reviewers

You can now set a maximum number of submissions a reviewer can be assigned to across the whole event. The workload setting counts the total reviews assigned for the event, including previous assignment rounds.

Benefit: This helps ensure a fair distribution of review work and prevents accidental over assignment across multiple review rounds.

New column: number of assigned reviews per submission

The submissions table now includes a dedicated column showing how many reviews have been assigned to each submission. You can sort submissions using this column.

Benefit: You can confirm assignment progress at a glance, which is especially useful when doing multiple rounds of manual assignments.

Multi select for the reviewers filter

The reviews filters now let organizers select multiple reviewers at once. This is a change from a single choice dropdown to a multi select.

Benefit: You can more quickly focus on the reviews from two or more specific reviewers, making the review process more efficient.

Download sessions to your calendar (Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft 365, .ics)

Participants can now download a schedule item to their personal calendar. A download button lets you add a session to Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft 365, or download an ICS file.

Benefit: Participants can keep event sessions alongside personal commitments, reducing the risk of missing sessions.

What you can do

• Add a session to Google Calendar from the schedule
• Add a session to Outlook or Microsoft 365, or download an ICS file

New email variable: presentation time(s)

You can now insert an email variable that lists the presentation times for a submission. The variable outputs the date, time, time zone, and room name, and it supports multiple presentation times for the same submission.

Benefit: You can share accurate presentation timing details with presenters faster, reducing confusion.

What’s included

• Insert a variable in emails to list a submission’s presentation time(s)
• Variable includes date, time, time zone, and room name
• Supports multiple presentation times for the same submission

New "Sessions" column in the submissions data

The submissions data table now displays a "Sessions" column that shows which sessions are associated with each submission. You can filter and export the data to Excel.

Benefit: This improves reporting by letting you see session associations without opening each submission.

Event assistant is more integrated and runs after publishing

We updated the event dashboard overview layout so the Fourwaves assistant feels like part of the dashboard. The assistant now runs automatically after you publish your event, and we send an email summarizing what it identified.

Benefit: Organizers can identify what to edit earlier, helping optimize event setup and reduce avoidable support requests.

What’s new

• Assistant is presented as part of the event dashboard overview, not as a separate element
• Assistant runs automatically once an event is published
• Email sent after publishing with a summary of what the assistant identified

Warning when a form section is empty (hidden)

Fourwaves now warns organizers when a form section is empty. This addresses cases where a section title and description would not display on the event website because there are no fields inside the section.

Benefit: This reduces confusion and helps organizers ensure their instructional text appears as intended.

Clearer form action button: Save becomes "Submit" or "Register"

We updated the wording of the main action button on new forms from "Save" to "Submit" or "Register".

Benefit: Participants get a clearer indication that clicking the button completes the submission or registration, reducing confusion and support requests.

Hide slides, posters, videos, and figures on presentation pages

Organizers can now control whether materials collected through the submission form are visible on the presentation page.

Benefit: This gives organizers direct control over what participants can see on presentation pages, including the ability to hide slides after collection.

This update affects the following types of submission files:

• Slides (Powerpoint)
• Posters
• Videos
• Figures

Accessibility notice for primary color selection

Fourwaves now shows an accessibility notice when the selected primary color does not pass a defined accessibility threshold.

Benefit: This helps you avoid button colors that may be inaccessible for some participants.

Conclusion

These updates improve day to day conference operations: faster filtering and clearer feedback in peer review, better control of what appears on presentation pages, clearer forms and emails, and a smoother participant schedule experience. We also introduced a full certificate workflow to save organizers time and reduce errors. If you have questions about any of these changes, contact us, and stay tuned for the next round of Fourwaves updates.