July 8, 2026
- PlatformFeature
Direct messaging is now available from the event website, user dashboard and event dashboard.
The Fourwaves changelog lists every release to our event management platform for scientific and academic conferences: new features, improvements, and bug fixes across registration, abstract management, peer review, conference programs, and virtual poster sessions. Entries are posted as releases ship.
Direct messaging is now available from the event website, user dashboard and event dashboard.
Fixed the session list not appearing on the presentation page for events that have no rooms.
Large live sessions now stay responsive during bursts of participants joining and leaving.
Event pages with limited-quantity options now load and submit faster.
The participant and submission lists now load faster on large events.
Fixed the emoji reaction picker being cut off on narrow screens when reacting to a direct message.
Conflict detection in the submissions dashboard is now dramatically faster on large events.
Direct messaging has been redesigned with a cleaner, more consistent look.
Fixed an error that could occur when processing PayPal payments with pending captures, such as cross-border payments awaiting acceptance.
Fixed an issue where completing a payment could fail for registrations with a very large number of paid items.
The application code and servers have been updated to the latest version.
Our team has commissioned an external security audit. We are pleased to release a number of enhancements to improve the safety of our users.
The pre-call check now warns participants when their network is blocking video calls.
Live video calls now show a “Reconnecting” banner when the connection drops.
Live video conferencing infrastructure migrated to a new provider for improved reliability.
Organization-wide transaction search now returns results almost instantly.
Fixed submission authors being deleted when editing a submission while the Authors field was hidden.
Minor wording and capitalization fixes across the platform.
Overlay elements are now announced by screen readers.
The slides viewer can now handle files of up to 100 MB.
Border colors have been updated for better contrast.
Event logos are now available on all plans.
Fixed cloning of large events failing after 30 seconds.
Online user status indicators have been added back to the virtual platform.
Passwords now require 12 characters.
Performance improvements have been implemented.
Organizers can now customize the branding of their event emails.
Organizations can now delegate a payment gateway to another organization.
A success toast now confirms when page content has been saved.
The Event Assistant has been upgraded. It is now more useful than ever.
The sidebar navigation has been reorganized.
The new website builder shell makes it easier for users to manage website content.
A new side panel makes it easier to manage pages and control their visibility.
The schedule editor has moved to a dedicated “Program” section.
The website builder experience has been revamped.
Date carousels in the schedule and agenda have been revamped.
Updating sessions with multiple presentations is now significantly faster.
PayPal payment gateways now support 13 currencies.
The organization-level transactions export now includes a second sheet with payment gateway request form data so finance can reconcile transactions.
Name badges now display the short label of field choices.
Email communications now display the short label of field choices.
Certificates now display the short label of field choices.
A clearer message is displayed when a recipient has been suppressed due to repeated email bounces.
When setting up a payment gateway for an event, administrators must now complete the request form.
The transaction data table in the Organization dashboard now includes a new column labelled “Organization”.
The country field is now labeled “Country / Region”.
Session descriptions can now contain up to 6,500 characters.
Refund confirmation emails are now sent in the user’s stored language.
Fixed a blank trailing page that appeared on some printed invoice PDFs.
Improved the keyboard navigation experience.
Multiple sessions on the same account can now remain signed in independently.
Refunds can now be applied to an item rather than proportionally across the entire transaction.
Session titles now support up to 250 characters.
Invoice PDFs are now generated in the correct language for all users.
Organizers can now design, preview, and print professional name badges with custom layouts, logos and QR codes.
The schedule and agenda views now share a unified layout with time dividers.
The authentication process has been improved to make it even more secure.
For a clearer browsing experience, the schedule page now defaults to list view.
Users can now build a personal agenda by adding sessions and presentations.
Refund receipts now display negative tax amounts.
Organizers can now apply a 5% VAT tax rule to registration fees.
New public API endpoint for listing event submissions.
New public API endpoint for listing event sessions.
The session details panel no longer blocks interaction with the schedule grid while open.
Improved AI prompts for the sanity check to reduce false positives.
Users now receive a clearer error message when their card type is not accepted by Worldline.
Track field options are now ordered in the same way as in the track data table.
Track field options now appear in the same order as the tracks list.
The coupon code eligible items selector now uses a combobox for easier selection.
Users can now preview session details and presentations in a side panel without leaving the page.
English text now uses sentence case for improved readability.
Application code has been updated to the latest version.
Attendees can now filter sessions by room on the schedule page.
The “Gateway Code” label has been renamed to “Sharing Code” for clarity.
Revamped author affiliation management in the submission flow.
Coupon codes can now be configured to apply only to specific options.
New public API endpoints for retrieving form fields and form field options.
The transaction fee terminology has been replaced with service fee for clarity.
Payment instructions are now mandatory when invoicing is enabled.
New public API endpoints are now available for retrieving registrations, forms and form sections.
Fixed an issue where PowerPoint files were not loading correctly.
The poster viewer is now more accessible to screen readers.
It is now easier to configure the size of the logos.
The quality of the results from scans has improved.
Fixed certificates incorrectly showing “unsaved changes” warning when closing.
The session details page has been revamped.
The session list has been revamped.
The comments section has been revamped.
The participant list has been revamped.
Users can export individual session presentation data as calendar events in the following formats: .ics files, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook/Microsoft 365.
The presentation scheduling details have been revamped.
The coupon code field will be hidden if no codes have been configured.
The “Show button” toggle has been moved to the toolbar for easier access.
Improved filter interface on presentations and participants pages.
Standardized French terminology - “certificats” → “attestations”.
Fourwaves now has Worldline (Bambora) support for payment processing.
The Event Assistant has been upgraded. It is now more useful than ever.
SSO detection on the login page is more reliable.
SAML2 is now a supported authentication protocol.
Added support for Shibboleth SSO claims.
Stripe must now be connected through the Organization Dashboard.
Organizers can select a default currency when connecting a payment gateway.
Multiple accessibility improvements have been made, most notably to the forms.
Our email provider has been changed to align with data residency requirements.
“Profit” renamed to “Revenue” in transaction reports and dashboards.
Multiple accessibility improvements have been made.
The presentation page have been revamped.
Application code, caches and databases updated to latest version.
The search by author names is now faster and case insensitive.
The rules protecting assets submitted by participants (posters, figures, file uploads, etc.) have been tightened.
Implements a modal-based access control system for livestream session buttons.
The presentation list visuals have been slightly updated.
Users can export session data as calendar events in the following formats: .ics files, Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook/Microsoft 365.
The Submissions tab is now the default view.
Multiple updates were made to simplify the editing process for submitters.
Added a sessions column to the data table.
Added a column showing the number of assigned reviews per submission.
Slides, posters, videos and figure data can be hidden.
Multiple updates were made to simplify the editing process for participants.
Added an “Access your account” button to help users easily return to their account.
Added a “Manage your Registration/Submission” block to emails for easier form access.
Added a new “Presentation time” variable for use in email templates.
Renamed the user profile email variable for improved clarity.
The Event Overview has been revamped for better usability.
The Event Assistant will automatically run a scan when an event is published.
Added an accessibility notice for primary color contrast compliance.
Added a toggle to control image size in gallery blocks.
Added a yellow notice when form sections are empty to prevent confusion.
Optimizations were made so that images load more quickly.
Optimisations were made to improve the indexing of content by search engines and LLMs.
We have completed a major under-the-hood migration introducing enhanced performance and a more secure experience.
Certificates are now generally available. Read more.
Visual feedback is provided for validation in the preview.
Organizers can pair reviewers to submissions by tracks.
Organizers now receive clear warnings when reviewer assignments are blocked or incomplete.
Organizers can now limit the maximum number of reviews assigned to each reviewer.
Organizers can email certificates to users.
Variables in the text editor can no longer be broken by style or typos.
Automatically trim whitespace from logos to improve visual presentation.
Prevent data loss when closing the modal with unsaved changes.
Organizers can preview certificates before they are generated.
Templates are copied and adapted when an event is cloned.
The author index submission numbers in the abstract booklet are now sorted.
Optimizations make the platform load even faster on subsequent visits.
Templates are validated against user data to identify issues before generation.
Organizers can configure tracks.
Organizers can assign tracks to track chairs.
Organizers can assign tracks to sessions.
Organizers can assign tracks to reviewers.
Organizers can add a ‘Tracks’ field to the submission form.
Certificates are now in beta.
The Reviewing Committee table displays the number of reviews completed by each reviewer.
The Reviewing Committee table displays a new “No assignments” status.
The Reviewing Committee page has been revamped. It shows the number of assigned reviews for each reviewer as well as their reviewing status.
The table shows the number of assigned / completed reviews.
The text in the ‘Assign Reviewers’ modal has been clarified.
The “Committee” page has been given a new look and new features.
The “Manage Pages” modal has been revamped.
The “Users” page has been given a new look and new features.
Transaction references (ID - Payment) will match exported files from PayPal.
The AI-generated event website is now more beautiful than ever.
Added configuration options for the 15% HST in Canada tax rule.
‘File upload’ fields can be added to the payment gateway connection request form.
The tool is now out of beta.
Organizers can pass Fourwaves fees to participants.
We have completed a major under-the-hood migration introducing enhanced performance and a smoother experience to the User Dashboard, Organizer Dashboard and Event Dashboard.
Page headers have been revamped.
The breadcrumb on the submission and registration forms have been revamped.
Multiple accessibility improvements have been made.
Our team has commissioned a cloud software partner to scan our production workloads in real time on an ongoing basis. We are pleased to be able to improve the safety of our users.
Navigation and header are included in the preview.
New header layouts have been added.
Navigation has been revamped to improve the user experience.
Footer has been revamped to improve the user experience.
Dark mode configuration has been removed.
Banner configuration has been removed.
Special 25% VAT tax rules with Danemark-specific logic have been added.
Tracks have been converted to tags which do not have colors.
Filters have been streamlined to behave like those on the other pages.
‘Reviewer Dashboard link’ variable added to the Send Email modal.
Organizers can edit checkbox form data in bulk.
Organizers can edit checkbox form data in bulk.
A new banner content block has been added.
A new multi-column content block has been added.
A new video block has been added.
Organisers can select which columns are visible in the data tables.
Network latencies have little effect on functionalities.
A new multi-row content block has been added.
Image loading has been optimized.
Added configuration options for the 14% HST tax rule.
The tax rate for Nova Scotia has been updated to 14%.
When a new choice is created, the short label is automatically populated.
The Clone Event modal no longer asks for an organization.
European VAT numbers are validated in real time against the VIES database.
Organizers can select the currency during the TouchNet gateway configuration.
Special 21% VAT tax rules with Spain-specific logic have been added.
Figures can be exported as part of the abstract booklet. Read here.
The content of the abstract booklet is more compact.
Introducing the AI-powered Fourwaves Assistant. Read here.
The Speakers block now supports three different layouts.
Fourwaves now supports the Australia/Hobart time zone.
A brand new page builder experience has been released. Read here.
When a new field is created, the short label is automatically populated.
The Unsaved Changes modal is now less prone to user errors.
Fourwaves now supports the Atlantic/Reykjavik time zone.
Organizers can export invoices in bulk.
File upload instructions and error messages have been made clearer.
The abstract booklet now concludes with an index of authors.
Organizers can edit form data and the ‘Public Profile’ configuration in bulk.
Organizers can edit form data and the ‘Public’ configuration in bulk.
The ‘ID’ has been renamed ‘Number’ and allows alphanumeric characters.
The Word export is more compact.
The PDF export is more compact.
Organizers can choose the Chinese Yuan as the payment currency.
The field reordering is now smoother than ever.
Users can search by first and last name, affiliation, and bio.
Badges can now include Country List fields.
Selecting the “Full Name” column will sort the list by last name instead of first name.
Organizers can filter registrations by uploaded files and country lists.
Organizers can filter submissions by uploaded files, country lists and last modified date.
Organizers can filter transactions by payment methods, status, transaction types and coupon codes.
Organizers can filter reviews by reviewer names, review data and last modified date.
Organizers can filter communications by sent date and status.
Data table filters are now easier to use.
Fourwaves now supports the South African Standard Time time zone.
Added a “Registration status” column to the “Authors” export sheet.
A nice speed boost has been applied to all sections related to submissions, registrations and reviews.
Emails confirming acceptance to the registrant list will be sent as expected.
Split shared Canada/US time zones into distinct Canada and US versions for Mountain, Pacific, Central, and Eastern.
The delete buttons have been visually streamlined in the user interface.
Add support for searching sessions by submission title.
Use “Taiwan” instead of “Taiwan (Province of China)”.
Your plan and features will be tied to your organization. Read here.
Introducing the Event Dashboard, Organizer Dashboard and Participant Dashboard.
Organizers can control access to the Virtual Platform via a toggle.
Date formats updated for French and English specifications.
Organizers can now update the event end date.
Plan details are visible to organisers in the event overview.
Organizers can choose email recipients (submitters, presenters, and/or non-presenting authors).
Data tables can be sorted by any column.
Fouwaves has released a first set of its public API. Read here.
Organizers can choose the South African Rand as the payment currency.
Include the participant’s email address in the Stripe payment descriptions.
Even when the submission limit is reached, the submission button will remain visible on the event website.
The invoice actions are now mobile friendly.
We are discontinuing our integration with Zoom due to reliability issues.
Organizers can search by coupon code.
The “Not registered” flag is also applied to presenters.
Do not assign a submission to a reviewer who is also an author.
Improved search capabilities.
Those presenting will be featured instead of those submitting (Pages.)
Those presenting will be featured instead of those submitting (Export.)
Even when the room is full, presenters can join the video conversation.
Organizers can forward payments to participants.
Animation and page transitions have been revamped for a smoother experience.
Links that point to the same website now open in the same browser tab.
All presenters can use the laser pointer.
The poster board tags have been redesigned to include the list of presenters.
Q&A messages display a tag that reflects the role of the user.
Application code, caches and databases updated to latest version.
Conflict checks are applied to presenters.
When linked to a registration, author names in the author list are now clickable.
The Contact button will send an e-mail to the presenter(s).
Display the Fourwaves statement descriptor when using our PayPal account.
PayPal errors are clearer for participants and organizers.
The Fourwaves statement descriptor won’t be displayed for transactions paid by invoice.
The ‘Last login date’, ‘Account activated’ and ‘Unique presentation views’ columns have been added to the usage data Excel file.
If the user clicks an expired link during account activation, a new link is automatically sent.
Even outside the review period, author names are not visible in the reviewer dashboard.
An organizer can no longer switch off the voting system.
Participants can no longer download presentation/session videos.
Participants can no longer withdraw their registration.
Submitters can no longer withdraw their submissions.
Improved display of transaction credit cards in data tables.
Our data tables will be easier to browse on mobile devices.
Uniform spacing between paragraphs in the rich text editor.
Full page modals have been visually refreshed.
By default, the tab displaying all events is the active tab.
The “Assign Track” button is always displayed.
Introduced an improved sign-in/login process to improve the user experience.
The progress steps have been revamped.
The Name Identifier claim can be used to extract email addresses.
The name of the participant/submitter has been added to the invoice.
The label of the “Name / Company” field has been changed to “Invoice To (Person’s Name and/or Company)”.
Fourwaves now has PayPal support for payment processing.
When exporting, the Presentations sheet will include the room name.
The organisation’s administrators can join a virtual session without having to be registered.
Program Chairs can edit submissions.
Program Chairs can export the schedule.
Our rich text editor has been revamped.
An additional field can be added to the badges.
Invoices has been revamped.
PowerPoint file size limit is now 100Mb instead of 10Mb.
The Excel export includes a new sheet with all scheduled presentations.
Submission files with very long names will be truncated during file export.
Moneris refunds are displayed in the Organizer Panel.
Participants can withdraw their registration.
Organizers can withdraw registrations.
Submitters can withdraw their submission.
Organizers can withdraw submissions.
Fourwaves now supports the Asia/Seoul time zone.
When an organizer cancels a paid option, they can also trigger a refund.
Data is automatically trimmed of leading and trailing whitespace.
Added configuration options for the 15% VAT tax rule.
Presentation times are not accessible to submitters and authors if the “Schedule” page is hidden.
More verbose instructions under file upload inputs.
An organizer can cancel a paid option.
Registrations and submissions are searchable by internal ID and public ID.
The First Name, Last Name, and Company fields have been merged into the Name field in the Billing Address form.
The organization name visible on the event overview page is now clickable.
When the organizers change the time zone, adjust the review period and session presentations.
The bank account connection request modal has been revamped.
When the page is made public, session videos are visible to everyone.
The “Requester Email” column has been added to the bank account connection history data table.
Kosovo has been added to our list of supported countries.
If a virtual poster session has no presentations, a warning message is displayed.
Centralize your event management by linking your events to specific organizations. Want to learn more about this? Read here.
Stripe assets are not loaded until a payment is requested, resulting in improved performance.
For all events that collect payments, a “Name on card” field has been added to the credit card form.
Revamped permissions system. The event organizer role is automatically inherited for all organization administrators.
Fourwaves now supports the Australia/Brisbane time zone.
Organizers can choose the New Zealand Dollar as the payment currency.
A new tax rule has been added (GST 15%).
When a payment is associated with the Fourwaves Europe Stripe account, a special credit card statement is displayed to the user.
To improve the robustness and reliability of the platform, Fourwaves has developed and released a new threat detection technology.
The side navigation of the Organizer Panel and Organization Dashboard has been revamped.
Our date picker now has support for the 12-hour AM/PM format.
New way to add content blocks to pages.
Users are deduplicated if they are associated with multiple roles.
Under certain circumstances, an asterisk appeared off-form.
The Transactions tab displays all transactions associated with the user’s account, even those paid by another user.
Users can clearly see missing answers to required questions in the organizer panel and user dashboard.
Improved visual differentiation of decisions displayed in the submission data table.
A redesigned flow allows organizers to associate a bank account with an event.
Selection is retained after triggering a search in the Assign reviewers and Add to session modals.
Images are no longer accepted by rich text editors.
Track the user who deleted an event.
Organizers can export author information.
The Bank Accounts section has been revamped.
Display time according to user’s locale; 12-hour format for US users and 24-hour format for Europeans.
Add submission title to folder names when exporting submission files.
When a payment is associated with the Fourwaves Canada Stripe account, a special credit card statement is displayed to the user.
The conditional field logic has undergone several fixes.
The “Missing required fields” flag is more robust.
An email is required for each author.
Remove columns where there’s no tax data.
Give Program Chairs the ability to edit the schedule.
The reviewers can be managed on the Configuration -> Reviews page.
Organizers have partial access to the dashboard of the organization they are associated with.
An email is sent when a transaction is refunded.
Decision Types have been renamed to Presentation Types.
Administrators can view the organizers associated with their events.
Administrators can remove an organizer’s access to all the organization’s events.
Events page has been revamped.
Prevent a submission from being assigned to its author.
The maximum size of the logo file has been increased to 10 Mb.
An organizer can resend an email from the communications page.
Fourwaves now has Moneris support for payment processing.
If there are no virtual sessions, the Virtual filter is hidden.
The top and side navigation has been revamped.
A settings page has been added for administrators.
Transactions page has been revamped.
The ‘Missing registration’ flag has been renamed to ‘Not registered’. This flag is applied even if the required registration option is not enabled.
Our team has commissioned an external security audit. We are pleased to release a number of small enhancements to improve the safety of our users.
Administrators configuration page has been revamped.
Organizers can export user-selected data table records to Excel.
Organizers can generate badges for user-selected data table records.
Organizers can generate a booklet for user-selected data table records.
Organizers can generate poster tags for user-selected data table records.
The Treasurer role has been removed.
Organization units has been removed.
Participants can be made private.
Theme & color configuration page has been revamped.
General configuration page has been revamped.
Payments configuration page has been revamped.
The committee configuration page has been revamped.
A loading indicator appears when an action is in progress.
Organizers can export their schedule to Word or PDF.
Organizers can export submission files.
The navigation has been redesigned.
A loading indicator appears when an action is in progress.
Form field actions are now grouped in a drop-down list.
User upload controls have been revamped.
When not active, advanced features are more visible in the interface.
Added configuration options for the 21% VAT tax rule.
Data table action dropdowns have been visually improved.
The page settings have been reorganized with the introduction of tabs.
Warn organizers when they are leaving a page with unsaved changes.
For easier management, organizers now have the ability to delete their events.
Fourwaves now has Global Payments support for payment processing.
Organizers can clone fields as they build their forms.
Fourwaves has an updated logo and a new color palette.
A cookie consent banner is now displayed to all users.
Full-screen modals have been visually enhanced.
User invitation emails will appear on the communications page.
Visual enhancements have been made to enhance the user experience.
Visual enhancements have been made to enhance the user experience.
To help organizers collect location data, the Country List field has been added.
Organizers can add Instructions fields to the review form.
The Submission ID is now visible in the review data table.
Visual enhancements have been made to the way organizers can reorder content.
Visual enhancements have been made to the way organizers can add content.
We’ve improved the appearance of every modal in the application to enhance the user experience.
There have been improvements to the look and feel of data table filters.
Documents containing Korean, Japanese, and Chinese characters display properly.
Emails confirming acceptance to the registrant list will appear on the communications page.
Dates are no longer disabled in the calendar. The field will be validated against its corresponding “To” or “From” field, when applicable, upon closing the date picker.
We’ve received user feedback about email not reaching certain Microsoft Exchange installations. We’ve introduced a fix that should resolve this issue.
Organizers can choose the Ethiopian Birr as the payment currency.
We’ve made significant improvements to our user session handling and login process. Users will now experience less frequent prompts for entering their username/password. These changes have been implemented to provide a more seamless, convenient, and simplified user experience.
The Reviews module settings page is now located under the Configuration menu.
The “VAT number” field will now be displayed in the billing form when a VAT rule applies.
Taxes have been removed from the cart and will only be visible on the billing form.
Event tax numbers will no longer appear next to the amount. Please note that all details will still be displayed on the invoice.
Hide Reviewers’ Names: A toggle in the Organizer panel that hides the names of reviewers from submitters when results are shared.
Three new tax rules have been added. VAT 19% in Europe (27 countries), VAT 0%, and VAT Reverse Charge 0%. The 0% tax rules are special cases that appear in quotes and invoices despite their zero values.
Fields set to “visible” in the Organizer panel are now displayed on the event website participant page.
We’ve removed contextual help from the Organizer panel. We will be rolling out a brand new Help Desk with enhanced capabilities very soon.
We have made significant changes to the user dashboard. The “My events”, “My transactions”, “My registrations”, and “My submissions” sections have been updated to improve navigation and user experience.
We have introduced a brand new section where users can manage and track their reviews.
An organizer can now share review results with authors. This allows for better communication and feedback sharing.
Users now have the ability to view the contents of sent emails, providing better tracking and management of sent communications.
We’ve introduced a new feature that allows email attachments, enhancing the scope of communication.
Users can now apply inline formatting in all RTEs, providing greater flexibility and control over text appearance.
We’ve introduced a user audit feature that tracks and logs user activity when a form is modified, improving accountability and tracking.
The page has been updated for a better user experience.
The page has been updated for a better user experience.
The page has been updated for a better user experience.
Sessions in the Schedule Builder have been redesigned to improve the user’s scheduling experience.
We’ve made some minor cosmetic improvements to the page.
The Fourwaves email footer is removed from emails when the whitelabel feature is enabled.
Our integration with Zoom is back! You can host a meeting or webinar right from within Fourwaves.
Update the logic used to validate the size of the “Figures” field.