The conference website is based around a database table of Events. An event usually has a time and a location at the conference, although virtual events may only have a webpage and may be accessible on demand throughout the conference. One of the key elements of the conferences described on this wiki is that they are often of significant scale. To handle these large scale conferences the website supports automation of importing events. The key event automation is via importing directly from OpenReview or CMT. However sometimes importing from CMT or OpenReview may not be feasible for a variety of reasons. Note that events may also be edited individually using the Organizer Admin Pages or by an administrator using the Admin -> Events editor.
This page discusses the details of spreadsheets for importing into a workshop or into a main conference event.
¶ Importing Users for a Workshop or Main Conference
An empty Excel spreadsheet for Users is example-user-import.xlsx. Other formats supported are csv, tsv, ods, json, and more (ask the conference staff about your specific need).
Any speaker or author for an event must have an account created on the conference website. The connection between a users account and any of their events is important for the speaker/author for a variety of reasons including" the spelling of their name, their institution, their visa application, and a history on the website of their contributions. Organizers can ensure that speakers or authors have an account by importing a spreadsheet of basic information for an account. This basic information is the user's first name (given name), last name (family name), and their email address.
If you are a workshop organizer you may import a list of users by visiting the Organizer Admin Pages, selecting the "Workshop Related Users" change list page and then clicking on the Import button in the upper right corner of the change list page.
If you are on the organizing committee you may provide the spreadsheet above to one of the admins in the conference staff for importing into the website.
An empty Excel spreadsheet for Workshop Events is example-workshop-events-import.xlsx. Other formats supported are csv, tsv, ods, json, and more (ask the conference staff about your specific need).
The columns in the spreadsheet are as follows.
- id: this column is the database id for the conference website. For creating new events leave this value blank. After you've created events you may export them to get the id values for the events and then re-import the spreadsheet with updates to other fields.
- name:(required) this column is the name of an event. For a poster event it may be the name of the paper.
- event_type:(required) this column identifies the type of the event. Most any string is allowed but there are special features on the website for event_type of "Poster". Possible event_types might be "Oral", "Poster", "Poster Session", "Invited Speaker", etc.
- starttime:(optional) this is the start time of the event. It must be a time within the bounds of your workshop. If you leave this blank then the event will be shown at the bottom of the workshop schedule page.
- endtime:(optional) this is the end time of the event. It must be a time within the bounds of your workshop. If you specify a starttime you should also specify an endtime.
- speaker_by_emails: (optional) this is a comma separated list of email addresses for conference accounts in the order they are to be presented on the webste. All emails must be an account on the conference website. See the section above for importing a list of user accounts.
- presentation_style_name: (optional) this is the presentation style name. To see the list of possible values go to the Organizer Admin Pages and click add a Workshop Event. The Workshop Event Add page includes a dropdown of valid values for presentation_style_name.
- sortkey:(optional) this specifies a minor sortkey for how events are sorted on the workshop schedule page. Workshop events are always sorted first by the starttime and then they are sorted by the sortkey. This can be used to define an ordering for events which have no starttime.
- visible:(optional) indicate whether an event is visible on the website or not.
- abstract:(optional) an abstract for the event
To import a set of workshop events into the website go to the Organizer Admin Pages, select Workshop Events to get to the Workshop Events change list page, and then click Import in the upper right of the change list page.
¶ Export, Update and Re-Import a Spreadsheet
You may also export events from the Workshop Events change list page, make updates to the values in the exported spreadsheet, and then re-import the spreadsheet to update the values on the conference website.
¶ Importing Events for the Main Conference
In some circumstances an organizing committee member may need to provide event data in a spreadsheet for the conference staff to update the website. When this is necessary work with the conference staff to specify exactly the details for what information is needed.
There are many possible needs for importing events, here is a spreadsheet format for importing basic event data. Two spreadsheets may be needed if speakers/authors/organizers are included in the import; one spreadsheet with all speakers/authors/organizers, and another spreadsheet for the events themselves. See the section above titled "Importing Users for a Workshop or Main Conference" for the speakers/authors/organizers spreadsheet.
An example spreadsheet for creating simple events is example-simple-event-import.xlsx.
The columns in this spreadsheet are as follows. Note that some columns may be filled in by the conference staff but having them in the spreadsheet allows for easily sharing the spreadsheet between the staff and the organizing committees reducing the chance of errors.
- id:(blank initially, required for updates) this field is the website's database id for this event. When this field is blank a new event is created. To update an existing event this field must contain the database id. In order to get the database id after an event has been created the conference staff can do an export from the database for an updated spreadsheet.
- name:(required) this is the title of the event as it will appear on the website
- abstract:(optional) this is an abstract for the event for extra information for attendees on the website
- type:(requried) this is the type of the event. The event types are constrained on the website and different types can have different behaviours on the website. Valid types can be found on the import info page described below. If you are unsure check with the conference staff.
- sortkey:(optional) this can be used to specify an order for events which occur at the same start time. It is a numeric value.
- show_in_schedule_overview:(optional) if this is set to True or 1 then this event will be shown on the schedule page for the conference website.
- starttime:(optional) this is the starting time for the event. Events without a starttime will not be displayed on the schedule page. Multiple formats are allowed but recommended to use YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm and use a 24 hour value for hh.
- endtime:(optional) this is the ending time for an event. If an event has a start time then it should also have an end time. Multiple formats are allowed but recommended to use YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm and use a 24 hour value for hh.
- speaker_by_emails:(required) this is a comma separated list of email addresses for conference accounts in the order they are to be presented on the website. This may be speakers or organizers or authors depending on the type of event. All emails must be an account on the conference website. See the section above for importing a list of user accounts.
- session_location:(optional) if a room name is specified then a session_location must be specified as well. Valid session locations can be found on the import info page described below or may be filled in by the conference staff.
- room_name:(optional) this is the room name for the event. The room name must match a name in the website database for the session location. Valid room names can be found on the import-info page described below or may be filled in by the conference staff.
- conference_session:(required) all events have a conference session which ultimately indicates the conference year. Valid conference sessions can be found on the import info page described below or may be filled in by the conference staff.
Once you have both the user account spreadsheet and an events spreadsheet these can be given to the conference staff for importing into the website.
To include TMLR (Transactions on Machine Learning Research) two spreadsheets need to be provided. One spreadsheet is a list of all authors on each of the TMLR papers to be included in the conference. The second spreadsheet is a list of the poster events to be created for each TMLR paper included in the conference. For the first spreadsheet see the section above titled "Importing Users for a Workshop or Main Conference".
An example spreadsheet for creating TMLR poster events is example-tmlr-events-import.xlsx.
The columns in this spreadsheet are as follows. Note that some columns may be filled in by the conference staff but having them in the spreadsheet allows for easily sharing the spreadsheet between the staff and the organizing committees reducing the chance of errors.
- sourceurl:(required) for TMLR papers the value in this column should be "https://openreview.net/group?id=TMLR" for every paper. Note this column and the sourceid value should make a unique tuple for the conference
- sourceid:(required) this value is the OpenReview paper number of the TMLR paper
- name:(required) this is the title of the paper
- abstract:(optional) this is the abstract for the paper
- type:(required) this value should be "Poster" for all poster events. If the paper also has an oral event then the spreadsheet should have two rows for the paper. One where the type is "Poster" and the sourceid is as described above, another line where the type is "Oral" and the sourceid is the negative value of the Poster's sourceid.
- decision:(optional) this is the decision for the paper, may simply be "Accepted (poster)" for all rows.
- speaker_by_emails:(required) this is a comma separated list of email addresses for conference accounts in the order they are to be presented on the website. For TMLR papers these are the list of authors for the paper. All emails must be an account on the conference website. See the section above for importing a list of user accounts.
- conference_session:(required) this value indicates the main conference year and session for the event. The conference staff will fill in this value.
- url:(optional) this is the OpenReview url for the TMLR paper.
Once you have both the user account spreadsheet and the TMLR paper spreadsheet these can be given to the conference staff for importing into the website.
Some information in spreadsheets must conform to details set up in the conference database and software and may vary from year to year and per each venue. A special page has been created to show this basic information for the conference. This page is called the Import Info page and can be found at:
This page includes information on conference sessions, locations, rooms, and event types.