Product Update: Draft Submission Forms

Don't Let Great Speakers Slip Away

You know the drill — a potential speaker starts their submission... but life gets busy. They never hit "submit," and your event misses out on their expertise.

That’s changing.

And why we’re excited to introduce Draft Submission Forms: a small change with massive impact for both speakers and organizers.

With Sessionboard’s new Draft Submission Forms feature, your submitters can now:

• Start their submission and come back when they’re ready
• Collaborate with a colleague or assistant
• Get automatic reminders 5 days and 1 day before the deadline
• Avoid the stress of rushing — or forgetting altogether

What We Heard and What We Did 

The Draft Submission Forms feature was built directly in response to feedback from some of our most active customers.

Here’s what we were hearing:

"Our call for content is complex - speakers need time to pull everything together. Right now, if they don't finish in one sitting, we lose them."

→ We built draft-saving to let submitters pause and return when ready.

"We want visibility into who's started a submission but hasn't finished - we need a way to follow up with those people."

→ We added admin-facing draft tracking and automated reminders to boost completion.

"Our team reviews hundreds of submissions. It's hard to plan without knowing how many are in progress."

→ We created a dedicated drafts tab so teams can manage the pipeline more proactively.

This wasn’t a nice-to-have. It was one of our most frequent product requests across a range of events — from enterprise tech conferences to healthcare associations. And now, it's here.

Why It Matters

Your speakers are busy professionals. Giving them the flexibility to save their submission and come back later means they can put forward better content — without racing the clock or losing their work. It’s a win-win for content quality and speaker satisfaction.

What’s New with Draft Submission Forms 

Here’s what you can do with this update:

✅ Save progress anytime: Speakers can start their submission, save it as a draft, and finish later — no more starting from scratch.
✅ Draft visibility for admins: Organizers can now see which submissions are in draft status and who’s actively working on them.
✅ Send smart reminders: Set up automatic emails to nudge draft holders before your CFP closes — improving submission rates with zero manual follow-up.

For Speakers: More Time, Less Stress

With Draft Submission Forms, we’re helping speakers bring their best ideas forward - no rushing, no redoing.

They can chip away at their submission, knowing they can pause and come back whenever they’re ready.

For Organizers: Better Program Management

You’re no longer in the dark about who’s half-finished and who’s ghosted your form.

View drafts in a separate tab, track progress, and nudge folks who just need a reminder to hit "submit."

Your team can:

• Track who’s in-progress vs. submitted
• Personally follow up with high-value prospects
• Automatically increase your completed submissions

Final Thought

It’s simple: great content takes time. By empowering submitters to work at their own pace, you’ll unlock higher-quality proposals, reduce friction, and get more complete submissions — all while keeping your content pipeline full.

If you’re ready to make speaker submissions more flexible and more successful, SSF-Drafts is ready to go.