Submittable...How do I love you? Let me count the ways!

Try me another day...I am out the door to a meeting.

Pros

Making the decision to shift our application process to online, I was concerned that it would meet the needs of the artists and writers applying and also ease transition for a middle to senior aged office team with varying degrees of electronic saavy. Needless to say we continue to remark on an almost daily basis how we LOVE Submittable. Ease of use was foremost and the Submittable staff are always right there with customer support. Any concerns or suggestions were addressed and often appeared as Submittable staff tweaked and updated the software. Likewise input from customers is often solicited. This open process continues to make the software better and better as new features are added and functionality is streamlined. Over the years Submittable continues to be software service and customer oriented. From staff and applicant feedback, I understand that Submittable greets anyone from neophyte to expert electronic guru users with the same degree of respect, patience, expertise and professional service. I especially appreciate the ease in navigating the software features. Ease in accessing and reviewing all areas of our applications, accessing correspondence with applicants and reviewers, sending out requests for character statements automatically, controlling access to all areas of the application and processes as needed have streamlined the time and task of handling actual materials. No more incomplete applications. Electronic deadlines hold fast.

Cons

Do I miss having USPS delivering stacks of applications for weeks on end around deadlines, when apps just pop up on the list in Submittable? Do I miss the file prep for each application as materials dribbled in little by little and were sometimes incomplete even after the deadline due to weather etc. when that is all tracked by the software? Do I miss handling over and over sections of the application and loosing track when interrupted in the process when a click of a mouse brings me right back? Do I miss being stuck at my desk surrounded by stacks of applications when I now access the applications anywhere there is wifi...even 12 time zones away which is what I did for the last batch of applications? Do I miss being burdened by attempts to streamline or simplify a labor intensive process only to discover all the benefits of using Submittable? Do I realize how staff are freed up to manage more productive tasks in the office than pushing files and paper? Do I realize that the staff team are excited to see applications appearing on their screens, versus groaning when the USPS truck drove into the parking lot? Do I realize how much more economical Submittable is versus staff time and energy factored in with hand processed applications? Do I realize how much more fun it is to problem solve around tailoring the software with Submittable staff to address a need? Do I wish our staff team had transitioned to Submittable sooner? Yes, no regrets we are HUGE Submittable fan

Great platform but could work better

In my opinion, user experience and interface matter. Submittable has a clean look that is welcoming to users. It's not a perfect platform and we've had to work around it. The team is very responsive, however, and seems open to improving their product. If only they could move a bit faster.

Pros

Submittable is easy to use and intuitive. With drag-and-drop options, creating an application takes minutes. Logic branching also helps when you want to gather more info based on an applicant's response. The file upload features are also very helpful.

Once your application is live, you can track and label applications as they come in. This is helpful since a quick perusal of an application can determine eligibility. One quick label and you can filter it out during the full review process.

The reviewer portal is equally intuitive. With side-by-side views, your reviewers can read and answer questions or rate the application without having to switch screens. You can also set certain application fields (such as name, gender, etc.) to blind so that there is no bias based on these questions.

Overall, Submittable is a great application portal and get your money's worth.

Cons

Recommendation letter request emails don't get sent out until AFTER the applicant submit their application. This is fine in most cases but you do have to offer a small grace period to recommenders. It would be great if applicants can enter a recommender and hit a button "Request Letter."

The forms can also become rather long if you have a lot of questions. It could affect completion rates.

Finally, just as you are able to remind reference letter writers through the portal, it would be great to be able to remind those with incomplete application about the upcoming deadline. Right now, you can request a list of incomplete applications but you only get name and email addresses. It would be good to see some of the data that the applicants have completed so far.

Submittable makes life easier. As an independent literary organization, we find value in this tool.

We save time.

Pros

What we like most about Submittable is that it allows us to manage submissions more efficiently. I'm not a fan of documents and tasks "living in email." Having a robust product like Submittable saves us time in reading and replying, as well as offering a way to capture and analyze submission data. I cannot imagine handling hundreds of submissions at a time via email, especially with a large reading panel. The built-in tools, such as sorting, labels, varying permission levels, templates, etc. allow us to customize it for our needs. I should add that any time we had a question, customer service responded right away, sometimes within minutes. Even over holidays. What did we do before Submittable? Seriously! What. Did. We. Do?

Cons

There aren't any major cons with Submittable. I'd love some more robust reporting and sorting features and maybe custom permission levels, as there are a few things I'd like to do, but cannot. For example, I'd love to see team member data by specific category, not just by a duration of time. But these are more feature ideas, nothing that I'd consider negative about the existing product. If I had to say one thing, since our reading panel (the ones who use the software) has a varying level of comfort with tech tools that maybe some of the icons could be more intuitive.

It provides me with all necessary services as a submitter. It provides all I require as an editor.

Pros

Submittable is convenient. As a submitter, it provides efficient mechanisms for making submissions and efficient tracking of those submissions. As an editor, it provides me with notices and updates to allow me to process submissions quickly and efficiently. Submittable is practical. As a submitter, a single page allows me to keep track of active submissions to several publications. As an editor, the features for reaction and response to submitters makes my job much easier. Submittable is uncomplicated, easily used, and easy to understand. As a submitter, these qualities make submissions tracking manageable. Submittable is used widely enough to be familiar to virtually all writers and artists who submit work for publication.

Cons

Our current package allows only 5 of our team members to have access to submissions. I could wish for more relaxed limits in that regard.

Not entirely intuitive, but doable for digital immigrants. "Chat" folks are responsive & helpful.

Ease of receiving submissions, as opposed to the manual email system we had in place. Also the ability to link donations as an option when paying. It's a timesaver in processing submissions that allows us to get right to the content, rather than shuffling emails back and forth to our editors.

Pros

It works VERY well for receiving, tracking, reviewing literary submissions. So organized. Helps our statewide editorial team stay connected for working and communicating. Tutorial and articles are helpful tools when setting this up.

Cons

"Up ad running in 15 minutes"? Not likely. Big down side, is that it is EXPENSIVE for non profits, despite the discount. Monthly plans ding you bigtime for signer and submission allotments. We use Premium plan, the next step up is a GIANT leap up in price but also benefits. But we cannot afford that. I would like to see a product for bonafide all-volunteer non-profits with small budgets. Arts organziations are struggling these days.

This is everything we could have hoped to help keep our submissions on track and organized.

The only glitch I've had was when the "status" column was not working, but after contacting your service representatives, the problem was fixed within 24 hours. But that's not really a con, more a pro I guess.

Pros

As an editor, it keeps the entire process of submissions very organized. The ability to archive and track all the submissions that come through here, along with all the automatic data in graph form that Submittable contributes in regards to either our regular day to day submissions or our annual competition, is everything we want it to be. Not to mention that there are numerous places which one can tuck notes about this or that author whose work is on track to be published by us. In addition, allowing the person whose work we're considering to leave notes for us about their submission should parts of it be accepted elsewhere, is a huge bonus for any editor.

I administer an annual international photo competition for a non-profit conservation organization.

Submittable helps me receive and track hundreds of photography submissions from users around the world, and makes collecting payments effortless. The staff is helpful and quick to reply to my queries.

Pros

Clean interface, flexible ways to sort submissions and tag them, and all actions and communications are logged by the system. Being able to customize the messages for various interactions with submitters is helpful. As our competition expands I expect to use the team functionality more. The Gallery function is an appealing way to display photos and allow the public to vote.

Cons

My primary difficulty is that entries cannot be sorted or tagged individually; i.e., when you tag a photo, the tag applies to the entire submission, not just a single photo. Since my competition allows up to 8 photos per submission, I have to sort in other ways after downloading the entries, which is a bit time-consuming but not a deal-breaker.
The login requirement for voting in the Gallery view has a dampening effect; also, there's no instruction telling viewers to click on a photo to enlarge the view. Gallery sorting tools would be a welcome function as well. Gallery View has a lot of potential and I'm curious to see how Submittable's developers change it in the future.

Thank you Submittable

I seriously don't know how we functioned before having Submittable. We host festivals throughout the country bringing together art, music and wellness. This requires having submission forms for all 3, plus a number of others, including an Art Auction. Submittable became the solution that we didn't even know we needed. The Art Auction is just the latest example of something that we have done in the past but finally realized Submittable was the best method. But it was their customer support that was the key. It was through discussing our needs with them that we were able to go forward. As we began using the system, they were always there to answer questions, provide an answer and take our feedback, which then resulted in changes that made for a better experience. I find that they are still just an email away. This is rare, but is why I am here writing this now. As the Technical Director for O+, I am always looking for that technological answer, but I am also always weary as often new tech can go unused, can be un-user-friendly, can be daunting to learn, etc. which then makes it actually the wrong answer. Submittable is maybe the best example I can give to how tech can really be just the right thing. Thank you.

Pros

Easy to use, and can be used very broadly. Great customer service. Great design. Feature rich.

Cons

Managing other users and exporting info can be better.

The people who work at Submittable are knowledgeable, good-natured, and GENUINELY helpful.

Submittable WORKS, and their customer support is unbeatable!

Pros

Submittable can handle so many different document types that we never could ourselves. They listen when we have suggestions/requests. Everything can be tracked - no more lost manuscripts! They've made it possible for us to offer books at the same time someone makes a submission, a great option for us. And they can issue refunds with ease.

Cons

Searches (especially across a lot of categories) sometimes are a bit slow, but we do have a LOT of categories and a LOT of submissions for the software to sort through. We're so glad to have Submittable, a respectable and caring group that has the ability to keep up with technology challenges so we can do the work we love doing.

Submittable is irreplaceable in terms of the

Pros

The best thing I like about this software is how it serves multiple functions for our organization. I can easily create categories for submissions, receive submissions, the submissions can be commented on by the review team, and then I can correspond with the submitter all from within the same software. Each step of the process is easy to use.

Cons

Because of how many ways you can use the software, it takes a bit of time to get used to how to navigate between different parts of the program but once learned it's very user-friendly.

The website and software is easy to use, reliable, and convenient.

Pros

Ease of use on many levels. It streamlines an administrative process that could take endless hours. The software is not automated (and it shouldn't be), but there are enough templates and options to make the process of managing submissions very efficient.

Cons

The navigation menus are not intuitive. It takes too long to figure out where things are hidden. Having sub-menus would help. Also, inactive team members still show up when assigning. The editorial team of this journal changes every year and there are too many names. We don't want to delete past editors, but archiving them when they are inactive would be an improvement.