How to Add a Mobile App to Your ConfTool Conference

ConfTool handles submissions, reviews, and programme management. This guide covers how to connect a proper attendee mobile experience on top of it — without touching your ConfTool workflow.

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ConfTool is the submission and programme management system of choice for thousands of European academic conferences — in communication studies, sociology, linguistics, education research, and interdisciplinary humanities. It handles the complexity of multi-track peer review and programme scheduling exceptionally well. What it doesn't handle is on-site attendee experience.

This guide is for ConfTool organisers who want to give their attendees offline access, fast navigation, personal schedules, and real-time updates on mobile — without rebuilding the programme elsewhere or adding maintenance work for their team.

Already decided? See how HEPCon connects to ConfTool: ConfTool Conference App solution.

What ConfTool Does — and Where Attendees Are Left Behind

ConfTool Pro covers the full organiser workflow: abstract submission, peer review coordination, author notifications, registration, payment, and programme scheduling. Its programme management module lets you build multi-track schedules with session chairs, paper assignments, and room allocations.

The gap is the output. ConfTool's programme view is designed for desktop browsers and programme committees. An attendee trying to navigate a dense three-day conference from their phone during a coffee break is not the use case ConfTool was built for. Common on-site failures:

  • No offline access: ConfTool requires connectivity to browse the schedule. Venue Wi-Fi fails at exactly the moments people need it most.
  • No personal schedule: attendees can't bookmark sessions or build a personal track.
  • No push notifications: room changes and announcements reach attendees only by email — often too late.
  • Desktop-first layout: the programme grid that works on a 1400px screen doesn't work on a 390px phone.
  • No full-text search: finding a specific paper among 400 presentations means scrolling, not searching.

How ConfTool Exports Its Programme Data

A mobile app layer reads your ConfTool programme data through an export. Here's what's available and where to find it.

ConfTool XML Programme Export

ConfTool's most complete export format. Access it from the admin panel: Programme > Programme and Scheduling > Export Programme Data. The XML file contains:

  • All sessions with room assignments, start/end times, and session chair names
  • All accepted papers with titles, author names, and track assignment
  • Abstract text for each submission
  • Track definitions and descriptions
  • Poster session structure

This is the export format to request from your team if you're not doing the ConfTool admin work yourself. It contains everything a mobile app needs to reconstruct your programme.

ConfTool Spreadsheet / CSV Export

For simpler events or partial exports, ConfTool also produces CSV/Excel outputs from the paper list and scheduling views. These are less complete than the XML export (abstracts are often truncated; track nesting can be lost) but work well as a starting point for smaller events with straightforward schedules.

When to re-export

Unlike Indico (which has a public REST API), ConfTool doesn't expose a live API endpoint for programme data. This means each timetable change requires a new export. For conferences where the programme solidifies 2–3 weeks before the event and changes minimally on-site, this is manageable. For events with frequent last-minute changes, establish a clear re-export workflow with your ConfTool admin in advance.

What to Require From a Mobile App for ConfTool

Reads ConfTool's XML natively

The app should accept your ConfTool XML export directly — not require you to reformat or re-enter data. Specifically, it should preserve ConfTool's track → session → paper hierarchy without flattening the structure.

Handles ConfTool's session and poster structure correctly

ConfTool conferences often combine traditional sessions (oral presentations) with poster blocks (dozens or hundreds of posters organised by topic cluster). The mobile app must treat these differently: posters need search and filtering by topic, not a single long list.

Preserves session chair and author information

In social science and humanities conferences, the session chair and discussant roles are significant. The mobile app should display chair names clearly — not merge them with the presenter list or omit them.

Handles multi-language or special character abstracts

Many ConfTool conferences include submissions in languages other than English, or English submissions with names and references containing non-ASCII characters. Confirm the mobile app handles UTF-8 correctly and doesn't mangle diacritics or right-to-left text.

Real offline access

The app should cache the full programme — all sessions, papers, abstracts, and room assignments — on the attendee's device at first launch. Offline means no "loading" spinner in the conference centre basement.

Push notifications for changes

When you push a new ConfTool export because a session moved or a speaker cancelled, the mobile app should propagate that change to attendees automatically and allow you to send a targeted push notification about the update.

Preparing a Clean ConfTool Export

The quality of your mobile app experience is directly tied to the quality of your ConfTool data. These steps take less than an hour and prevent the most common import issues:

Confirm all accepted papers have sessions assigned

Papers without session assignments will appear in the export but can't be placed in the timetable. Run ConfTool's scheduling report before exporting to catch any unassigned submissions.

Set room names consistently

ConfTool allows free-text room names. If your team entered "Room A", "Room A (ground floor)", and "Hall A" for the same physical space, those will appear as three separate rooms in the app. Standardise room names before exporting.

Verify abstract text is complete

Some ConfTool setups impose character limits on abstract exports. Check a handful of abstracts in the XML output to confirm truncation isn't happening silently.

Include your event timezone in the export settings

ConfTool can export times in UTC or local time depending on settings. For a mobile app serving an international audience, exporting with the venue's local timezone labelled explicitly prevents display errors.

What the Setup Process Looks Like

  1. Export your ConfTool programme as XML. Admin panel > Programme > Export Programme Data > XML format. If you're not the ConfTool admin, request this file from your programme chair.
  2. Share the export file (and your event dates, venue name, logo, and primary colour) with the mobile app provider.
  3. Review the generated preview. You should see your tracks, sessions, papers, and authors as they appear in ConfTool. Check a few sessions from each track and verify abstract text.
  4. Go live. Share the download link or QR code with your participants.
  5. Re-export when the programme changes. Schedule a recurring ConfTool export in the final 2 weeks before the event to keep the mobile app current.

With HEPCon, the process from receiving your ConfTool export to a live preview is 48 hours. See: How to get started.

Related reading

Ready to give your ConfTool programme the attendee experience it deserves?

Export your ConfTool programme and share it with us. We'll have a live preview ready in 48 hours — with your real data, your tracks, and your sessions.

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