How to Add a Mobile App to Your OpenConf Conference
OpenConf handles your submissions and schedule. This guide covers how to give your attendees a proper on-site mobile experience — even if your team is two people running the conference on the side.
OpenConf is a self-hosted, open-source conference management system trusted by IEEE chapters, ACM communities, and technical symposiums that take programme quality seriously. It handles paper submissions, reviews, schedule management, and proceedings — all without requiring an expensive SaaS subscription or a dedicated IT team.
What OpenConf doesn't handle is the attendee experience once the conference begins. There's no mobile app, no offline schedule, no push notifications for the room change that happened 20 minutes ago. Your attendees are at a technical conference. They expect better.
This guide is for OpenConf organisers — often a volunteer programme chair or a small technical committee — who want to close that gap efficiently, without building an app or maintaining a second system.
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What OpenConf Provides — and What It Leaves to You
OpenConf covers the organiser workflow effectively: paper intake, review management, author decisions, schedule building, and proceedings generation. For a volunteer-run symposium, this is exactly the right scope — it handles the hard parts of programme management without requiring enterprise pricing.
The attendee side is a different matter. OpenConf's public-facing schedule page is functional but minimal — a table of sessions viewable in a browser. In practice:
- No mobile optimisation: the schedule grid works on a desktop; it's difficult to navigate on a phone.
- No offline access: attendees in exhibition halls, basement meeting rooms, or poor-signal venues can't view the programme.
- No personal schedule: there's no way to bookmark sessions or build a planned day.
- No announcements: a last-minute room change has to be communicated by email or a sign on the door.
Adding a mobile layer to an OpenConf conference is a one-time setup task that solves all of these.
How OpenConf Exports Its Schedule Data
OpenConf stores session, paper, and room data in a local MySQL database on your server. The primary ways to get that data into a mobile app are:
OpenConf Schedule Export (CSV)
OpenConf's admin panel includes a schedule export function under the Schedule module. This produces a CSV file containing:
- Session names, dates, times, and room assignments
- Paper IDs and titles per session
- Author names per paper
This is the recommended starting point. It captures the timetable structure without requiring database access or custom scripts.
Paper Export with Abstracts
The schedule export typically contains titles only, not abstract text. To include abstracts in the mobile app, also export the accepted papers list from Papers > Export Accepted. This adds abstract text matched to each paper ID.
If your OpenConf installation is older or doesn't include a built-in export,
the same data can be extracted from a direct database query:
SELECT p.ID, p.title, p.abstract, p.author FROM papers p WHERE p.accept='yes'.
Any hosting provider or your institution's IT team can run this in under a minute.
If You Self-Host OpenConf
Many OpenConf installations run on shared hosting or a university server with limited tooling. If neither export option is straightforward, an alternative is to export the programme directly from OpenConf's public schedule page using a simple web scraper or by copying the session table into a spreadsheet. This is less ideal but works for events where the schedule is fully finalised before the conference.
What to Require From a Mobile App for OpenConf
Works with CSV and spreadsheet input — no custom integration required
OpenConf doesn't have a public API, and adding one requires modifying the codebase — not realistic for volunteer-run events. Any practical mobile solution must accept CSV or XLSX exports directly, without requiring development work on your end.
Low maintenance once set up
A volunteer programme chair doesn't have time to manage a second platform between paper decisions, venue coordination, and registration logistics. The mobile app setup should require one upload and one review — not ongoing admin. For OpenConf events where the programme is typically finalised 2–3 weeks before the event, a single pre-event import is usually sufficient.
Handles the standard technical conference structure
OpenConf events typically have: a keynote or two, several parallel technical sessions, a poster session or demo session, and a social programme. The mobile app must handle parallel sessions without flattening everything into a single list, and must distinguish keynotes from regular presentations visually.
Offline access for venue constraints
IEEE and ACM symposiums often run in university buildings, hotel ballrooms, and convention centre spaces where Wi-Fi can be congested or unreliable. Offline availability of the full programme — sessions, abstracts, and room maps — is essential for on-site utility.
Professional visual quality without enterprise pricing
OpenConf events tend to run on lean budgets. The mobile solution needs to deliver a polished result — branded, clean, functional — without pricing that only works for corporate events. Fixed pricing based on programme complexity (not per-attendee) matters here.
The Setup Process for OpenConf Events
- Export your schedule from the OpenConf admin panel (Schedule > Export as CSV).
- Export accepted papers with abstracts (Papers > Export Accepted or equivalent).
- Prepare a short metadata sheet: event name, dates, venue, timezone, contact email. Add logo, primary colour, and a cover image if available.
- Share both files with the mobile app provider.
- Review the preview in 48 hours. Check session structure, room names, authors, and abstracts. Flag anything that needs correcting.
- Distribute to attendees. A QR code and download link in your pre-event email is typically sufficient. App stores are not required for web-app delivery, reducing setup friction for both organiser and attendee.
With HEPCon, this process takes 48 hours from receiving your files to a live preview. See: How to get started.
OpenConf Version Notes
OpenConf has been under active development since 2004 and has several versions in use. If you're unsure which version you're running, check the footer of the OpenConf admin panel or contact the Zakon Group (OpenConf's developer).
- OpenConf Basic: Free, community edition. Schedule export is available; abstract export may require a manual database query depending on version.
- OpenConf Pro: Paid version with expanded features. Richer export options and better CSV formatting are generally available.
- Legacy installations: Some IEEE chapter installations run older OpenConf versions on shared university hosting. If export tools are missing, the data can typically be extracted via a direct database query — your IT contact should be able to do this in a few minutes.
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