EasyChair: frequently asked questions

overview	news	users		installation	citations
			FAQ<

frequently
asked
questions

This page contains basic facts about EasyChair.

Installation

Can I install EasyChair on my server? No. EasyChair is a Web service. We host it on a high-performance commercial server.

We want to have data on our server, should we use another system? You can try to find another system, however we do not recommend such a solution for several reasons. If you do this, then backup, recovery, security, performance, availability and many other issues handled by EasyChair will become your problem. This means you can be in a situation to lose your data, have a system unavailable at the most critical time, or simply malfunctioning. You may lose your data, time and reputation as a result. Note also that we have a paid-for service making it possible for you to make copies of all your conference data in the Excel and XML format at any time.

Support

I heard that other conference management systems provide user support, while EasyChair comes with no support. Is this true? No. We provide no free support. No conference system provides free support. We do provide paid-for support in addition to the free version.

What level of support is included in a standard installation? We help you if you have troubles to install your conference. We maintain, update and upgrade EasyChair on a regular basis. We make backup of your data. We provide bug fixes. We try to maintain the online Help pages. For anything else you should apply for paid-for services.

Can my conference have additional support? Yes. We provide a helpdesk support, but it is not free. You should apply for it separately. Note that our prices are cheaper than those of our competitors: ask for a quote!

Efficiency

Is EasyChair fast enough to handle large conferences and program committee meetings? Yes. We use an original implementation technique which is dozens of times faster than implementations of Web services using the standard PHP/MySQL technology. We never had complaints about performance and are confident we can handle a conference of any size.

Can EasyChair work with large submissions? Yes. We are using a 100Mbs network. We are also planning to move to a 10Gbs server soon. This means that we will be able to accept over 3000 standard size submissions per second. This also means we will be able to deal with conferences dealing with very large submissions, such as videos.

Non-English version

Can we use EasyChair in languages different from English? Yes and no. The information EasyChair stores is stored in Unicode, so it can be in any language, for example, Chinese or French. However, all instructions in EasyChair pages are in English. In November 2011 we introduced a new service, where one can customize the submission page, so that it makes it easier for your authors to follow your submission procedure.

Customization

Can EasyChair be customized? EasyChair is highly customizable. It has a number of options allowing conference organizers to choose a model suitable for their conference. These options include submission, reviewing and proceedings creation. When a new conference is created, it is immediately ready to accept submissions using a standard configuration. This configuration can be changed by the conference administrators (chairs) at any time.

EasyChair does not have some features our conference needs, what should we do? Contact us. We might be able to implement what you need. We have a wish list of EasyChair enhancements and improvements, and often rearrange our priorities, especially when this is required by our premium customers.

Reliability and security

Is EasyChair available 24/7? Yes. EasyChair is running 24/7/365. Since 2005 we had only two interrupts. In one case we had a total hard disk failure. EasyChair was up running three hours later with no data lost. The second interrupt was 6 hours long, when our server provided had to do some work on its servers. Sometimes we have updates of EasyChair. Normally, they are running a few seconds or a few minutes. If we have an update likely to run more than 5 minutes, we normally perform it on Saturdays, when the number of users is low.

Backup and recovery

We are afraid to lose our conference data. What are your backup and recovery procedures? We use the technique known as database replication to keep your data safe. We have live replicas of all data on two backup servers different from the EasyChair main server. This means that, in the case we have a total server crash, we will be able to recover data using one of the backup servers. For a peace of mind you can also use our paid-for service allowing you to download copies of all your conference data.

Registration and payment

Can EasyChair handle participant registration and online payment? We have registration and payment facilities implemented. They are now being used with several conferences and will be released for other conferences soon.

Other

How often are new versions of EasyChair released? We use the agile programming technology, with no major releases. We made about 550 updates in 2011. It means it is not unusual for us to have several updates a day. Our updates are normally made without stopping EasyChair.