Applies to: Leconfe 1.5.0

Leconfe is an open-source conference management system for organizing academic and scientific conferences. It brings the public conference website, user registration, paper submissions, peer review, participant registration, payments, attendance, and proceedings publication into one system.

Important: Version 1.5.0-beta.3 is a pre-release. Screens, labels, and workflows may still change before the final 1.5.0 release. If your installation uses another version, some options in this documentation may look different.

What Is Leconfe?

Leconfe helps a conference team manage the complete lifecycle of an event from a single administration area. Instead of maintaining separate spreadsheets, email lists, submission forms, review records, and publication pages, organizers can keep related information connected to the correct conference and scheduled event.

Because Leconfe is open source, an organization can download it and run it on a compatible web server. Server setup, backups, email delivery, security updates, and upgrades remain the responsibility of the organization operating a self-hosted installation.

Understand the Leconfe Structure

New users are often confused because Leconfe separates permanent conference information from a specific event. Keep these terms in mind:

• Installation or website — the complete Leconfe system hosted on a server.
• Conference series — the continuing conference identity, such as an annual symposium or congress.
• Scheduled conference — one specific occurrence of a conference series, such as the 2026 event. Dates, submissions, reviewers, participants, fees, and schedules belong to this event.
• Submission — a paper or abstract sent by an author and processed through the editorial workflow.
• Participant registration — an attendee’s registration for the scheduled conference. A participant does not have to submit a paper.
• Role — the permissions and dashboard assigned to a user, such as administrator, conference manager, editor, reviewer, author, presenter, or participant.

Before changing settings or managing records, confirm that you have opened the correct conference series and scheduled conference. Many settings apply only to the currently selected event.

Main Capabilities

Conference and Website Management

Create multiple conference series and schedule recurring events. Configure public pages, navigation, important dates, organizers, venues, schedules, announcements, and other information visitors need.

Submission and Editorial Workflow

Authors can submit abstracts or papers through the conference website. The conference team can track each submission through the relevant stages, including submission, peer review, presentation, editing, and proceedings preparation.

Peer Review

Editors can assign reviewers, manage review rounds, set deadlines, collect recommendations, and use configurable review forms. Leconfe 1.5 supports double-anonymous, anonymous-reviewer, and open review modes. The exact information visible to authors and reviewers depends on the selected mode and permissions.

Participant Registration and Attendance

Attendees can register for a scheduled conference without submitting a paper. Organizers can collect registration information, assign participant roles, manage attendee records, and use attendance-related features configured for the event.

Fees and Payments

Configure separate submission and participant fees, optional add-on items, payment periods, invoices, receipts, and payment-form questions. Manual payment is available in the core workflow, while additional payment methods may be supplied by installed plugins.

Proceedings and Paper Publication

Accepted submissions can be assigned to proceedings and published as papers on the conference website. Publication options, metadata, galleys, citations, and indexing-related integrations depend on the conference configuration and installed plugins.

Who Uses Leconfe?

Leconfe is designed for university departments, research centers, professional associations, scholarly societies, and independent teams that organize academic or scientific events. Different users see different dashboards and actions according to their roles:

• Site administrators manage the installation, global settings, users, plugins, email configuration, maintenance, and upgrades.
• Conference managers and directors configure the conference series and scheduled event, assign team members, and oversee the complete workflow.
• Editors and editorial assistants manage submissions, reviewers, decisions, presentations, editing, and publication preparation.
• Reviewers accept or decline assignments and submit reviews according to the configured review process.
• Authors and presenters submit work, follow editorial decisions, complete required revisions, and manage presentation-related information.
• Participants register to attend the event and complete any required payment or registration information.

Core Features and Plugins

Not every feature shown on another Leconfe website is necessarily available in every installation. Available menus and actions can depend on:

• The installed Leconfe version.
• The plugins and theme installed by the administrator.
• The features enabled for the selected conference.
• The current user’s role and permissions.
• The current stage or status of a submission, registration, review, or payment.

If a menu or action is missing, first confirm the version, active conference, enabled settings, and your assigned role before assuming that the installation is broken.

Version Covered by This Documentation

This page has been reviewed against Leconfe 1.5.0-beta.3. This is a beta release, not the final stable 1.5.0 release. Check the official 1.5.0-beta.3 release page when you need the source package or release reference.

Before following a tutorial, compare the version stated at the beginning of the article with the version installed on your server. When documentation and the interface differ, use the instructions that match your installed version and confirm any upgrade requirements before making changes.

Where Should You Start?

For a New Site Administrator

1. Review the system requirements.
2. Download Leconfe from an official source.
3. Follow the installation guide.
4. Configure email and test outgoing messages.
5. Configure the date and time format.
6. Create the conference series, schedule the event, assign team roles, and test the workflow with non-administrator accounts.

For an Existing Installation

Back up the database and uploaded files before changing versions. Read the upgrade guide, confirm server compatibility, and test custom themes, plugins, and integrations before upgrading a production conference website.

For Authors, Presenters, and Participants

Open the correct scheduled conference, sign in with your own account, and follow the tutorial that matches your task. Participant registration is for attending the event, while presenter or author workflows include submitting and managing scholarly work.

Getting Help and Reporting Problems

• Search the Leconfe documentation for the feature or task.
• Ask usage questions in the Leconfe community forum.
• Review the source code and releases in the official GitHub repository.
• When reporting a problem, include the Leconfe version, the affected role, the page or workflow, the expected result, the actual result, and steps to reproduce it.

Security reminder: Do not post passwords, API keys, database credentials, private payment details, or personal participant data in public support channels. Security vulnerabilities should be reported privately to support@leconfe.com.

Quick Orientation Checklist

• You know the version installed on your server.
• You understand the difference between a conference series and a scheduled conference.
• You have opened the correct scheduled conference.
• Your account has the role required for the task.
• You know whether the feature is part of the core system or an installed plugin.
• You are following documentation written for the same Leconfe version.