What's new?

We're constantly working on new and improved features to make Snapp faster, more useful and easier to use.

Recent updates

New metrics on the analytics dashboard (Editor Experience)

EiCs and Springer Nature Publishers can now see metrics about active submissions and turnaround time (TAT) for first decision.

How it works: 

On the analytics dashboard you can now see: 

  • Average time to first decision. This is defined as the time from submission to either acceptance, rejection or request for revision
  • A pie chart showing active and past submissions
  • A pie chart showing active submissions by submission stage

This data can be filtered by the initial submission date and is included in the PDF and CSV downloads.

Try it out on Snapp

Screenshot of Analytics tab with updated metrics © Springer Nature 2023

Submission status filters (Editor Experience)

On the Submissions page, you can now filter by ‘Submission stage’.

How it works:

The filter will show the following labels:

  • In progress submissions = from ready to be assigned to an editor, to final decision 
  • Ready for assignment = needs assigning (unassigned submissions will not appear)
  • No Reviewers invited  = 0 reviewers invited
  • Reviewers invited  =  from 1+ invitation sent, to 1 reviewer accepted
  • Reviewers accepted = 2 reviewers have accepted to 1 report received
  • Ready for decision = 2+ reports have been received 
  • With author for revision =  out with authors
  • Past submissions = final decision has been made

Screenshot of new filters on the Submissions page © Springer Nature 2023

New task to highlight overdue reports (Editor Experience)

A new task, ‘Resolve overdue reviewer reports’, opens when the deadline to return an outstanding report has passed.

How it works:  

You have the following options:

  • Invite more reviewers.
  • Be reminded later to follow up. This closes the task, which will reopen after 14 days if no reports are submitted in the meantime.
  • Make a decision on the available report(s):
    • (recommend to) accept
    • (recommend to) reject
    • (recommend to) request revision
  • Email the reviewer outside Snapp.

Screenshot of new task opening showing overdue report © Springer Nature 2023

Task dashboard enhancements (Editor Experience)

The ‘Find and invite reviewers’, ‘Assess reviewer reports’, and ‘Resolve overdue reviewer reports’ tasks now have more information to help you decide what action is needed. This includes:

  • Number of reviewers invited
  • Number of reports returned 
  • Number of reviewers accepted
  • Number of reviewers declined
  • Number of reports overdue
  • Number of reports pending

Screenshot of task dashboard enhancements © Springer Nature 2023

Find qualified reviewers faster (Editor Experience)

We’ve developed a new algorithm to provide better reviewer recommendations.

The tool learns about the expertise of researchers based on their past publications and uses it to suggest the best reviewer for the manuscript. 

Our pilot tests found that people who were suggested by the new algorithm were almost 50% more likely to accept the review invitation.

How it works

  • The algorithm learns about the expertise of researchers based on their past publications.  
  • When fed a new manuscript (title and abstract), the algorithm guesses who in the database could have been the author.  
  • Excluding the manuscript authors and any other researchers that have conflicts of interest, the results show the algorithm's suggestions for the best reviewer of the manuscript.

Wait for next report (Editor Experience)

You can declutter your task board by closing the ‘Assess Review Reports’ task until another report is returned.

How it works

Press the ‘Wait for next report’ button to close the ‘Assess Review Reports’ task.

  • This button is only visible when the number of reports returned is less than then number of accepted reviewers

The button is not shown when reports returned matches the number of accepted reviewers

Screenshot of button © Springer Nature 2022

Analytics Dashboard for EICs and Publishing Editors (Editor Experience)

Benefit:    

Editors in Chief and Publishing Editors can find essential information about their journals on an easy to monitor dashboard. 


How it works: 
On the dashboard, Editors in Chief and Publishing Editors will find metrics covering a range of different aspects of the journals they work on. It can provide provide answers to questions like:

  • How many submissions have my journals had this calendar year?
  • How many articles were rejected during August?
  • What is the average turnaround time to final decision for each editor?

Take a look

Screenshot of Analytics Dashboard © Springer Nature 2022

‘Quick Preview’ Feature (Editor Experience)

This is a way for Editors to make a quick decision on the manuscript by enabling the entirety of a manuscript (incl. figures and tables) to be viewed, without having to download everything

Screenshot showing the dropdown to Open Quick Preview © Springer Nature 2022

How it works:

  • There is now a link in the universal header to "Open Quick Preview"
  • This triggers a new tab to open showing a view of the whole manuscript in the browser.
    • For Word submissions, this will be a HTML view 
    • For PDF submissions we will just show the PDF in the browser

New Content Item © Screenshot showing the HTML version with print manuscript option © Springer Nature 2022

Add/move/remove collection (Editor Experience)

Editors can now add/move/remove a collection at any stage

How it works: 

  • Search or select a submission from the 'All submissions' page. 
  • Click on the submission details link

Editors are now able to change collection at any time on the submission details page through the Actions menu.

Screenshot of dropdown © Springer Nature 2022

Screenshot of dropdown for Actions © Springer Nature 2022

Improved visibility of collections papers (Editor Experience)

New labels have been added to collections that have opted in to new features:

Screenshot of new labels © Springer Nature 2022

Screenshot of new labels © Springer Nature 2022

Notify editors to invite more reviewers (Editor experience)

The handling editor is now notified when a submission cannot achieve its target number of reviewers.

How it works

  • Snapp will send an email notifying the handling editor that they need to invite more reviewers. The email will include a link to the re-opened ‘Find and invite reviewers’ task.
  • A notification is also shown on the Find and Invite Reviewers task page.

Screenshot showing Reviewer Notification

Filter by editor (Editor experience)

You are now able to filter the 'All Submissions' list by 'assigned handling editor' 

How it works:

  • From the ‘All submissions’ list, you can now filter s by 'assigned handling editor' 
  • This includes the option to filter by ‘You’, allowing just you to see your assignments

Screenshot showing how to Filter by Editor

Updated reviewer invite statuses (Editor experience)

On the reviewer management table you can now see additional information including:

  • The due date of a report
  • How many days a report is overdue 
  • When a reviewer was reminded
  • Reasons for reviewers declining the invitation  (if provided)
  • Suggested reviewers (if provided)

Future iterations will include the ability to invite suggested reviewers directly from this page. 

How it works

  • Go to the Find and Invite Reviewers task or to the Reviewers tab on the Submission details page
  • The additional information has been added to the table

Variable deadlines for reviewers (Editor/Reviewer experience)

You can now select an appropriate deadline for a reviewer to return a report, from seven to ninety days. 

How it works: 

  1. From the reviewer invitation you can specify how many days you want the report to be returned in
  2. The predefined ranges are: 7, 10, 21, 28, 60 and 90 days, with the default set to 10 days
  3. You can also select the deadline if you are using the ‘Invite all’ function
  4. The due date is shown to the reviewer on the Accept/Decline page and in the reviewer form
  5. Reviewers will be reminded halfway through the deadline

Screenshot Showing editable reviewer deadlines

Personalise decision emails for rejection or revision (Editor experience)

You now have the flexibility to edit the text of the ‘Reject’ and ‘Revision’ decision emails allowing you personalise the communication to your authors.

How it works: 

  1. Click on either ‘Reject’ or ‘Request Revision’ to see the decision email 
  2. Click on ‘Edit’ to make changes
  3. Click ‘Save’ to make sure you save the changes
  4. Click ‘Preview’ and then ‘Send’ 

New Content Item © Screenshot showing the new editable decision emails

Easier to use manuscript reference numbers (Editor experience)

We’ve added short, simple reference numbers to make talking about manuscripts easier. 

Each manuscript will get a new, unique reference. For example: 2022-81

How we create the reference: 

  • 2022 = because we received the submission in 2022
  • 81 = because it’s the 81st submission to that journal in that year

Screenshot showing the new Manuscript Reference Numbers

It's also searchable from the 'All submissions' page.

See the history of a submission (Editor experience)

See a timeline of major events and audit who did what.

How it works: 

  • Search or select a submission from the 'All submissions' page. 
  • Click on the submission details link
  • Click on the ‘History’ tab

Screenshot showing the History of a Submission

Discussion on submissions (Editor experience)

Editors can now add comments to submissions, making it easier to discuss the manuscript with the editorial team on your journal. Please see here for more information on the tool

Screenshot showing information and options available when you open a submission © Springer Nature 2022


Accepting a submission before peer review (Editor experience)

Editors are now able to accept a submission at any time on the submission details page through the Actions menu.

Uploading LaTex files (Author experience)

Authors can upload LaTex files during their initial submission. We compile the LaTex files into a PDF which the author can download and review. This PDF can then be made available to editors and reviewers.

Title, abstract, and author details are auto-extracted and used to pre-fill the form fields.

Screenshot of Latex upload for Snapp

Search for a submission (Editor experience)

Editors can search for submissions by ID or title.

Screenshot showing the search box under 'All submissions' section


News and upcoming features

If your journal is already on Snapp or you're moving to Snapp, we'll send you regular updates and information on new features and upcoming webinars.

For more information about what we're working on, see our roadmap hosted on Trello.