We just upgraded to OJS 3.1.1.2 and really like the user interface. We currently publish 17 journals through OJS and will be adding more shortly.
My editors have started to use the workflow to publish new issues and they’ve run into a snag; they cannot attach files to predefined notification email messages.
One example:
The editor has reached a decision and has clicked on Accept Submission (within the Review process). This journal creates a pdf documenting the journal’s decision, on the journal’s letterhead, that they would like to attach to that notification. In OJS 2, they could easily upload that file as an attachment to the notification. In OJS 3, the options for attachments consist of searching for/adding review files or attaching Library files, see image below.
Searching for the review file finds nothing, even when there are review files in the record. If the editor chooses Select Library files to attach, files that are in the Submission Library are not found. The file appears to be retrievable only if it is in the Publisher Library. Journals are reluctant to do this because the contents are confidential and the Publisher Library would soon be cluttered with notification pdfs.
Is there any workaround for this, besides using the Discussions to send the file?
Thank you, Amanda! The only remaining questions that I have is how the “Select Review Files” and “Select Library Files” functions on this page are supposed to work.
For “Select Review Files,” which Name are we supposed to be searching for? The name of the reviewer? I’ve never been able to make this work so that it finds files.
And is there a reason why “Select Library Files” doesn’t find files in the Submission Library? If the ability to upload files were not added, that would seem to me to be the place where these files could be uploaded, yet still stay with the submission.
I would appreciate any guidance that the community can provide.
When you record a decision and send a notification to the author, all review files should appear as optional to send, but you can use the Search to find a specific file if there are a lot. When I tested the Search feature it seemed to search for the file by file name, not the reviewer’s name.
If you upload a file to the Submission Library for a submission, the author should be able to access the file by logging in to the submission interface and opening the Submission Library. As far as I know, you can’t send those files as attachments, but you can tell the author where to find them in a message.
Best,
Amanda Stevens
Public Knowledge Project Team
Thank you for the clarification, Amanda. I think the thing that confused me is that the Review Files section on the Review page of the workflow did contain the original submission file plus the editor’s uploaded file containing the decision. However, when i went to accept the submission and notify the author, those files didn’t appear as options to select, even though they are listed in the Review Files section.
It appears that only files that appear as options to select in this part of the workflow are those uploaded by users in the Reviewer role for the article.
One of my editors found a clever workaround for this one. Since only those review files uploaded by those in the Reviewer roles are easily selected when sending notifications to authors, the journal created a faux reviewer called Faux Reviewer and uploaded the decision letter on journal letterhead as the Review file from that “reviewer.” That way, the file can be easily attached to the standard email notification to the author.
We’re still looking forward to the feature being included in OJS, but we at least have something workable until that happens.
Yes, if you look at the Github issue for “editors should be able to add attachments…” you will see that it is closed and the milestone is OJS 3.1.2, which means it is available in 3.1.2.
Best,
Amanda Stevens
Public Knowledge Project Team
