Missing submissions and email confirmation of submissions

One person in our contest says they submitted photo(s) but does not see them in the voting. I don't know what to tell this person. I have had others ask me how they know that there photos have been submitted. There is no confirmation email I can set so submitters would be notified that their submission was received. If there was a confirmation email sent, I could tell submitters to look for that email and if they don't receive it, to check with the PollUnit admin.

So, for now, is there anything I can do for this person that claims they made a submission? Is there any way to check this? Will you implement a confirmation email in the future to avoid this problem?

Here’s how photo submissions in PollUnit currently work:

• If an error occurs during upload or submission, the user is shown an error message on screen. In this case, the submission is not stored in the system.
• In rare cases (for example loss of internet connection, browser crash, or closing the page during upload), it may not be possible to display an error message. These submissions are also not saved.
• If no error occurs, the user is redirected to a thank-you page, which confirms that the submission was successful.
• Only successfully completed submissions are persisted and therefore visible in the voting.

Because of this, we unfortunately cannot verify failed submission attempts. If a participant encountered an error message, there is no data stored on our side that could be checked afterwards. You can only verify whether a submission exists by checking if the photo appears in the photo contest.

What you can do right now

You already have the option to enable »Request confirmation email (double opt-in)« for submissions.

When this option is active:

• Submitters receive an email after uploading their photo
• They must confirm their submission via the email
• You see when the submission is confirmed
• This serves as a clear confirmation for both you and the participant that the submission was received successfully

This is currently the best way to avoid uncertainty and gives you a clear reference point when participants ask whether their submission went through. Please note that confirmation emails depend on external email systems and cannot be guaranteed in all cases (e.g. spam filtering or inbox availability).

It's too late to make any changes to address this now as submissions have ended. According to your tooltip: "If email confirmation is required, participants are asked to enter their email address. Subsequently, PollUnit sends an email with a confirmation link. Participation is only possible after confirmation." So this is intended only to validate their email address. If participation is only possible after confirmation, this will not confirm submissions (participation) which happen after confirmation, correct?

I did not enable the thank-you page, but that sounds like it would provide confirmation of submissions, and I can edit the text on that page so it says the submission(s) were successful. Then I would also need to tell submitters to look for that. However it would be preferable to send an email confirmation of their submissions, because that is not temporary like the display of the thank-you page would be, and I would not have to add more to the instructions for submitters to explain this.

Yes, the email confirmation validates the submitter’s email address and shows the submitted data for review. As a generic tool, we cannot distinguish all fine-grained use-case nuances. That said, while this may not fully match what you are looking for, it could still be helpful.

Now I'm confused. Is the email confirmation sent before or after submissions are made? If after, your tooltip text needs to be clarified or corrected. Also, when you sign up for an account, your email is verified. So if submitters were required to have a PollUnit account, would they be asked to confirm their email again when submitting?

How it works:

1. The user submits an entry that is initially unconfirmed.
2. We send an email with confirmation instructions.
3. The user confirms the submission via the email.

Our Thank You page shows the following content after a successful upload/submission:

Thank you!
Photo successfully added.
You should receive an email from PollUnit to confirm your details.

Hi, I'm getting ready for this year's photo contest and am testing the email confirmation of submissions feature to see if I want to use it. I have some questions:

1. Why when I receive a confirmation email, I get 2 - duplicates at exactly the same time?
2. What triggers emails being sent? It seems like I’ve only received a confirmation email once or maybe twice. But not after every photo is submitted (which I would not want anyway), or even after making more submittals and then logging out. Is the link in the confirmation email intended to be used for all submittal confirmations going forward? I did see that whenever I follow it, I see any submissions that have not yet been confirmed.
3. You stated in this support topic that I would see when the submission is confirmed. I can’t find anything that makes me aware of the 'confirmed' status of options submitted as an admin or as a participant. I also don’t see that confirming or not confirming has any effect on the status of the photos submitted or on voting.

I do see now that there is a "Confirmed at" field in the submissions export. Shouldn't this be viewable in the Evaluations area too?

You should see this in the evaluation. When you visit the »Images / Submissions« section you see the email used for the confirmation as well as a checked green bubble with the date time of confirmation.

Ok, I found that now. However I see the an email in the Email (Double Opt-In) field for every entry, whether the checked green bubble is displayed or not. Please confirm that this has no effect on whether photos can be submitted or voted on, or on the rating. It's just intended as you said previously in this post a "confirmation for both you and the participant that the submission was received successfully"? Seems like the option should be called something like "Submissions email confirmation". Email (Double Opt-In) is known as a method to confirm that the email is owned by the person submitting it.

Can you respond to my first two questions also? I want to know what is expected behavior so I can explain it to my participants.

PollUnit offers email confirmation in three places, each with a different purpose. The explanation visible when clicking the question mark icon next to each setting describes what its confirmation applies to:

1. Allow image upload / Allow new options: Submitters receive an email with a link to review and confirm their submission, including their email address and any custom fields. For example, this could include a newsletter signup checkbox. This confirmation does not affect voting or the photo’s rating.
2. Allow voting: Voters can confirm their email address and any custom fields they completed.
3. Restrict voting: Voters must confirm their email address for their votes to count.

I also investigated why some people received two emails. A job triggered after a submission was created ran twice and sent the same opt-in email again. We’ve fixed this, so submitters should now receive only one.

I'm talking about the first one. Can you respond to my second question? I've sent you an email with more details.

I haven’t received your email yet. If the details don’t include private information, such as an admin link, it would be best to continue here in the forum. That way, others with the same question can benefit from the discussion too.

The confirmation email is not sent separately for every photo submission. Once there is already a submission associated with your email address, additional submissions generally do not trigger another email, even if you previously confirmed a submission.

If you submit another photo later, it will appear as unconfirmed when you open the original confirmation link. You can use that same link again to review and confirm any new pending submissions.

The usual case is that someone submits their photos at roughly the same time, and the information collected with each submission relates to that person. In that situation, another email adds little value. But I can see how a new confirmation email could be useful when someone returns to submit another photo later. I’d be interested to hear whether you think an email for each later submission would work better.

Humm, I have sent you at least 2 emails that you have not responded to so maybe you should check your spam folder. I don't think the email should be sent more than once, but the submitter needs to know what to expect. I didn't and that confused me. I prefer to send emails to support due to the limitations of your forum: it does not support formatting for posts or attachments, and the display is hard to read and not appropriate for long posts. Here are the suggestions I provided in the email you did not get regarding confirmation emails for submissions:

Why a confirmation email for this? I’m not sure why this needs to be an email confirmation in the first place. It seems to me it would be less complicated if you just put a link to the confirmation page in the success message. Instead of saying “Photo successfully added. You should receive an email from PollUnit to confirm your details”, just have the only options here as Add Photo or Confirm Your Submission. This way they cannot ‘Go back’ until they have confirmed the submissions. This also means you don’t need to try to explain what to expect and how this works.

If you believe a confirmation email is the best approach, the content needs changes. If you think this needs to be done with an email confirmation for some reason, changes are needed as the text in the confirmation email is confusing and leaves the participant wondering about some things. If you are not sending an email every time a submission is made (which I agree would not be good), you need to explain in the email when these emails are sent, and that the participant can return to the same confirmation page anytime after receiving the first email to confirm all submissions that they have not yet confirmed.

The email starts out says "You have participated in »contest name«. Please confirm the correctness of your participation with the following link.” Under that there is a copy of the info provided on the form and a button, but no link. Instead, here is alternative text I would use in the confirmation email:

Hi ###submitter's first name###

Thank you for your participation in »contest name«. Please click on the button below to go to the confirmation page for your submittal(s).  By confirming, you will be able to do an extra check that your submittal was successful, and we will see that you have approved it.

You will receive an email like this only the first time you make submissions to this PollUnit.  However, you can return to the same confirmation page using this button at any time to confirm all submissions that have not yet been confirmed.

###CONFIRM button###

###publisher's name###

I think it's better not to include the form data in the email. When you click the button, you see both the option and the form data, so it’s not necessary to show the form data in the email. Participants may think they don’t need to confirm anything when they receive additional confirmation emails that show exactly the same form data.

The subject line should be improved also. I would also change the subject line for these emails from “Please confirm your information” to “Please confirm your submissions to »contest name«”. Your subject line sounds spammy to me. If the participant has participated in more than one PollUnit, it will help them find the right email later if needed if you put the PollUnit name in the subject line.

This was a lot more readable in my email!

The confirmation link needs to be sent by email because this is a double opt-in: clicking a link on the success page would confirm the submission, but it would not verify that the participant has access to the email address they entered.

Your point about setting expectations is helpful, though. Participants should know when to expect an email, what the button does, and what happens if they add more submissions later. I’ll review the success message, email text, and subject line with that in mind. I let you know if we have any updates on this topic.

One more thing I forgot to mention: if you’d like to clarify this for participants right away, you can add your own text to the thank-you page in the Advanced step. For example, you could explain when they’ll receive a confirmation email and what they need to do next.

I decided to turn off the Thank You page, but I’d have to look again to see why. I am requiring a PollUnit account for both submissions and voting this year so emails have already been verified for each participant.

I think I remember now why I didn’t want to use the Thank You page. It doesn’t have a back button or link back to the PollUnit so the participant is left wondering what to do next.

On the custom thank-you page, you can add a button with your own text and link. Many organizers use it to send participants to their website.

If you don’t set a custom button, participants will see a prominent »Share« button and a smaller »Go back« button. If you turn off »Show share dialog to participants« in the Advanced step, »Go back« becomes the prominent button instead.

If you’d like to keep the »Share« option and make »Back« primary, you could also set the custom button text to »Back« and link it to your contest. Participants would then see that button, with the smaller »Go back« button below it.

Thanks, I will try using the Thank You page with just the Go Back button. This is a private contest and I don't want anyone sharing it with non-members.

Correction! I was wrong about one detail: If someone has already confirmed their submissions and then submits another entry, they’ll receive a new confirmation email.

That makes sense to do it that way but I'm having a hard time trying to explain it.

I had AI rewrite something but the Thank You page is not very good for this purpose. Anything you put in it is center-aligned and that doesn't work well for this. I wanted to put the below text in it, actually with part of it formatted as a numbered list (steps). But it does not look right even without the numbers because it is all center-aligned. I'd include a screenshot here so you could see that if this forum supported that.

How to Confirm Your Submission(s)

Check Your Email: After submitting, you will receive an automated email from PollUnit.
Click "Confirm": Click the confirmation button inside the email to approve your submission.
Future Submissions: If you make more submissions later, you will get a new email. Clicking the link in any of your PollUnit emails will always bring you to a single page where you can approve all remaining pending items.

Confirming allows you to do an extra check that your submittal was successfully entered into the contest.

The Thank You page already confirms that the photo was submitted successfully. The double opt-in email serves a different purpose: it confirms that the participant has access to the email address they entered, much like a newsletter signup confirmation. It doesn’t provide additional assurance that the submission went through.

That’s why our default Thank You page keeps the message short: it confirms that the photo was added and reminds participants to check their email and the email tells them to follow the link to the confirmation page. If you don’t specifically need to verify participants’ email addresses, I wouldn’t recommend enabling double opt-in. It adds another step for them without helping to confirm that their submission was received.

The Thank You page is designed for a brief message, which is why its content is center-aligned. If you need to display longer instructions there, I can discuss whether we could add more layout options.