📖 user-guide

Speaker Self-Service Portal

Enable speakers to respond to invitations, submit content, and track their participation — using their BATbern account

Last updated: June 13, 2026 Reading time: 6 minutes File size: 6.96 KB

Implemented — Epic 6 (Stories 6.0–6.5) + Epic 11 Cognito auth refactor (Stories 11.E.3, 11.F.1, 11.G.1)

Last Updated: 2026-06-13

Overview

The Speaker Self-Service Portal lets invited speakers manage their participation through the same AWS Cognito account they use for the rest of the BATbern app — there is no separate speaker login, and no magic-link tokens. Speakers sign in with email + password or “Continue with Google”, then accept/decline invitations, submit their presentation content, upload materials, manage their company’s public footprint, and view their upcoming and past engagements from a single dashboard.

For organizers, the portal automates the most time-consuming parts of speaker coordination: chasing responses, collecting abstracts, and sending deadline reminders.

ℹ️ Authentication changed in Epic 11. The original magic-link login (Epic 6) was fully removed (Story 11.F.1). Speakers now authenticate via AWS Cognito like every other role. A Cognito account is auto-provisioned the moment an organizer promotes a speaker to the READY state, and an invitation email with login credentials (DE/EN) is sent. Any older description of "magic links" is stale.

How It Works

Organizer identifies the real speaker and promotes them to READY
         ↓
Cognito account auto-provisioned (SPEAKER role granted)
         ↓
Organizer sends the invitation  (status → INVITED)
         ↓
Speaker receives email with:
  • A login link to www.batbern.ch
  • A temporary password (first-login password change required)
         ↓
Speaker signs in (email + password, OR "Continue with Google")
         ↓
Speaker lands on /speaker-portal/dashboard, sees their event(s)
         ↓
Speaker Accepts the invitation         (status → ACCEPTED)
         ↓
Speaker submits title, abstract, materials  (status → CONTENT_SUBMITTED)
         ↓
Moderator reviews content (Phase C Quality Review)  (status → QUALITY_REVIEWED)
         ↓
Speaker is publishable once content is reviewed AND a slot is assigned

Authentication (Cognito)

Speakers log in exactly like organizers, partners, and attendees:

Method Notes
Email + password Credentials issued in the invitation email. Cognito forces a password change on first login (FORCE_CHANGE_PASSWORD → CONFIRMED).
“Continue with Google” If the speaker’s Google account matches their invited email, federated login (Epic 12) links transparently.
  • Account provisioning happens at CONTACTED → READY — the /promote transition creates (or links) the User, provisions the Cognito user, grants the SPEAKER role, and creates the primary session row.
  • No tokens in URLs. Portal pages live behind the standard logged-in session (<SpeakerRoute> guard). The event a page acts on is identified by an eventCode in the URL path (e.g. /speaker-portal/events/{eventCode}/content), never a ?token= query parameter.
  • Multi-role users (e.g. speaker who is also an organizer) get a single session with grouped navigation — the nav menu shows a “Speaker” section and an “Organizer” section, and switching between portals requires no re-authentication.

Speaker Portal Sections

Section What Speakers Can Do
Invitation & Response Accept or decline an invitation
Content Submission Submit title, abstract, presentation file
Speaker Dashboard View upcoming engagements, deadlines, past events; manage profile + company info

The 8-State Speaker Workflow

The portal surfaces the speaker’s current state in the unified 8-state workflow (ADR-009). Organizers drive the early states; speakers act on the portal-facing states.

State Meaning Who acts
IDENTIFIED Name on the brainstorm list; no account yet Organizer
CONTACTED Organizer reaching out to figure out who will actually speak Organizer
READY Real speaker identified — Cognito account + SPEAKER role provisioned here Organizer (/promote)
INVITED Invitation email (login link + temp password) sent Organizer → Speaker
ACCEPTED Speaker committed via the portal Speaker
CONTENT_SUBMITTED Title + abstract submitted Speaker (or organizer on behalf)
QUALITY_REVIEWED Moderator approved content (quasi-terminal happy state) Moderator
DECLINED Single terminal “not happening” state, reachable from any non-terminal state Speaker or Organizer

Note on “Confirmed”: the legacy CONFIRMED state was removed in Epic 11. A speaker is publishable when QUALITY_REVIEWED AND a slot is assigned (is_publishable). The dashboard surfaces this as “Confirmed / Publishable”.

What Organizers Set Up

Before speakers can use the portal, organizers must:

  1. Promote the speaker to READY — provisions the Cognito account and grants the SPEAKER role (Phase A/B).
  2. Send the invitation — triggers the invitation email with login credentials (status → INVITED, Phase B: Outreach).
  3. Set deadlines — response deadline and content submission deadline (configured when sending).

Once sent, the portal handles the rest. See Phase B: Outreach for the organizer workflow.

Automated Deadline Reminders

The system sends automatic reminder emails when speaker deadlines approach:

Tier Timing Tone
Tier 1 — Friendly 14 days before deadline Informational
Tier 2 — Urgent 7 days before deadline Action required
Tier 3 — Final 3 days before deadline Final warning

Reminders are skipped if the speaker has already responded or submitted content. After Tier 3, an in-app notification is created for the organizer.

Organizers can disable automated reminders per speaker, or trigger a manual reminder at any time from the Phase B Kanban board. Reminder emails link to the standard login page — the speaker signs in with their existing Cognito account.

Accessibility & Language

  • WCAG 2.1 AA compliant (keyboard navigation, ARIA labels, colour contrast, 44px touch targets) — the dashboard passed QA at 98/100.
  • German and English — all portal screens and emails available in both languages (the full UI is localised in all 10 supported locales).
  • Mobile responsive — minimum 375px viewport.