There are two ways to split submissions between reviewers in Dapple, and neither needs extra stages or Review Rounds. Most teams do it by hand: filter the submissions list, select a group of submissions and bulk assign them to one reviewer, then repeat for the next reviewer. To split submissions automatically as they come in, turn on automatic sending in the Review Round and choose Share them out — Dapple drip-feeds each new submission to the reviewer pool and balances the workload.
Which method should I use?
| Filter and bulk assign (most common) | Share them out automatically |
How it works | You choose which submissions each reviewer gets | Dapple spreads submissions across a reviewer pool |
When submissions are sent | Whenever you assign them — usually after entries close | As each submission reaches the stage |
Best for | Awards, prizes and any call where you allocate after the deadline, or need to match submissions to the right judge | Rolling open calls where reviewers should get submissions as they arrive |
Automatic sending | Off | On |
How do I split submissions manually in Dapple?
Filter the submissions list into groups, then bulk assign each group to a reviewer.
Make sure the stage has a Review Round, with automatic sending off.
Open the submissions list and filter it to the submissions you want to share out — by stage, category, tag or any form field.
Select the first group of submissions for one reviewer.
Bulk assign them to the Review Round and choose that reviewer.
Select the next group and assign it to the next reviewer.
Repeat until every submission is assigned.
For example, with 100 submissions and 4 reviewers, select 25 and assign them to the first reviewer, then the next 25 to the second, and so on.
To have every submission reviewed by two people, assign each group to two reviewers, or assign the same group to a second reviewer afterwards.
Filters let you match submissions to the right judge — for example, fiction entries to your fiction specialists and poetry entries to your poets. Tag submissions by category first if your form doesn't already capture it.
See How to Send Submissions for Review in Dapple for the assigning steps in full.
How do I split submissions automatically as they come in?
Use Share them out to drip-feed submissions to a reviewer pool.
Open the Review Round's settings (or create one) and go to the Reviewers step.
Turn on Send automatically when a submission reaches this stage.
Choose Share them out.
Add your reviewers to the Reviewer pool.
Set Send each submission to … reviewers from this pool.
Save. From now on, each submission that reaches the stage goes to the next reviewer(s) in the pool.
Submissions | Reviewers in pool | Reviewers per submission | Each reviewer gets |
100 | 5 | 1 | 20 |
100 | 5 | 2 | 40 |
100 | 8 | 2 | 25 |
Set the number of reviewers per submission to at least the round's minimum review count, so every submission can complete.
How do I check the split is even?
Reviewers section (left-hand navigation): one row per reviewer, with completed, started and not-started counts.
Assigned Reviewers column in the submissions list: who's reviewing each submission.
Stats in the Review Round: progress for the round as a whole.
Best practice for splitting submissions
Assign by hand unless you need submissions to reach reviewers as they arrive.
Tag or categorise submissions before you start assigning.
Keep groups roughly the same size, unless some reviewers have more time.
Use the Assigned Reviewers column to check nothing has been missed.
Give every reviewer the same due date.
Decide the split before reviews start — moving submissions between reviewers mid-round creates duplicate or conflicting feedback.