Setting up a research newsletter means tracking the published output of specific researchers. That requires knowing their unique identifiers on platforms like ORCID and OpenAlex — two of the most widely used open platforms for identifying researchers and their scholarly output. Historically, this meant manually searching each platform, cross-referencing affiliations, and copy-pasting IDs one at a time.

The Author Wizard in Collate eliminates that friction.

From the admin panel, open the Wizard tab under Sources. Enter researcher names — one per line or comma-separated — and click Run Wizard. You can also paste URLs to faculty listing pages, and the wizard will extract names automatically.

The wizard searches both ORCID and OpenAlex simultaneously, streaming results back in real time so you can see progress as each researcher is looked up. For each name, it returns candidate profiles showing:

• Profile name and which platform it was found on (ORCID or OpenAlex)
• Affiliations — institutional associations listed on the profile
• Works count — how many publications are on record
• A direct link to view the full profile on the source platform

If your newsletter has an affiliation set in Settings, the wizard uses it to rank and filter candidates, surfacing the most relevant matches first.

Each result has an Add button that immediately links the researcher to your newsletter. ORCID IDs are added to your ORCID source list; OpenAlex authors are added to your OpenAlex source list. No switching between panels, no copying IDs. If you add someone by mistake, click Remove to unlink them just as quickly.

Researchers already linked to your newsletter are marked with a "linked" badge so you can see at a glance who is already being tracked.

The wizard is especially useful when:

• Setting up a new newsletter and you need to add a whole department or research group at once
• Onboarding new researchers who have joined a lab or institution
• Auditing coverage to check whether all members of a team are being tracked

Once researchers are linked, the metadata bot automatically discovers their new publications and queues them for your next newsletter issue — no further action needed.

Log into your newsletter admin panel, navigate to the Wizard tab, and enter some names. The whole process — from entering a list of researchers to having them fully linked and tracked — takes seconds instead of the minutes it used to require per person.

The wizard searches for names exactly as entered, so "Dave" and "David" are treated as separate lookups. If a researcher publishes under a name variant or abbreviation, you may need to enter both forms to ensure you find the right profile.

As a newsletter administrator on Collate, you have several dials you can adjust, like knobs on a control panel, to achieve the ideal rhythm for sharing your research unit's work.

What is the best way to set your newsletter's length, consistency, and regularity? Let's dive in.

Before adjusting any settings, however, it's important to consider the size and output rate of your specific research unit. This depends on the number of ORCID or researcher IDs connected to your newsletter, the publication frequency of those researchers, and disciplinary variations in publication patterns. Different units have different profiles: you might have a small number of highly prolific researchers, or a large team with relatively lower individual publication rates. Additionally, metadata completeness and accuracy can vary significantly across disciplines.

You have three main controls: newsletter frequency (weekly or monthly), minimum article threshold required to trigger a newsletter, and maximum articles per issue. These knobs can be adjusted to create different configuration strategies tailored to your needs. For instance, you might configure a monthly newsletter with a high maximum article count to capture virtually everything your unit publishes each month. While this ensures complete coverage of research outputs, it may potentially overwhelm readers, and large issues could reduce long-term engagement.

Alternatively, you could set up a dynamic weekly update with a minimum threshold of, say, three articles. In this scenario, the system checks weekly but only sends when the threshold is met, with articles below the threshold banked for the next issue. This approach provides more frequent, manageable updates that maintain reader engagement, though the delivery schedule becomes somewhat irregular. For those seeking maximum consistency, setting both minimum and maximum thresholds to the same number ensures every newsletter contains exactly the same number of articles. This creates a predictable, consistent reader experience that's ideal for mid-sized departments, though it may delay sharing some content.

When adding custom content to newsletters, the system will always include as many available research articles as possible up to your maximum setting. It's also worth remembering that Collate maintains a complete calendar-based archive of publications, which provides flexibility beyond your newsletter schedule. Your strategic approach should align with your goals: for up-to-the-minute coverage, use weekly frequency with a low minimum threshold; for comprehensive roundups, use monthly frequency with a high maximum threshold. Ultimately, the most important consideration is your audience and what delivery pattern would serve them best. The flexibility of Collate allows you to experiment and refine your approach as you go.