The New Topcoder Review Flow

As part of our continued modernization of the Topcoder platform, we are introducing a new and improved Topcoder Review application. This update replaces the decades-old Online Review application and brings a more user-friendly experience for submitters, copilots, reviewers, and project managers.

Online Review Is Being Retired

The legacy Online Review system is being permanently retired. Once this change is complete (November 2, 2025), all existing Online Review links will no longer be accessible. Online Review is written in Java, and while it has recently been updated to run with more modern JSP and Servlet technology, is still very out-dated and difficult to maintain. It also relies on direct Informix access, and we are deprecating our Informix database entirely, in favour of Postgres running on AWS RDS.

Because of this change new challenges will no longer receive the eight-digit legacy IDs that were previously used by the the legacy apps. All new challenges will instead use a single UUID (Universally Unique Identifier).
Existing legacy challenges and their reviews will remain available under their current identifiers, but all new work will use the new format going forward.

The New Review Application

The new Review application is available now at review.topcoder.com.

You can access a specific challenge directly by visiting:
https://review.topcoder.com/{challengeId}

If you visit review.topcoder.com without a challenge ID, you’ll see a list of all your active challenges, along with the current phase, time remaining, and clear indicators for any late phases, which are highlighted in red.

Familiar Review Experience with Modern Enhancements
The new Review app preserves the familiar workflow from Online Review — including the same scorecards, evaluation structure, and overall process — while introducing several important improvements.

Markdown Support for Comments
All review comments, appeals, and appeals responses are now stored and rendered in Markdown format.
This allows for improved formatting, including headings, bullet points, code blocks, and hyperlinks.

Files can also be dragged and dropped directly into the Markdown editor, eliminating the need for external file storage. From now on, all review artifacts will be securely stored and accessible within the Topcoder platform itself.

The Challenge Details Page

Clicking any challenge in the Review app opens the Challenge Details page.
This page provides a clear overview of:

• The timeline and current phase statuses

• Access to reviews, appeals, and appeals responses for completed challenges

• Direct links to submissions and review results

The layout is streamlined to make navigation between submissions, scorecards, and phase information faster and more intuitive.

Role-Based Capabilities

For Copilots
Copilots will have additional control and visibility within the new Review app:

• The ability to open, close, and extend phases directly from the Timeline section

• The ability to view payments associated with a challenge

For auditing and security reasons, payment edits are now restricted to Topcoder support staff.

For Submitters
Submitters will see only their own submissions while a challenge is active.
After the challenge completes:

• If a submitter has a passing submission, they will be able to download other submissions and view their associated reviews, similar to the previous Online Review functionality.

This approach ensures both transparency and fairness throughout the competition process, while also still allowing submitters to learn from other submissions and reviews.

Questions / Discussion

Please see here for the forums discussion around this new app.