We hold regular monthly events with around 50-80 attendees. At the beginning of each event our attendees fill out a sheet with the following data:
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Company
  • If they are an executive
  • If they are an executive, they can select if they prefer to sit with executives only (Yes) or they can choose (No) to be able to sit with the other groups
  • They give themselves a proficiency score (from 1-5) on the topic to be discussed that day
  • They give themselves a proficiency score (1-5) on the overall industry
  • We use the self-assessed scores to calculate an overall score that ranges from (1-3)
I am trying to figure out how to automate how many tables will be required, and to automate the seating assignments for each meeting based on the following criteria:
  1. If they answered YES that they are an Executive and YES that they only want to sit with executives, they will be placed at the executive table/s
  2. The maximum that can sit at any given table is 10
  3. We want to try to distribute the executives that want to sit with executives evenly based on their calculated total score, so that 1's,2's,and 3's are as evenly distributed as possible.
  4. We want to try to distribute the the remaining groups (non-executive tables) evenly based on their calculated total score, so that 1's,2's,and 3's are as evenly distributed as possible.
  5. We would like to try to avoid people from the same company sitting at the same table (This is the lowest priority)
I would like to automate this workbook to take the list and determine the number of tables needed (specifying executive-only, and non-executive-only), and to distribute the attendees to those specific tables based on the above mentioned criteria. We take the lists and project them on a screen to show the attendees which table to join. I will attach the workbook with some of my thoughts and what we have been using to perform this manually. Copy of Chapter Meeting Seating Calculator.xlsm