Introducing Matchboard: Forming smarter groups
Group your attendees based on what actually brings them together—shared sessions, not vague interests.
Virtual events thrive when people feel seen, heard, and connected. But how do you spark that feeling in a room full of strangers? Enter the Matchboard, a Google Sheets script that turns session preferences and basic demographics into breakout room gold. Instead of relying on generic interest tags like “researcher” or “practitioner” (often too broad to be useful), the Matchboard uses what really works: session selection. Research shows that choosing the same sessions is a much better indicator of shared interest than picking from a list of pre-written “interest areas.” With the Matchboard, you can group participants based on the sessions they plan to attend or have already experienced. (It can actually group participants using any multiple-choice survey questions.)
The Matchboard uses survey data to instantly group participants into small groups of any size.
Here’s how it works:
Before your event, create a simple Google Form asking attendees to select 3–5 sessions they’re most interested in (from a list of about 15 options).
During the event, have participants spend a few minutes filling it out.
After that, copy the Form responses into the Matchboard and run the script.
In seconds, the Matchboard will sort everyone into small groups based on overlapping session picks—and you can customize grouping by region or other fields too.
Share a view-only link to the Matchboard so each attendee can find their name and group/room number.
Open your breakout rooms and let the magic happen.
Each group will have shared context to launch meaningful conversations. You might prompt them with:
“What drew you to these sessions?”
“What are you hoping to learn or take away?”
“If you’ve already attended, what stuck with you?”
The Matchboard even formats the session lists for easy readability—so nobody’s squinting at their screen trying to decode abbreviations.
Whether you’re hosting a 20-person brainstorm or a 200-person networking event, the Matchboard makes it easy to build instant micro-communities inside your virtual gathering. Contact us to use the Matchboard at your upcoming event.
Josh Gutwill and Sue Allen are the Co-Directors of the Clean Conferencing Institute. If you’d like to support the non-profit Clean Conferencing Institute, please consider clicking on the Donate button at the top of the page.