Getting started with GroupMixer

What GroupMixer needs

A scenario has three basic parts:

• People are the participants who may be assigned.
• Groups are the rooms, tables, teams, or stations available in each session.
• Sessions are the rounds or periods GroupMixer schedules.

Start with the decisions that are already real. Confirm who is attending, how many groups can operate, and whether each group has a capacity limit. Avoid adding attributes or preferences merely because the controls are available.

GroupMixer can evaluate the rules and targets you enter. It cannot know whether a room is inaccessible, two participants have an undisclosed conflict, or a transition is physically impractical. Review the schedule in its real setting before publishing it.

Generate a first schedule

1. Enter the participants. Paste or type one participant per row. Use import or example data only when you understand what it will replace or add.
2. Choose a group count or approximate group size. Check the displayed People, Groups, and Approx. size summary. If groups have different hard capacities, move to the Scenario Editor.
3. Set the number of sessions. One session creates one assignment for each attending participant. Multiple sessions let GroupMixer evaluate encounters across rounds.
4. Add only necessary common rules. Quick Setup can keep people together, avoid pairings, pin people to groups, distribute attributes, and reduce repeat pairings. Leave an option off when it does not express a real requirement.
5. Generate groups. GroupMixer validates the setup before solving. If it reports that the scenario needs changes, read the first reported issue and the remaining issue count, then correct the named capacity, reference, assignment, or constraint instead of repeatedly running the same invalid setup.
6. Review the result. Check every session roster, assigned count, and capacity. For multiple sessions, inspect pair-meeting evidence and any constraint-compliance information—not only the headline score.
7. Know where the work is stored. The normal landing-page Quick Setup creates or uses a saved workspace in this browser once local persistence is ready. Shared links and isolated guide examples have separate temporary or example behavior. Saved results are useful for revisiting runs in the same browser, but they are not a substitute for reviewing or exporting the final schedule.

Know what success looks like

A usable result should answer all of these questions:

• Is every attending participant assigned once in each session they can attend?
• Does every group stay within its capacity?
• Are mandatory fixed, together, and apart rules satisfied?
• Which weighted preferences have deviations?
• Are repeated encounters acceptable for this event?
• Can facilitators operate the transitions and room assignments shown?

A lower Cost Score means the solver found a cheaper result under the configured scoring model. It does not mean the schedule is automatically fair, safe, or practical.

When the setup becomes more specific

Use the Scenario Editor when you need named groups with different capacities, participant availability, session-scoped rules, advanced preferences such as Group Visits, or direct control over solver objectives. Read Quick Setup or Scenario Editor? before transferring a complex setup.

When the scenario is ready, run and improve a solve, then use Understand results to decide whether the output is ready to use.