Assign Participants

Assigning participants is the process of placing people into specific locations, roles, or resources within your program. This is where you move from tracking attendance to coordinating who goes where.

Attendance answers “Are they coming?”
Assignments answer “Where do they go?”

How Assignments Work

Assignments are built around three core elements:

People – participants from a group
Places – destinations such as tables, rooms, or roles
Spots – available positions within each place

Each person is assigned to one spot within a place.

Before You Assign

To use assignments, your activity must include:

A Group – the people you will assign
A Section – the structure that defines places and spots

If these are not set, you will be guided through setup when opening the Assign tab.

Understanding Sections, Places, and Spots

Section – a collection of places (e.g. Dinner Tables)
Place – an individual unit (e.g. Table 1, Table 2)
Spots – how many people can be assigned to each place

For example:

Section: Dinner Tables
Place: Table 1
Spots: 8 seats

The Assign Screen

The Assign tab is divided into three areas:

Activities (left) – choose which activity to manage
Places (center) – assign people into spots
Unassigned People (right) – participants not yet placed

Unassigned people are grouped by status such as attending, waitlisted, or not attending.

Assign People to Places

To assign participants:

Drag and drop a person into a place
Or use the actions menu to move them to a place
You can select multiple people at once for faster assignment

Assigning changes attendance for waitlisted or not-attending people

You can drag an Attending person between places freely — that only moves their assignment. You can also drag a Waitlisted or Not Attending person into a place to seat them. Because that also changes their attendance, Eventene asks you to confirm first:

This participant is currently Waitlisted. Assigning them to a bucket will also change their attendance status to Attending. Continue?

If you confirm (and the activity has room), the person is assigned and set to Attending. A waitlisted person's waitlist position is cleared. Undecided people are not draggable and are unchanged by this work.

Removing someone from a place removes only the assignment — it does not change their attendance status.

Capacity is enforced

Assignments respect both the place's spots and the activity's attendance limit. If seating a person would exceed the activity's capacity, the assignment is rejected with a clear message — Eventene never overfills an activity, and it never creates a "Waitlisted + assigned" state. Free a spot or raise the limit, then try again. (Moving an already-Attending person between places is always fine — it doesn't add to the count.)

Use Filters to Focus Your Work

Filters allow you to narrow down the list of people you are assigning.

Filter by custom fields such as role or location
Combine filters to create more precise views

This helps you assign the right people efficiently.

Use Data to Guide Assignments

You can display additional information to help make assignment decisions:

Custom fields (e.g. role, neighborhood)
Question responses (e.g. meal preference)
Attendance status

This allows you to make informed placement decisions.

Assignments and Capacity

Assignments work together with attendance limits and waitlists:

Available spots reflect activity capacity
Waitlisted participants appear separately
Participants can be moved into assignments as spots open

Waitlist Movement can be Automatic or Manual, depending on your settings. Dragging a waitlisted person into a place is one way to promote them manually. For how waitlists, capacity, and promotion work — including which promotions send an email — see Waitlists and Waitlist Movement.

Editing Assignments Until the Event Is Archived

Assignments stay fully editable for as long as the event is active — including after an activity's date has passed. This lets you fix seating, fill late spots, and reconcile no-shows after the fact.

Once the event is archived, the Assign screen becomes read-only: you can still view assignments, but you can no longer change them.

View Assignments in Track

Assignments are also visible in the Track section:

See each participant’s assigned place
View assignments by place or by person
Export assignment data for reporting

You can also assign people directly from Track using multi-select actions.

Tips for Using Assignments

Set up your sections and spots before assigning
Use filters to work with specific groups
Leverage question responses to guide placement
Review assignments regularly as responses change