Auto-Match Roommates

(Event) > (Plan) > Accommodation > Roommates

The Auto-Match Roomates page has these three sections, described below: Summary, Auto-Match, and Roommate Matching Preferences.

Summary

The Summary section contains a non-editable table with these rows:

• Shared Rooms (matched) – Total number of registrants who are sharing a room and have a roommate

• Shared Rooms (not matched) – Total number of registrants who are sharing a room but don't have a roommate

• Shared Rooms (match pending) – Total number of registrants who are sharing a room and have a pending roommate assignment. This row only shows if the Pending tab is visible (i.e., there are one or more matches pending.)

• Single Rooms (not shared) – Total number of registrants with a room reservation who are not sharing

• No Room Needed – Total number of registrants who don't need a room

• Total Complete Registrations – Total of all above. Note that this total excludes pending, denied, and cancelled registrations.

Technical note: The system calculates the values for each row based on each complete registration's "Primary Room Reservation"; defined as the first non-cancelled room reservation in each registration record based on date created (i.e., the same room reservation that is required to have Guest 1 Name = Registrant Name).

Auto-Match

The Auto-Match section enables planners to initiate Certain's automatic roommate matching feature.

• Re-do auto-match – If this check box is selected and the AUTO-MATCH button is clicked, all existing matches are broken and all registrants are re-matched. The check box default option is "not selected."

• AUTO-MATCH – Click the AUTO-MATCH button to automatically match roommates based on the preferences in the next section
  .
  The processing page is displayed while the auto-match completes. The spinning arrow icon indicates that the process is running. This page also lists the match criteria for the event.

After the auto-match is finished processing, the Information icon appears in the upper right corner of the page. When the user clicks the icon, the message "Roommate matching has completed" is displayed.

See these other Accommodation pages for the results:

Matched – Room reservations that are being shared and have been matched.

No Match – Room reservations that are being shared and have not been matched.

Tip – When Manually Matching Roommates

To match two or more specific people to a room (especially useful when you have 250 or more unmatched registrants):

1. Run AUTO-MATCH; this will reduce the number of people in the No Match tab.

2. Find the people in the Matched tab and break the existing auto-match.

3. Using the No Match tab, pair the desired roommates together.

Roommate Matching Preferences

This section enables you to set the criteria for the Roommate selection process.

• Registrant can select roommate from a drop-down list – If selected, forms display a drop-down list of roommates.

• Registrant can provide a roommate request – If selected, forms display a text box in which the attendee can enter a roommate name, and the Matched Roommates page includes a Roommate Request column in its list of matches.

• Priority/ Data Fields/ Conditions – The preferences set here restrict which attendees can be matched to each other. You can use up to 6 data fields, each with conditions of "Equal" (i.e., values must be the same for a match to be made ) or "Not Equal" (i.e. the values must be different).
  
  For instance, planners commonly wish to match attendees' gender and smoking preferences, but may wish to set additional criteria, such as stipulating that roommates must eb form the same organization.
  
  Existing fields are organized in opt groups: Standard Registration Fields, Standard Profile Fields, Roommate Data Fields, Custom Profile Data Fields, and Custom Registration Data Fields.

• Required – If selected, then the values of this field are required to match for all roommates sharing a single room. (Otherwise, the system will try to match the values of this field for all roommates in the room, but if it cannot match them then it will still put the roommates together, rather than having two people in two separate rooms.)
  
  An example of required matched fields is for "Gender" to be "Equal", while an example of optional match fields could be for "Office" to be "Not Equal". This means that if you place all roommates in rooms and have two people left, one male and one female, then these last two people will each be put in their own room. Conversely, if the auto-match results in two males left from the same Office (e.g., San Francisco), the system will go ahead and put them together even though it tried to pair roommates from different offices, rather than use two rooms for the last two people.

The default selections in this section are:

(1) Gender to be Equal, Match Required;

(2) Smoking Preference to be Equal, Match not Required;

(3) Roommate Arrival (date) to be Equal, Match not Required;

(4) Roommate Departure (date) to be Equal, Match not Required.

When you have made your preference selections, Save your settings.

Best Practices

Choose the registrant data fields that will be used to (1) insure a compatible match in Roommate Matching, and (2) filter out incompatible roommate options from the drop-down list in the accommodation section of a registration form. (Note: The system will only allow registrants to be matched who have selected the same hotel room type—you don't need to select room type here.)

These Matching Preferences will only be used to insure compatible roommates. If you also want one or more of these fields to be shown to the registrant during registration (for example, for them to select their gender), you must also add those fields to the form. You can do this either in form:profile, or by adding it to the list of required fields in Forms > Accommodations. For example: "Require Gender be Equal" instructs the system to only allow registrants who have the same gender to share the same room. Some planners may wish to force people from different geographic locations to room together so that participants make new acquaintances.

Each form, however, can be configured separately to collect different sets of information from attendees to enable them to control their roommate selection process. Keep in mind that if you specify a preference here then it is a good idea to collect that information on the registration form. Room Sharing and Roommate Matching-specific preferences for data collection on the form are configured on the Plan > Forms > Accommodations page.