Seating Plan

Hi 9krk2,

welcome to the forum.

what is criteria for the seating arrangement ? can you explain more ?


Regards,
DILIPandey
<click on below * if this helps>

Seating Problem.xlsxSeating Problem.xlsxHey,

Basically, there are individuals from various cities attending a conference, some of these individuals are competitors and thus can't sit at the same table. I am looking for a formula to crete 10 random groups, each of six people while keeping these individuals apart. I have attached a much simplified version of my problem to this reply.

Here is my solution, but I am guessing there will be a few posted here.
I kept my formulas in, but columns P:R show one solution, but you would have to manually add in the Toronto and Paris individuals.

Figured that might be the case. Can you either list here, or upload a spreadsheet, with ALL of the possible Locations, and who can not sit with who?

This is not LITERALLY random. I grouped Rowley and US Fuels in group 1, Petro Canada and Saudi Oil in group 3, and the rest in group 2. This is how I made sure your conditions were met, but a side effect of this is that Rowley could not be grouped with Saudi Oil, and Petro-Canada could not be grouped with US Fuels. Hopefully that is okay and this is close enough to random for you.

Step #1 - Add column E, which is merely a lookup that assigns the appropriate group number listed in column J.
Step #2 - Add column F, by using the "=RAND()" function to give a random number to each individual. "Copy" and "Paste Special - Values" to get rid of the formula.
Step #3 - Sort by Column E, then by column F.
Step #4 - Add Column G, by putting "A" in the first 30 in the list, and "B" in the last 30.
Step #5 - Sort by Column G, then by column F
Step #6 - Put the numbers 1-60 in column A to assign a seat #

The lookup function in columns O:Q should group the entries into groups of 6, while making sure your criteria are met.

This is obviously not OVERLY user friendly, but I don't see how it can be. Hopefully you can wrap your head around the steps, and this will work.