Running introductions at your event

Open Events and press New event. Paste the event's own web page and press Build my event. NetworkOS reads the page and drafts the name, dates, time zone, venue, segments, logo and colors. Press Change a detail to fix anything, then Looks right, add the attendees. That saves the event as a draft, which nobody else can see yet.

Check the time zone before you move on. It comes from the venue, and when the page names no venue it falls back to your calendar or to UTC. Reminders, the follow-up and the dates in every email use it. With no web page, fill the fields in by hand.

On the Attendees tab, drop the organizer's CSV export. The columns map themselves: NetworkOS matches the file's headings to email, name, company, title, segment, LinkedIn URL, booth, about and looking to meet, and shows you the first row so you can check. Email is the only column that must be there. Confirm and import.

When the organizer sends a newer export, drop it in the same place. The saved mapping is reused and people are matched by email: new people are added, changed rows are updated, unchanged rows are skipped, and anyone missing from the new file is withdrawn. They come back if a later file has them. One import runs at a time, and the beta is for lists under 1,000 attendees.

After each import NetworkOS builds a short profile for each attendee so matching works. The Building profiles card shows its progress and says when it pauses at the profile building cap in Settings.

Settings holds the price per introduction. It starts at $100 and can be $0 or anything from $10 up, with an optional discount. Each segment (attendee, exhibitor, speaker) can carry its own price and its own number of open requests.

• The first introduction is free. Each person's first introduction at the event costs nothing. It is on by default.
• A card goes on file before a request can be billed. An attendee in a priced segment saves a card before their first request, even when that request will be free. The charge happens when the introduction email is sent, never at the request.
• No reply in seven days, no charge. If the person asked never replies in the introduction thread within seven days, the payer is refunded in full.
• The organizer share is 40 percent. It shows on the Billing tab and is not a Settings field.

On the Attendees tab, Who can ask for introductions turns each segment on or off. Everyone on the list can still be found; only the segments that can ask are invited. By default, introductions between two exhibitors are not billed.

First connect the inbox that sends, under Settings, Sending inbox: a Google Workspace or Microsoft mailbox named for the event, with permission to send. Then press Go live at the top right of the event. Going live is one way, from draft to live.

Until the event is live, the attendee page shows nothing and no invitation can go. The attendee page address can change only until the first invitation goes out.

Press Invite on the Attendees tab. Read the email, use Preview as to see it as one real attendee, and press Send invitations. Every invitation goes from your own event inbox, under your name, and shows each person three people at the event who match what they are looking to meet, with a link to see the rest.

Four days after the invitation, anyone who has not signed in gets one reminder. In the week before the show, people who signed in but have not asked for anyone get a nudge with new people to meet. If the inbox has a problem, sending stops and the panel says why; fix the inbox and press Send again. Nothing is sent after requests close.

Requests land on the Requests tab, and the tab shows how many are waiting. Check it at least once a business day, and the same day during event week.

• Approve opens the drafted consent email. Edit it if you like, then send. It goes to the person asked, names the requester, and has Yes and No buttons.
• Decline sends nothing. The requester is told only that it did not go ahead.
• After a yes, the requester is asked to confirm, now seeing the other person's name, title and company. Once they confirm, one introduction email goes out to both.

When two people asked for each other, the card says so and Introduce sends the introduction straight away. A consent email with no answer gets reminders and then expires, and the requester hears once that it closed. The day after the event, both sides are asked whether they met.

Every invitation, reminder and nudge has a link to stop the emails. When an attendee uses it:

• They are signed out and no event email goes to them again.
• The requests they made are withdrawn.
• Requests from others to meet them are closed. Those requesters see that it did not go ahead, with no email.
• Any introduction that had not gone out yet is closed, so a late Yes finds nothing to act on. Introductions already sent stay as they are.

In the queue, a request closed this way reads Closed: opted out and has no buttons.

The Billing tab shows what was billed and collected, the organizer share, how many attendees have a card on file, and the ledger with one row per introduction, with a CSV export. On the 10th, every coordinator and viewer gets a statement for the previous month when the event had a charge or a credit in it, and the page, the export and the statement agree.

The Overview tab is the report: invited, signed in, requests, yeses and introductions made, who was asked for most, and what happened lately. Every coordinator and viewer also gets a summary by email on Mondays while the event is live.

• Title and company, not names. By default, matches and search results show title and company until an introduction is agreed. A name appears only in the consent and introduction emails, and contact details are never shown.
• Sign in by one link. There is no password. The invitation carries a sign-in link, and the attendee page sends a fresh one to anyone on the list.
• A cap on open requests. By default, attendees and speakers can have ten requests open at once and exhibitors five; you can change it per segment in Settings. A declined, withdrawn or finished request frees a place, and a request can be withdrawn until you act on it.

Attendees can also search the list a set number of times a day, save a card and set a spending cap on their billing page, and stop the emails at any time.

Send this walkthrough to anyone on the list who asks how it works: it follows one attendee from the invitation through a search, a request and the introduction email.

Making introductions · Settings & billing · Privacy & your data