# Sortround, full text > People rank workshops or electives by link, you press Solve, and every room stays inside its capacity. First choices go furthest, ties by lottery. Every public page of https://sortround.com, as Markdown, in sitemap order. Built from the exported pages at build time. The short index is https://sortround.com/llms.txt. --- # Ranked-choice placement for workshops, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > People rank workshops or electives by link, you press Solve, and every room stays inside its capacity. First choices go furthest, ties by lottery. For elective days, conference breakouts and camp activity blocks ## Everyone ranks. You press Solve. Rooms stay inside capacity. Share one link. People rank the sessions, you press Solve in your browser, and Sortround places as many people as it can in their first choice, then their second, inside every room size and your locks. 71 percent first choice, 240 people, 12 sessions - **1st choice** 170 - **2nd choice** 46 - **3rd choice** 15 - **4th choice** 4 - **Unranked** 3 - **No place** 2 An example round. Counts, not grades: the view reports what Solve did. ### Three steps 1. **Set up the round.** Add the sessions with their room sizes, then the people: type the names and print code slips, or in adult mode let people join by the link themselves. 2. **Everyone ranks.** Each person opens the link, enters their code and puts the sessions in order: first choice at the top. No account, no email. 3. **Solve and publish.** The fairness view shows how many got each choice and how full each room is. Publish, and each person sees only their own place. Rosters print per session. The rule Solve follows, with worked examples, is on [how Sortround works](https://sortround.com/how-it-works/). What is stored, and for how long, is on the [privacy page](https://sortround.com/privacy/). The [FAQ](https://sortround.com/faq/) covers ties, locks, late joiners and rounds. --- # How Solve places people, with worked examples, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/how-it-works/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > The placement rule Sortround follows: the lottery number, locks, people already told, first choices before second, rounds and re-solves. ## How Solve places people In short: Sortround places as many people as it can in their first choice, then their second, inside room sizes and your locks, using the rule on this page. Equal cases are settled by the event's lottery number. Last updated 28 October 2026 ### The rules, in the order you meet them 1. **Who and what is counted.** Every person on the list who has not been withdrawn, and every session of the round in the order you set. A session with capacity 0 is closed: nobody is placed in it. A ranking keeps only sessions that still exist and are open, at most the number of choices the event asks for. 2. **The lottery order.** Each event has a lottery number, shown as 8 characters on the Solve tab. It shuffles the list of people into one fixed order. That order only matters when two answers are equally good: then the person earlier in it is served first. New lottery changes the number and nothing else. 3. **Fixed places come first.** A locked place is always kept. A place you have published is kept too, unless you allow moves. Each fixed place takes one seat. If a session has more fixed places than seats, Solve stops and says so, for example "Robotics has 31 fixed places and capacity 30". 4. **Rounds.** With more than one round, rounds are solved in order. A session with the same title in two rounds is the same workshop, and nobody is placed in a workshop they already hold in an earlier round. 5. **What counts as better.** In this order: (a) more people placed; (b) then fewer people moved from a place they were told, when moves are allowed; (c) then more first choices; (d) then more second choices, and so on; (e) then fewer people in a session they did not rank. When you switch off "place people in sessions they did not rank", nobody is. 6. **How it is found.** Solve treats the round as a network from people to sessions, with each room's free seats as its size, and adds one person at a time along the cheapest route by the order in rule 5 (successive shortest paths). When no route is left, the result is the best possible by that order. It runs in your browser; the server checks the answer (capacities, locks, published places, each person once, real choices) before it saves it. 7. **No place yet.** Anyone who cannot be placed is listed as "No place yet" for you to place by hand. Placing someone by hand never publishes it by itself. 8. **Re-solving.** Late joiners and changed rankings of people not yet told are solved again. People already told keep their place. With moves allowed, Solve moves as few of them as it can, lists who moved, and you publish the round again to tell them. ### Worked example Sessions A (2 seats), B (1 seat) and C (1 seat). Four people, P1 to P4 in lottery order. P1 ranks A, B, C. P2 ranks A, C, B. P3 ranks A, B, C. P4 ranks B, A, C. Result: P1 A, P2 C, P3 A, P4 B. Three first choices and one second. P1, P2 and P3 all put A first and A has 2 seats; P2 is the one given a second choice because P2's second choice (C) has room, while P3's (B) is P4's first choice. #### First choice is not first come, first served X and Y, one seat each. P1 ranks X then Y. P2 ranks only X. Solve gives X to P2 and Y to P1: 1 first choice and 1 second, rather than leaving P2 in a session they did not rank. #### A lock The first example with P4 locked to A: P4 A, P1 A, P2 C, P3 B. The lock takes one of A's seats before anyone else is placed. #### After publishing The first example is published. P5 joins late and ranks A, B, C: every seat is held by someone already told, so P5 has no place yet, and nobody moves. Raise C to 2 seats and solve again: P5 gets C and nobody else changes. Start again from the first example, published. Raise C to 2 seats and lower A to 1. With moves off, Solve stops: "A has 2 fixed places and capacity 1". With moves allowed, it moves exactly one person: P3 goes to C, and you publish again to tell P3. #### Sessions people did not rank X and Y, one seat each, and three people who each rank only X. P1 gets X, P2 gets Y (a session P2 did not rank), and P3 has no place yet. ### Limits and what is not promised An account holds 3 events at a time, 300 people and 2 rounds in an event, with 60 sessions in a round. Solving, publishing, the fairness view, rosters and code slips are included on every account. The fairness view reports counts: how many people got each choice, how many were placed in a session they did not rank, and how many have no place. It does not grade your sessions or your locks. Sortround follows the rule above; it does not promise that every person gets what they wanted. Sortround is not affiliated with any event platform, school, conference or camp. --- # Questions about ranked-choice placement, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/faq/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > Answers about Sortround: how Solve decides, ties and the lottery number, locks, late joiners, rounds, codes and how long data is kept. ## Questions about Solve, codes and rounds Ties, locks, late joiners and your data, answered plainly. The rule itself, with worked examples, is on [how it works](https://sortround.com/how-it-works/). ### Frequently asked questions **How does Solve decide?** Sortround places as many people as it can in their first choice, then their second, inside room sizes and your locks, using the rule on the How it works page. Equal cases are settled by the event's lottery number. In order, it looks for the most people placed, then the fewest people moved from a place they were told, then the most first choices, then second choices and so on, then the fewest people in a session they did not rank. **Is it first come first served?** No. The time someone ranked does not change their chances: Solve looks at everyone at once, and if giving one person their second choice lets another keep their only choice, it does that. Early and late rankings count the same while choices are open. **What is the lottery number?** Each event gets a random number, shown as 8 characters on the Solve tab. It puts the people in one fixed order that is used only to settle equal cases: the person earlier in it is served first. The same rankings and the same number always give the same placements. New lottery picks a new number and changes nothing else. **Can I lock someone into a session?** Yes. On the Solve tab, place the person by hand and tick Lock. A locked place is kept by every solve and takes one of the session's seats before anyone else is placed. **What if a session is full of locked people?** Solve stops and says which session, for example "Robotics has 31 fixed places and capacity 30". Raise the capacity or remove a lock, then solve again. People you have published count as fixed too, unless you allow moves. **What happens to late joiners?** Add them, or let them join by the link in adult mode, and they rank like everyone else. Solve again: seats that are still free go to them by the same rule, and nobody already told is moved. If there is no free seat they show as No place yet, for you to place by hand. **Will people already told be moved?** Not by default: once you publish a round, a re-solve keeps every published place. If you tick Allow moves, Solve may move people already told, as few as it can, and lists them; you then publish again to tell them. Placing someone by hand never publishes it by itself. **What if someone ranks only one session?** The event sets how many choices people must rank, from 1 up to the number asked. If that one session is full, the person is placed in a session they did not rank when you leave that switched on, or listed as No place yet when you switch it off. The fairness view counts them as Unranked or No place. **Can the same workshop run in two rounds?** Yes, with more than one round. Give it the same title in each round. Rounds are solved in order, and nobody is placed in a workshop they already hold in an earlier round, so each person meets it once. **Do people taking part need an account or email?** No. They open the event link, enter the 8 character code from their slip (or, in adult mode with self-join on, join with their name and get a code shown once), and rank. They never sign in and are never emailed. After you publish, the same link and code show them their own place, and nobody else's. **How long is data kept?** An event, its sessions, names, rankings and placements are kept until 180 days after its last solve, or 180 days after it was made if it was never solved. Then it moves to Deleted with a notice on your events page, and is removed for good 7 days later unless you restore it. You can delete an event, or your whole account, at any time. **Can I import a roster?** Yes. On the People tab, paste one name a line, or CSV with a name and a group column. Each person gets a code, shown once, and you can download the code slips right away. Lost codes are replaced one at a time, or all at once with new slips. **What is a passkey?** A passkey is the organiser's sign in, made by a phone or computer instead of a password. The device keeps a private key behind a fingerprint, face or screen lock; the site keeps only the public half. You can add up to 10 passkeys, and a recovery code shown once at sign up adds a new one if you lose every device. **Is a code enough to see someone's place?** A code works only together with the event link it was made for. Codes are 8 characters, the server keeps only a scrambled form of them, and an address that tries 10 codes that do not match waits an hour. A person's page ends when they press Finished, closes with the browser, and ends after 30 minutes without use, so the next person on a shared device starts at the code box. In adult events, someone on their own phone can tick Keep me signed in on this device. **What does Busy right now mean?** The server could not answer just then, usually because a shared daily allowance ran out. Nothing was changed. On the people's page, a list waiting to send is kept in that browser tab where it can be, and sent when you try again. **Can I install it on my phone?** Yes. When your browser offers to install the site, an Install entry appears in the menu. On an iPhone or iPad, open the site in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. Pages you have opened work offline; Solve and saving need a connection. **Is Sortround part of a school or event platform?** Sortround is not affiliated with any event platform, school, conference or camp. --- # About ranked-choice session placement, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/about/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > What Sortround is: one link for ranked session choices, a placement rule you can read, and as little personal data as the job allows. ## About Sortround A small site that turns everyone's ranked choices into places, inside the room sizes you set, by a rule anyone can read. ### Why it exists Choice days, conference breakouts and camp activity blocks usually run on a form with first, second and third choices, followed by an evening of sorting a spreadsheet by hand. The sorting is slow, it is hard to explain afterwards, and late changes undo it. Sortround keeps the part people already know, ranking the sessions, and does the sorting the same way every time. ### How it works The organiser sets up the sessions with their room sizes and shares one link. Each person opens it, enters the code from their slip and puts the sessions in order. The organiser presses Solve: the placing runs in the organiser's browser, and the server checks the answer before saving it. The rule puts as many people as it can in their first choice, then their second, inside every room size and the organiser's locks, and settles equal cases with the event's lottery number. A fairness view shows how many got each choice. Publishing lets each person see their own place, and nobody else's. ### What it asks for As little as the job allows. An organiser signs in with a passkey and gives no name or email address to sign up; an email address is optional and used for one notice per event. People need no account and are never emailed. For children, the organiser enters a first name and an initial, or a nickname, and nothing else is asked. There is no advertising, no tracking script and nothing shared for marketing. ### Who it is for A teacher running an elective afternoon, a conference team filling breakout rooms, a camp director filling activity blocks: from about 30 to a few hundred people and a handful to a few dozen sessions. ### What it is not It is not a booking system, a timetable builder or a registration form. It does not grade anyone's choices and it does not promise everyone their first choice: it follows its rule and shows the counts. Sortround is not affiliated with any event platform, school, conference or camp. ### Install it On a phone it can sit on your home screen like an app. On an iPhone or iPad, open the Share menu in Safari and choose Add to Home Screen. On other browsers, use Install in the menu. ### Contact Questions and problem reports go to socialreminderinfo@gmail.com. A report that names the page and what you pressed is the quickest to fix. --- # Privacy: what is stored, where and for how long, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/privacy/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > Exactly what Sortround stores on its server, where it is kept, for how long, what stays in your browser, and how to delete all of it. ## Privacy: what is stored, where and for how long Exactly what Sortround stores on its server, where it is kept, for how long, what stays in your browser, and how to delete all of it. Last updated 28 October 2026 ### Where it is kept Labels, codes as hashes, rankings and placements are kept in one Cloudflare D1 database that belongs to this site, with the organisers' accounts, and the region is not pinned, so Cloudflare may keep it outside your country. Events are deleted 180 days after the last solve, or on request. The pages themselves are static files served by Cloudflare Pages. ### What is stored for an owner An owner is the organiser who signs in. - A random account id, the account name you chose for your passkey manager, and when the account was made. - For each passkey: its public key, its id, a signature counter, the name you gave it and when it was added and last used. Never a fingerprint, a face or any biometric data: those stay on your device. - A scrambled form (SHA-256) of your recovery code. The code itself is shown to you once and not kept. - For each signed in device: a scrambled form of its session id, and when it was made, last used and when it expires (90 days after the last use). - Your email address, only if you add one, used only for the one "Choices are closed" notice per event, and a scrambled form of the confirmation link. Nothing but the confirmation is sent before you confirm it. It is the one place an email address is ever stored. - Each event: its title, whether people are adults or children, its time zone, settings, closing time, lottery number and status; the event link as a scrambled form (SHA-256) plus a sealed copy that only this server can open with its own secret key, so you can see the link again; when the link was replaced, when choices were reopened, and how many codes that did not match were tried through it. - Each session: title, room, capacity, round and order. - Every saved solve: the round, the lottery number, a fingerprint of what was solved, and the counts it produced, kept with the event as its record. - Notices for you, and a record of each email sent, kept 30 days. ### What is stored for people taking part - The label the organiser typed (or, in adult mode with self-join on, the name the person typed) and an optional group such as a class or team. For children, the server accepts one word, or a first name and one initial: it refuses two full words, names run together such as "MayaRossi", and more than 2 Chinese or Korean characters. Group names for children are refused when they hold a word for a school, surname, address, postcode or birth date, also written with spacing, invisible characters or look-alike letters. No check can catch every way of writing a name, so organisers are asked to use a first name or initials. - The person's code, as a scrambled form (SHA-256) only. The code is shown to the organiser once (or to the person once, after self-join), and when it was last replaced. - Their ranking for each round, their place, whether it is locked, and what they were last told. - While they are signed in on a device: a scrambled form of their session id, ended when they press Finished, when the browser closes, or after 30 minutes without use; in adult events a person may tick Keep me signed in on this device, which keeps it 30 days after the last use. - No email address, no account and no date of birth. People taking part are never emailed. ### Limits on how fast requests come To stop guessing and flooding, the server counts requests per person, per event and per network address in hourly buckets. The address is stored only as a keyed scramble that cannot be turned back into the address, and each bucket is deleted after 2 hours. Network addresses are never written to logs. ### How long it is kept - An event and everything in it: until 180 days after its last solve, or 180 days after it was made if never solved. It then moves to Deleted with a notice to you, and is removed 7 days later unless you restore it. - A deleted event: 7 days, while it can be restored, then deleted for good. - A deleted account and everything in it: 7 days, while you can sign in and cancel, then deleted for good. - Owner sessions: until 90 days after the last visit on that device. People's sessions: 30 minutes after the last use, or 30 days with Keep me signed in. - Passkey sign in requests: 5 minutes. Rate limit buckets: 2 hours. Email records and notices: 30 days. ### What stays in your browser On the people's page, a ranking that has not been sent yet is kept in that browser tab (session storage, key beginning with `choiceplace`) until the server confirms it, then dropped; it is gone when the tab closes. The organiser pages keep nothing in storage but the last tab you opened. The secret part of the event link sits after the # sign, which browsers do not send to any server in the address. Codes shown after adding people live only in that page until you leave it. ### How to see and delete it On your account page, Download everything gives one file with all of it. Delete my account removes everything after the 7 days above; you can also delete single events and withdraw single people. Requests by email go to socialreminderinfo@gmail.com. ### Cookies Two cookies, neither for tracking. Organisers who sign in get a session cookie that keeps them signed in. A person who enters a code gets a cookie that lasts until the browser closes (or 30 days, in adult events, if they tick Keep me signed in on this device) and is sent only to this site's people's API. Neither can be read by page scripts or is sent to another site. ### Page counts Visits may be counted by Cloudflare's own page counter, which sets no cookie and records that a page was opened, never what you typed. There is no other analytics. ### Payments No paid plan is offered at present; if one is added, this page will describe it. ### Typefaces Headings are set in Space Grotesk, and the PDFs use Noto Sans, Noto Sans Arabic and Noto Sans Hebrew, all under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and served from this site. The licence is at [/fonts/OFL.txt](https://sortround.com/fonts/OFL.txt). ### Changes and contact If this policy changes in a way that affects what is stored, the change will appear on this page. Questions go to socialreminderinfo@gmail.com. --- # Terms of use for ranked-choice placement, Sortround URL: https://sortround.com/terms/ Last reviewed: 2026-10-28 > The terms that apply when you use Sortround: what the placements can be relied on for, your content, acceptable use and support. ## Terms of use The terms that apply when you use Sortround: what the placements can be relied on for, your content, acceptable use and support. Last updated 28 October 2026 ### What this is Sortround collects ranked choices for sessions through an event link and places people by the rule on the how it works page. Anyone with the link can open the code box until the organiser replaces the link; a person's choices and place need their own code too. The placements follow that rule and the counts are shown; they are not a promise that anyone gets a particular session, and the organiser decides what is published. ### Names used Passkeys, browsers, schools, conferences and camps are named descriptively. Sortround is not affiliated with any event platform, school, conference or camp. ### Payments No paid plan is offered at present; if one is added, this page will describe it. ### Your content You own what you put in an event. The organiser decides who gets the link and the codes, what is published, and may withdraw anyone. Organisers enter only what the job needs: for children, a first name and an initial or a nickname. You can download everything you own and delete your account at any time from the account page; the privacy page says exactly what is stored and for how long. ### Acceptable use Use events for your own group's sessions. Do not put anything unlawful, hateful or someone else's private details in a title or a name, do not try to guess links or codes, and do not send requests at a rate that degrades the site for other people. Content that breaks these terms may be removed. ### Warranty and liability The site is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind, and runs within free hosting limits that can make it busy for a while. To the extent the law allows, Sortround is not liable for any loss arising from its use, including a ranking that was not saved, a placement someone did not want, or a link that was shared further than intended. ### Contact Questions and problem reports go to socialreminderinfo@gmail.com.