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Getting started

This walkthrough takes you from nothing to your first round of pairings. Fifteen minutes, most of it waiting for colleagues to click "yes".

1. Create an account

Go to app.pouroversocial.com and choose Create an account. You'll need:

  • Email — this becomes your login, and the Reply-To address on every pairing email you send.
  • Your name (optional) — shown to participants in invitations ("Jordan would like to include you in coffee pairings").
  • Password — at least 8 characters, entered twice.

Press Create account. Nothing is created until you confirm the address: Pourover emails you an activation link, and the account can't log in — and can't send anything to anyone — until you've clicked it.

No activation email?

Check spam first. If you try to log in before activating, Pourover re-sends the activation link automatically. If the address already had an account, you'll get a "You already have a Pourover account" email instead — just log in.

2. Activate and log in

Open the email titled "Activate your Pourover account", follow the link, and press Activate my account. Then log in with your email and password.

You land on This week — an empty pairing board, because there's nobody to pair yet.

3. Build your roster

Head to Roster in the navigation bar. You have two ways in:

  • Add one person — expand the inline form, type a name (email and team optional), press Add.
  • Add people in bulk — paste a whole list at once. It accepts what Outlook and Excel give you when you copy, shows a preview of exactly what will happen, and writes nothing until you confirm. This is the fast path — see Adding people in bulk.

Everyone you add with an email address immediately gets one invitation email and shows up as Invited on the roster. They join the pairings only once they accept, at which point they turn Active. People without an email stay visible on the roster but are never paired — there's no way to send them their match.

You don't have to wait for everyone

Pairings only ever include people who have accepted. Generate your first week as soon as two people are active; late acceptances simply join the next round.

4. Check your rhythm

The default cadence is every week. If your group would rather meet every other week or every four weeks, set that now in Settings — the invitation email tells people how often they'll be paired, so it's worth getting right before the bulk of invitations go out.

5. Run your first week

Open This week and press Generate pairings. Pourover builds groups of two (plus one trio if the count is odd), avoiding anyone who met recently — which for a first week means a clean random matching.

Look the board over. If you want a different arrangement, Reshuffle. If you want to hand-tune it, click any person to pick them up, then click another person to swap them — see The week board.

When it looks right, scroll to The email, adjust the wording if you like, and press Finalize and send the email. Every placed participant gets one individually addressed email naming their group, with a personal unsubscribe link in the footer. The week locks and becomes history.

That's the whole ritual. Next week, do it again — or turn on automatic sending and don't.

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