Skip to content

Settings & automatic sending

Settings is how your workspace runs its pairings: the rhythm, the clock, the autopilot, and (when available) the AI matcher's standing instructions.

Pairing cadence

How often pairings run: every week, every other week, or every 4 weeks. For anything slower than weekly, also pick the week the cadence counts from — any date selects its whole week — and the page shows the result: "The next planned cycle is the week of Aug 24."

Cadence decides which weeks are "planned": the Next cycle link and the board's arrows step along it, and automatic sending fires only on planned weeks. The weeks in between stay reachable and can still be generated by hand as one-off cycles.

Individual people can run slower than the workspace — set it from their page on the roster, or they set it themselves from their personal email link. Nobody can run faster than the workspace.

Timezone

Workspace timezone sets the clock your workspace lives on: the times shown across the app (History's "last change", request timestamps) and the moment automatic sending fires. Type any IANA name — Europe/Berlin, America/New_York, Asia/Tokyo — or pick one from the suggestions. Leave it empty to use the server's default, shown next to the field.

Which calendar week a cycle belongs to stays on the server's clock, so changing your timezone never moves a week's identity — only when things are shown and sent.

Changing timezone with automatic sending on

If the switch would put this week's send moment in the past, Pourover skips the current week rather than firing a surprise send the moment you save — the same guard as enabling automatic sending mid-week.

Automatic sending

Tick Send pairings automatically, pick a day and an hour — in your workspace's timezone, shown next to the field — and save. From then on, each planned week is handled at that moment without you logging in:

  • If you haven't touched the week, Pourover generates it fresh with the standard matcher and emails the announcement to everyone eligible.
  • If you already generated or hand-edited the week, your groups are kept and sent exactly as you left them.
  • If you already finalized the week yourself, it's left alone entirely.
  • Either way you get a receipt by email after every send — including how many repeats, if any, were unavoidable — and a note instead if the roster couldn't pair (fewer than two eligible people).

Turning it on mid-week

If this week's send moment has already passed when you enable it, Pourover deliberately skips the current week — no surprise send fires the moment you save. The page always shows the next automatic send.

With automatic sending off, pairings only go out when you press Finalize and send on a week.

AI pairing

This section appears only when the server has AI pairing configured.

Instructions for the matcher is a free-text standing brief, e.g. "Mix departments, and pair new joiners with longer-tenured members." The week board's Generate with AI button asks Claude to arrange the groups following it — press it again for another take.

Worth knowing:

  • AI runs only when you press its button. Generate, Regenerate, and Reshuffle always use the standard matcher, so they stay predictable — and automatic sending never uses AI either.
  • Your roster stays private. The model only ever sees anonymous labels with each person's team and tenure — never names or email addresses.
  • Recent-pairing history is still respected, and if the AI is unavailable or proposes a poor arrangement, the standard matcher steps in automatically.
  • Odd numbers: a trio, or a week off. With an odd count the AI forms one group of three by default, like the standard matcher. Your instructions can change that — say no groups of three and one person sits out instead, listed on the week board under Not in a group. The flash names them: "Following your instructions, Ada sits out this week instead of forming a trio." You can also say how to choose that person (by team or tenure, for example); otherwise the AI gives the week off to whoever was paired most recently, so it is never the same person every time. With an even count nobody ever sits out.

What the AI can act on

Instructions can only refer to what the model is shown, so the useful vocabulary is:

  • Team — each person's department from the roster (people without one show as no department).
  • Tenure — how many weeks ago each person joined.
  • Last placed — how many weeks since each person was last in a finalized week, or never.
  • Recent pairings — who met whom, and how long ago.

Names and email addresses are never sent, so "put Ada with Grace" can't work — the model has no idea who Ada is. To pin a specific pair, generate first and then hand-edit the board.

Example instructions

Any of these work on their own or combined. Keep them short and concrete; the field holds up to 2,000 characters.

  • Mix departments, and pair new joiners with longer-tenured members.
  • No groups of three. If the count is odd, give the week off to whoever was paired most recently.
  • No groups of three. When someone has to sit out, pick from the people who joined longest ago — never anyone in their first two months.
  • Never put two people from the same team together unless there's no other option.
  • Pair everyone who joined in the last month with someone who has been here at least a year.
  • If there's a group of three, put the newest person in it so they meet two people at once.
  • Prefer matching Sales with Engineering. Support can stay within Support this month.
  • Rotate: anyone who was paired with the same team last time should meet a different team this week.

There is no need to ask it to avoid repeats — the recent-pairing rules always apply, before your instructions.